Here is my spoiler-free review of Clive Barker’s latest
novel, “The Scarlet Gospels”. However,
please be advised I am going to spoil the shit out of the first two “Hellraiser”
films, which if you haven’t seen by now…well, shame on you!
Let me get this out of the way first: I ADORE Clive Barker’s
masterpiece of horror cinema, “Hellraiser” (1987) and its sequel, “Hellbound:
Hellraiser II” (1988), as well as his novella “The Hellbound Heart” which was
the basis for it all. In those works
Barker (and screenwriter Peter Atkins) established an amazingly rich, Lovecraftian
type of mythology that was light years ahead of any other piece of horror
fiction at the time. Unfortunately, as the
franchise continued on after the second film, they eschewed the mysteries of
the labyrinth or the history behind the “Order of the Gash” in favor of making
the character of the lead Cenobite, “Pinhead” (played brilliantly by actor Doug
Bradley) into the next Freddy Krueger instead.
And with each new sequel (there are currently 8 films in all), the
series got further and further away from everything I loved about the first two
films.
Flash forward to a few years back, where I was ecstatic to read
that Barker was working on what would be the definitive “Hellraiser” book, that
would not only explore the dimension the Cenobites exist in, but also delve
into the origins and ultimate demise of “Pinhead”. Finally, I thought, we were going to get what
I hoped would be a return to form that would erase all the nonsense and terrible
deviations from the original film that came after Barker left the film
franchise. This, for me, was going to be
the horror novel of the decade and as big an event as the return of “Star Wars”.
Naturally though, when one gets their hopes up that much,
there is no way for something to meet those expectations and sadly that’s what
happened with me and “The Scarlet Gospels”.
The plot is really (and tragically) very simple in that Pinhead sets
about murdering the world’s greatest magicians (and by “magicians” I don’t mean
the stage kind) and stealing their secrets as a way of empowering himself in
order for him to become powerful enough to overtake Lucifer and establish his
own rule over hell (and destroy all life on Earth and Heaven too, blah, blah,
blah). Enter another Barker literary creation,
detective Harry D’Amour (who some might remember as the lead character in
Barker’s film “Lord of Illusions”, played by Scott Bakula) who, along with a
group of magically gifted friends, enter into Hell in order to recover a close psychic
friend of his kidnapped by Pinhead. Does
Pinhead have diabolic plans for the psychic or is it all in an effort to lure D’Amour
into hell as part of some trap? For that
I’ll let you read the book to find out (just prepare to be underwhelmed).
I have so many problems with this novel that I really don’t
know where to begin. First off, I was
horrified to see that the “Hell” in this novel was not the extra dimensional
realm seen in the first two films, but rather the Christian concept of Hell,
complete with demons sporting tails and Lucifer himself. Now, Barker had written a novel in 2007
entitled, “Mister B. Gone” about a demon escaping the more traditional Hell and
venturing out into our world, circa the 1300’s.
Much of the descriptions of Hell in that novel seem to mirror those in “Scarlet
Gospels”. Perhpas Barker saw this novel
as a way of tying in several of his past works into one grand story? I don’t know what his reasons, but this is certainly
not the Hell I wanted to read about. One
of the things that I so loved about “Hellraiser” was the fact that not only was
“Hell” (aka “The Labyrinth “) something entirely original and wholly separate from
the conventional portraits of Hell, but there was also never any mention of Christianity
(other than the classic “Jesus Wept” line) in the sense that figures like Satan
or even Christ were not a part of the Cenobite’s dominion. But with “Scarlet Gospels”, all of that
mythos from the original movie is thrown out the window.
Then there’s the characterization of Pinhead in this, which is
such a huge digression from what Pinhead was initially created to be. In the early films, Pinhead was a secondary
character who was merely (and gleefully) following the order of things by apprehending
& torturing anyone who dared to open the puzzle box that secretly summoned
him. In fact, Pinhead wasn’t created to
be the villain in either of the first two films, as the human characters of
Frank & Julia in the original (and then Julia & Dr. Channard in the second
film) were the real antagonists. Pinhead
also had what I like to call his “Return of the Jedi” moment at the end of “Hellbound”,
where he, much like Darth Vader, is reminded of his humanity and dies in an
attempt to save the main character. But
that history is irrelevant to whomever this Pinhead is which sadly is more like
the “Freddy Krueger” wannabe Pinhead of part 3 than Barker’s own Pinhead. He’s so thinly written in this novel that he
comes off more like a megalomaniacal comic book villain wanting to destroy the
world and seems to exist solely to be the baddie for Harry D’Amour to
thwart. There’s no history to him. No real understanding why he suddenly decides
he wants to remove Lucifer from power.
Were just told he’s “evil” and that’s all we have to go on.
And that too is also why I couldn’t enjoy “Scarlet Gospels”
on its own as something apart from the other “Hellraiser” films, as there is no
characterization whatsoever. D’Amour and his friends feel like they’re just
superheroes going about business as usual.
Even the dialog between them comes off like some Saturday matinee serial
from the 40’s. There’s more depth in
Barker’s “Hellbound Heart” novella than there is in this. Going in, I wondered if this book could ever
be made into a movie (though at the time I was thinking it would be more “Hellraiser-ly”),
but in all actuality it reads like a script for a generic Hollywood horror film
and could easily be made into a movie…just not a very memorable one. Gone is the originality and pure imagination
that went into much of Barker’s earliest works and in its place is a Barker who
feels like he is on automatic pilot. Sadly,
it would appear that when it comes to Pinhead & “Hellraiser”, Barker no
longer has such sights to show us.
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