When the story does pick up, however, be prepared for some amazingly gruesome sequences that will remind you why Barker’s work is so successful.Ĩ. While it maintains the somber tone and overall plot of the story it’s based on, the movie is bogged down by uninteresting characters and an uneven structure. Inspired by the two-parter tale that frames Barker’s original collection of short stories, John Harrison’s Book of Blood isn’t necessarily a bad movie, it’s just not the most entertaining one on this list. While it’s an entertaining romp on its own, it’s obvious that Rawhead Rex completely misses the point of its originally disturbing story. George Pavlou managed to turn that story into a schlocky gore-fest of a film, complete with a heavy-metal-inspired demeanor for the titular creature. Barker’s original story was a somber tale of an ancient phallic-looking evil being unearthed and giving the contemporary British countryside a taste of Old-Testament wrath.

While I still have lots of fun with this trashy monster movie, it’s quite clear that this is the worst of all the Clive Barker adaptations. That being said, I’ll be excluding films he wrote specifically for the big screen, and mainstream television adaptations as well. Hell, some of them are even directed by the infamous author himself, and he fares better than King in his attempts at mastering celluloid. That’s why I’ve decided to rank all of the cinematic adaptations of Barker’s writing! I actually enjoy every single one of these movies, but it’s quite clear that some are vastly superior to others. He’s also one of my favorite authors, consistently producing hauntingly creative tales that both frighten and entertain.Īlthough he rose to fame with the release of his short story collection “ Books of Blood” (which is also the wonderful source of most of these adaptations), Barker has helped shape the face of horror with his terrifying work in film, television, painting and even videogames! So, with all this talk about cinematic universes, why not take a look back at some of the horror genre’s best (loosely) interconnected stories?

For the longest time, he was the only storyteller to ever manage to rival Stephen King as the so-called “master of horror”, though they’re both good friends in real life.

Clive Barker should be a household name to anyone even remotely familiar with the horror genre.

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