CLIVE BARKER

By Mike Watt

Eleventy-seven years ago, Stephen King wrote "I have seen the future of horror, and its name is Clive Barker". Today, Barker's work in fiction and film continues to set standards for the height of horror. Debate the success of the Hellraiser franchise all you like, but pick up any volume of his "Books of Blood", his chilling "Coldheart Canyon", or the upcoming and eagerly-anticipated "Abarat" and you'll see that the writer still packs a punch. With the fist encased in a glove lined with straight-razors.

What's more, the author and filmmaker strives to be constantly busy, which, as a result, keeps him constantly in demand. Over the next several months, horror fans will get an almost steady-diet of brand new Barker nightmares. First up is the cable premiere of Clive Barker Presents Saint Sinner, produced for the Sci-Fi Channel, directed by Joshua Butler, starring Greg Serano, Mary Mara and Rebecca Harrell. And that's just the beginning.

The very personable Barker took time out of his ridiculously busy schedule to talk to me about his upcoming year.

HIB: First off, Saint Sinner is not related to the Marvel Razorline comic book from the '90s, correct?

CLIVE BARKER: "Not at all. Not even vaguely related except that the title was cool, and I was always disappointed with the way that Marvel handled that entire line of comics, particularly "Saint Sinner". I thought that's a waste of a good title. It was something that called for finding a new life in some way or another. I had a deal over at Fox television for a while, and though nothing came of that deal in terms of actual programming, we had gotten to the point where they had said to [my company, Seraphim Films] was, 'We'd like to be in the business of making movies-of-the-week again'. It turns out they made none of them for anyone. But what it did was cause me to create six stories for that venue. One of them was Saint Sinner, and it existed in this twenty-five page treatment. When we came to talk to the Sci-Fi Channel, it turned out that they really did want to make movies. I said 'I've got this one that I think is really cool'. It found a life over there."

HIB: Involving a time-traveling monk and a pair of female demons. They're really the lynchpins of the story, actually.

CB: "It's a demon-driven show, no question. [laughs] The two dark angels, Nakir and Munar. [Harrell and Mara]. The names are not inventions. They're actually real angels on the dark side, according to my Bruster's Book of mythology. There is very little else in the way of detail about them. The medieval scholars and theologians loved invent angels and demons and enumerate them. This was like one of the medieval pastimes. I found these two names and they were always twinned - the idea that the two of them were always together was very interesting to me. And then making them both women was just, I thought, fun. So very, very seldom still do villains get to be villainesses. And I've had very good experiences, both in my books and on the screen with infernal women. "Infernal" in the sense of "from the inferno". I'm thinking of Julia in the first two Hellraiser movies. And so it seemed like a cool fun thing to do. And there's an extra energy that comes from having women playing these two roles. There's a kind of sexual energy that comes into it, a perverse energy that comes from seeing these two very attractive women made monsterous and doing monsterous deeds. All that's good fun stuff. Playing against type, really. I like to do that. If you can make people sit up and take notice by just not doing the ordinary, it's just fun."

HIB: Because you're known far and wide for being ordinary, right?

CB: "[laughs] No, I don't think that's a word that's often used. Part of the fun for me is that it allows the writer and the performers to have a fresh take on what they're doing. I'm reasonably sure that neither Mary nor Rebecca have ever asked to play parts like this in their lives before. And they bring to it the energy of actors who are having fun with something fresh. Ihere's a yin and yang of what they do. Two sides of a demonic coin, if you will. They're very fun together. I've watched everything that Josh has shot. I'm very, very satisfied. Very pleased, very excited. On every level. In terms of performances, in terms of the look of things, and in terms of what Patrick [Tatopalous] has provided for us in the way of effects. We are at a new level for this kind of material on television. I think there is something very wonderful going on."

HIB: Are you happy with Josh Butler's handling of your material?

CB: "Oh man, yeah! You know what kind of enthusiast Josh is. He's an expert in the genre, he whereof he comes. He said to me very clearly 'I want to make sure this is true to the Clive Barker tradition', if you will. It was very important to him right from the outset that this be a picture that did not disappoint the Clive Barker fans. There will be a host of new Josh Butler fans when it comes out. I think he's done something really special."

HIB: How does Saint Sinner fit in with your, if you'll pardon the word, 'canon' of stories?

