Books of Blood

 

6/10

In this anthology on Hulu based on the short story collection from Clive Barker, we get three horror stories es based around a book containing the tales of the dead. Didn't hate it, didn't love it.   

First off, if you were a fan of the original Books of Blood then be prepared to be disappointed. One of the tales is original and the others are based on the wraparounds in the first volume which had already been adapted into a film. So if you've been waiting for one of these tales to be adapted, you'll have to keep waiting. I wouldn't have minded more stories in this myself.

The Achilles heel here is the first story after the wraparound, about a college-aged woman (played by Britt Robertson) on the run from her own life who ends up renting a room from a couple that are almost too friendly. Half the short suffers from being being a little predictable in the set up. It's missing a certain "oomph." The other half of the content does get creative, and I wouldn't have predicted it. But, I found the big reveal in this to be a little too messed up for my tastes. Now if you like it when horror gets dark, dark, this'll be right up your alley. But if you like horror, but you have your limits then be forewarned. 

The wraparound, about two enforcers in search of the Book of Blood, and the other short, about a skeptical professor (Pushing Daisies' Anna Friel) investigating a man's claims that he can communicate with the dead, I rather liked. They are both nicely paced with well executed scares. The second story has a really striking ending, and Friel delivers the best performance in the film. I appreciate that this has a substantive wraparound, not a vague one like with VHS or no connections at all for the segments. More importantly, this movie has one of the strongest finales I've seen in an anthology. It's been bugging me lately how predictable these have become. (I mean you can only see the characters realize they're dead or that they've been talking to Death/the Devil only so many times.) 

I appreciate that director/screenwriter Brannon Braga and other writer Adam Simon had a clear vision and they do a very competent job with setting up and telling the story. The look of the whole thing is well done, too. However, as good as parts of this are, they weren't enough to negate how the first story left me a bit empty and was too disturbing. However, this feels like one of those movies that will be very subjective across the populace. I can see some getting a lot more out of this.