Tuesday, March 13, 2007

CLIVE BARKER SHORTS

MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN
Speaking of meat.... looks like they're going to adapt Clive Barker's short story "THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN" into a movie starring VINNIE JONES (Snatch & X3), Brooke Shields (yeesh) and Bradley Cooper. Its from his Books Of Blood series (of short stories) and its pretty fucked up. Basically, a down-and-out man, Kaufman, falls asleep on a New York subway train. He wakes up at a secret station beyond the end of the line and encounters a man who has killed and butchered several people and hung their bodies up on the train, and says he will be forced to kill Kaufman to guard his secrets. Soon after, the doors of the train open, and then the story gets weird and gory. I have no idea how they can flesh that story out into a 2hr movie.

THE YATTERING AND JACK
The Yattering & Jack is one of my favorite stories by Clive Barker. Many Barker fans disagree because its a dark comedy and not his usual dark, macabre gorefest (which I like, too). Anyway, the story is basically a small demon torments a writer named Jack, trying his all to drive Jack insane, but never exposing his presence. Bound by the powers of Hell to stay in Jack's house until it succeeds, the Yattering subjects him to increasingly severe torments.... but all fail. The Yattering is frustrated by his good cheer and apparent obliviousness and begins to become the Tormented one. It's fun, dark and demented!

Both of these stories are in Barker's BOOKS OF BLOOD VOL 1. Also included is "The Book of Blood" and "In The Hills, The Cities", which are pretty cool themselves; the visuals Barker gives you are like non other! Pick it up sometime! I always thought those stories should have been adapted into ANIMATED shorts. Super cool imaginative shorts by talented people. You know, something different!

2 comments:

gen71 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
gen71 said...

I read Books of Blood Vol.1 this summer and i loved it. The last year i read the Vol.2 and like me too.
Be great to see this stories shaped into a film!
Any idea of when i can see her?
Greetings!

Ernesto