CB: "It has things in common with other material I've done. The presence of demons, the metaphysical layer of the thing. The fun thing is there's always this - I don't want to say religious, but metaphysical angle to what I do. What interests me about this kind of material is how many layers it can have. You can be talking about good and evil, you can be talking about pretty heavy subjects and still entertain people. It's something Steve King's done brilliantly over the years - produced an entertainment that has layers to it, and I hope this does the same thing. Hellraiser is a movie you can look at two or three ways. Candyman is certainly a movie you can look at a number of ways. I'd like to feel that even Nightbreed [falls into that category], which I feel is the runt of the litter in the sense of not having ever taken the form that I wanted it to because of producer interference. Nevertheless that is something that is something you can take a number of ways. The gay community very much takes that movie unto itself and says 'this is a metaphor for being gay in our culture'. As a gay man I'm perfectly happy for that interpretation to hold. It's very interesting that these kinds of fictions whether it be horror or fantasy or anything where the imagination is in play is open to lots of interpretation and I find that very fun to play around with."

HIB: It's odd that you say that. Nightbreed has always been one of my favorite movies. I know other fans of yours that feel the same way.

CB: "Thank you. That's nice of you to say. What I know about the making of Nightbreed and the dramas and the betrayals and all the nonsenses that go along with making movies, with people who are not always as honest and straightforward as you'd like. To some extent, this all cast a shadow over the movie for me. That shadow doesn't exist for [the audience]. They're actually looking at the picture in a much more straightforward and honest way that I am able to. I do have - there is a history with that movie that makes it difficult for me to even go back and look at the movie. I do know that a lot of people come to signings and say 'that's my favorite movie of yours'. That's very nice. Why do I say it's the runt of the litter? Because there are so many frustrated possibilities there. When you have a vision of something and you get halfway down the line to making it possible and studio politics interfere, it's frustrating. One of these days, I'll buck up the courage and look at it again."

HIB: Have you thought of going back and putting together a 'Director's Cut' of the movie and putting it out on DVD?

CB: "Tried to by the most direct way possible, which is going to Fox and saying let me have the material which was removed from this movie and put it back in. Fox claims to not know where the material is. Which is a sticking point. And Morgan Creek, which was their partners in making the movie, and were in large measure responsible for the troubles the picture got into, because Joe Roth left the picture. Actually, he left Morgan Creek to go over to head up Fox and left me with his partner who didn't understand the movie at all. Didn't care to understand the movie at all. Was really irritated that the monsters were the good guys. He'd keep saying that and I would just clap my hands to my forehead in despair. Because if he didn't get that, then we were really screwed. Unless you have an advocate within the particular studio system who can really go around and dig around for you, you're really lost. I'm sure I won't be given the keys to Fox's vaults and [be told] 'go look for your missing twenty-five minutes'. It's sort of interesting that movies have their moments where suddenly they come back into focus again, and I hope this can happen for Nightbreed at some point - where somebody does say that to you. An advocate does appear. It doesn't have to be the head of the studio, just someone who comes in and takes a position of power at Fox and calls me and says 'hey, we'd like to see what we can do about putting this picture back together the way you intended'. That's not beyond the realms of possibility, but it ain't happened yet.

"It's a very complicated story about corporate visions coming up against personal visions. The kind of thing Terry Gilliam can tell. And while Terry has often won his battles - I've actually been pretty lucky. Hellraiser is pretty much as I wanted it to be. The Candyman movies are pretty much as I wanted them to be. There is a director's cut of Lord of Illusions that is exactly as I want it to be. Nightbreed is the one that sort of fell between the stalls and was not protected. It was also my second movie and I just didn't know how to fight. And I didn't have a six-hundred pound gorilla to fight for me. And I lost that one. If the material exists, somewhere, either with Morgan Creek or with Fox, and each one says that the other one has it, then the hopes remain that we will eventually stick this thing together."

HIB: It must be around, though. Everything exists somewhere.

CB: "That's a very nice metaphysical point of view, and I agree with that completely. The rotten thing about it is, unless you have someone right there within the system who is willing to be dogged about it, and really go after the material, you're lost. The last time I spoke to Fox, this is a true conversation - they said 'your reel is in the vaults'. And I said, 'where are your vaults?' And the girl actually said, 'I don't know'. That's worrying! Right there! They don't know where fucking vaults are, what chance do they have to find the material?

"And yet, looking at the other side, I've had a lot of good fortune. I've had wonderful people to work with and for. Even recently as Gods And Monsters> we've had things that I'm very proud of up on screen. And I think that we've got, this coming year, a bunch of other stuff coming down the pike. We've got Weaveworld coming up as a six-hour miniseries for Showtime, Russell Mulchaey is going to direct that. We have the series of Lord of Illusions that we're going to do with MGM. The pilot is being written by Rick Ramage - and it's so wild! So wild! It's amazing! It's great."

