Review of Books of Blood (2020), Inspired by the Dark Imagination of Clive Barker

Hulu's Books of Blood is three loosely connected stories based on Clive Barker's anthology. The wraparound works. The segments are uneven. If you're a Barker completist, you'll watch it anyway. If you're not, this probably isn't the film that'll convert you.

The main thread follows Jenna, a young woman with mental health issues who ends up at a bed-and-breakfast run by a couple who seem too friendly. The film keeps you guessing whether what she's experiencing is real or a breakdown. This ambiguity is the best thing about it. Horror works better when you can't trust the protagonist's perception, and the movie commits to that uncertainty longer than I expected.

I appreciate that the film doesn't rely on jump scares. The dread comes from small details: a door that shouldn't be open, a conversation that trails off wrong, the hosts' smiles lasting a beat too long. It's closer to slow-burn horror than the slasher stuff Barker adaptations sometimes become.

But here's the problem: the other segments don't hold up as well. One feels rushed, another feels like it belongs in a different movie entirely. Anthology horror lives or dies by its weakest story, and Books of Blood has some weak stories. The connective tissue between them is thinner than it should be.

What does work is the atmosphere. The film looks good. It sounds creepy. The performances in the main storyline are committed enough to sell the premise. When Books of Blood is working, it captures something essential about Barker's writing: the sense that ordinary places can become nightmares, that evil doesn't announce itself.

The original Books of Blood stories are some of my favorite horror fiction. They're visceral but thoughtful, grotesque but human. This adaptation captures maybe half of that. The half it gets right is worth watching. The half it misses makes you wish they'd just done a straight adaptation of one story instead of trying to stitch three together.

If you liked the 2022 Hellraiser remake, this shares some DNA: slick production, genuine respect for Barker's ideas, but missing some of the raw weirdness that made the source material stick. Worth a watch on a rainy night if you've already burned through the obvious horror options.