Clive Barker has been inspiring horrifying films for decades, with the latest adaptation of one of his stories, Hulu‘s Books of Blood, getting the above teaser ahead of its October 7th premiere. The new film is only one part of Hulu’s annual “Huluween” event, which not only features the debut of a number of thrilling movies and TV specials, but also highlights the Halloween-themed programming that is normally available on the service, collecting them all on one Huluween hub. Check out the first teaser for Clive Barker‘s Books of Blood above ahead of its premiere on the streaming service on October 7th.
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Written by Brannon Braga and Adam Simon (Salem) and based on a short story by Barker with contributing original material, Books of Blood takes a journey into uncharted and forbidden territory through three tales tangled in space and time. The film stars Andy McQueen (Fahrenheit 451), Freda Foh Shen (Ad Astra), Nicholas Campbell (Da Vinci’s Inquest), Anna Friel (Marcella), Britt Robertson (For the People), Rafi Gavron (A Star Is Born), and Yul Vazquez (Midnight, Texas).
Barker rose to prominence in the horror genre back in the ’80s, not only for his written works but also for directing Hellraiser, an adaptation of his own story The Hellbound Heart. With that decade largely being dominated by forgettable slashers, Barker’s film instead told a much more supernatural tale, featuring a woman sacrificing victims in hopes of reviving her former lover from the dead. Unfortunately, these murders caught the attention of demonic Cenobites, who then appeared on Earth to enact their torture. The Cenobite “Pinhead” has since become an icon of the horror genre.
Other Barker adaptations include The Midnight Meat Train and Nightbreed, but another seminal figure in the horror world has become Candyman, which was based on the short story “The Forbidden.” Later this year, a new take on the concept is set to land in theaters from director Nia DaCosta and producer Jordan Peele.
In the new film, “For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II; HBO’s Watchmen, Us) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris; If Beale Street Could Talk, The Photograph), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials. With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer (Colman Domingo; HBO’s Euphoria, Assassination Nation) exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifying wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.”
Stay tuned for details on Books of Blood before it hits Hulu on October 7th.
Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