HIB: So Nightbreed didn't sour your relationship with Hollywood?

CB: "Not at all. I don't think of myself as being that stymied with Hollywood. It's just that when you do fail to get the vision on screen, it hurts. Particularly when as a painter and as a writer, I get to do exactly as I want and nobody fucks around with me. That's a big difference! When I turn in a book, sure my editor is there with notes and naturally a lot of time I will put those notes through, but nobody's ever saying to me 'you have to do this'. The same with the paintings. I have great creative freedoms there. So it feels more frustrating when you get to a medium that has so many possibilities and yet has so many cooks in the kitchen. Which is the curse, I think, of a lot of movies. If any other art form was created the same way movies were created, people would shake their heads and say 'that doesn't deserve the term 'art form'. If I was painting a painting and there were twelve people filling in little cards behind me telling me which colors I should using, we would question the validity of the resulting painting. But nobody thinks twice about the fact that a movie has to be tested until every preview card says that it's the best thing since Citizen Kane, and 'by the way I don't like this bit so take it out'.

"Todd and I have talked a lot about this. Todd and I did the Tortured Souls toys together, and later this year we're doing another set. Todd is just a man who went out and created his own world to work in, and I admire that. Usually it's something I try to do but it's very difficult with movies. You can do it just about any other place but movies are just so expensive and so corporate these days."

HIB: Gee, Clive, I'm glad you brought that up. Let's talk about the Tortured Souls toys.

CB: "[Laughing] Alright, lets!"

HIB: These are strange, disturbing characters, falling somewhere in between the Cenobites and the Nightbreed.

CB: "Yes, they are. Though, they're more Cenobitical than they are Nightbreedish. But they have their own mythology which I created in the form of these small narratives that were attached to the figures. So with that first set of six, you not only got the figure but you also got, I don't know, maybe two thousand words of Clive Barker fiction to go with it. And we sold those things out around the world in three weeks. They were gone. It has always been Todd's feeling that when you sell out on an edition, you don't revisit it. Now, I've never been in that situation before, but he understands the marketing of those things so well - I think it's no exaggeration to say that he's the world expert on that stuff, man. The toys looked incredible! And the next six are going to be even more intense. One of them was so intense it actually had to be covered by a cloth at Toyfare. Somebody complained about them, because of the intensity! Part of the fun of that of course, is that I'm throwing an idea out at Todd, who has one of the wilder imaginations in the world, and he's throwing them back at me and between the two of us, you're getting something that's pretty intense. And I like that. It's the fun of movies and toys and in the old days comics too, was that you would actually get to work with other people too. As a writer and a painter, I'm a solitary individual. But it's definitely part of the plus side of movies. Toying with the creation, you get to work with a bunch of other people. I enjoy that."

HIB: The figures and the stories inspired an upcoming film, didn't they? He asked, knowingly.

CB: "That's happening over at Universal and we're putting together our final list of writers right now. We're also doing Ecto-Kid, which was another of those comics from the Razorline series. We're doing that over at Nicolodeon with Don Murphy, who did From Hell recently and [is doing] League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He's just about to produce that. Don and I are going to produce Ecto-Kid. That's going to be fun. I have probably got my fingers in more pies than I ever have in my life. We have "Abarat", the first of my quartet for children and fantasists of all ages, which comes out in October with a hundred-and-ten oil paintings that I did. We're doing an exhibition in L.A. which will run concurrently in October when the book comes out. That will be fun. That's a whole other world. More toys coming out from Todd's company right around the same time. And just around the beginning of October we have Saint Sinner coming out. There's a lot of stuff going on."

HIB: Gosh, is that all? Getting lazy these days?

CB: "[Laughing] I suppose. The fun thing is, each of the things is very different. And the working processes to create those things are very different. So I find myself in a given week having both the solitary pleasures of going to my studio and painting or, as this afternoon, sitting and writing "Abarat II". But then I also have in a given week sitting down with writers who are taking my ideas and running with them in their own directions. And in the case of Josh, directors who are also doing the same thing. Or going over Patrick's studio and finding that an idea that I threw out to Patrick has become this fantastic piece of design. It's very rewarding to be able to work with people who are as talented as these folks are. I think the town tends to be a bit too combatative for it's own good sometimes. There isn't enough attention paid to how collaborative all these processes really are. We are so caught up with the auteur theory, if you will, that we don't own up to the fact that movies are made by a lot of people, doing a lot of very different things. And hopefully all pulling in the same direction when they're doing it."

Visit Clive on the web at www.clivebarker.com