Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror by Stephen Jones

It is, however, a problem to push these elements as far as I would like. “As a gay writer/filmmaker, I think it’s inevitable that some of my characters and situations echo my orientation. While he never made any effort to conceal the fact, he did talk openly about his sexual orientation in 1995 interviews in the magazines “OUT,” “The Advocate,” “Genre,” and “10 Percent.” Many Barker fans had already guessed this from some of the themes that reoccur in his work. There is no recourse to other contributors. When I write a novel I am essentially on my own with a pen, a lot of paper, and my ideas - for anything up to 18 months. When making the movie, you are surrounded by other creators, other imaginations all of whom are there to collaborate with you in the process. “It’s much harder to write a book, at least for me. does barker prefer to write books or make movies? While Barker doesn’t generally say which he likes better, he has said: Barker has done everything from major motion pictures for Universal to creating a line of superhero comics for Marvel called Razorline. Today, Barker’s Seraphim Films is involved in CD-ROMs, live theater and art, as well as film and television production. The result was an adaptation of his story The Hellbound Heart - a film called Hellraiser. He was highly dissatisfied with both of them, and decided to direct something himself. Moderately successful in Great Britain, the Books found wide critical acclaim in the United States, and now appear in over a dozen languages.īy 1987, two of Barker’s stories had been adapted into movies - Rawhead Rex and Underworld. However, the first publisher he showed it to asked for more, and his stories were published in three volumes in 1984, under the title, The Books of Blood. In his spare time, Barker wrote short horror fiction, not expecting to be able to sell it.

Many of his plays have been collected in two books, Incarnations and Forms of Heaven.

These plays often delved into the erotic, the fantastical, and the horrific, themes that he would later become known for in his literary work.

He started out writing and directing plays for a fringe theater company he formed in London, producing works such as “Frankenstein in Love,” “The History of the Devil,” and “Colossus,” a play about his favorite painter, Goya. He first realized he could scare people with his words telling stories around a campfire with fellow Boy Scouts when he was ten years old. “I have seen the future of horror and its name is Clive Barker.”Ĭlive Barker, writer, producer, novelist, director, and playwright, was born by Cesarean section at 1:00 am on October 5, 1952, near Penny Lane, Liverpool.

Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror by Stephen Jones