Really Surprised!

I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Wyburd (Clive Russell), a sociopathic goon who procures victims for a particularly macabre "collector", has just selected Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong), a handsome but sickly looking young man he spots in a diner. He escorts the young man away, to a secluded cabin where he prepares to flay this unfortunate soul. First, however, he is curious enough to know his captives' story, especially when he sees that so much of his skin is covered with bloody marks and printing. In his recent past, Simon had been helping author / professor Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward) conduct some research, by investigating a "haunted" house where a horrible, mysterious murder had taken place.There's enough here that is by now overly familiar (including the fact that Simon was a haunted individual with the power of second sight, a la 'The Dead Zone') to prevent "Book of Blood" from being anything special or great. But that doesn't mean that it isn't compelling, in a very sad and sordid way. Director / co-screenwriter John Harrison, who adapted the Clive Barker stories 'The Book of Blood' and 'On Jerusalem Street', does manage a fairly good balancing act here, combining mood, atmosphere, pathos, gore, sex, and nudity into a reasonably effective whole. Admittedly, the whole idea of the human body turned into a journal of sorts for those that have passed on is a good hook. The deliberately drab look adds to the overall sense of doom and gloom, and the ending IS one that could stick with some viewers. Some interesting visuals are created throughout.The four leads (also including Paul Blair as Mary's associate Reg Fuller) do capable work. Studly Armstrong is remarkably sincere, and for those who are interested, he gets nude but stops shy of doing full frontal. The lovely Ward is quite easy to watch. Be sure to watch for the cameos by Simon Bamford ("Hellraiser" 1 and 2) and Doug "Pinhead" Bradley.Good bloody fun for 101 straight minutes.Seven out of 10.

CLIVE BARKER'S BOOK OF BLOOD is an adaptation of his work that comes across as a traditional haunted house flick, albeit with a few Clive Barker-style flourishes. The main characters are a trio of paranormal experts who become interested in the history of a creepy old building that may just be the gateway to hell, so naturally they decide to live there while they carry out their investigation.What follows is a traditional spook-fest that tends to move quite slowly and doesn't really offer up much we haven't seen before. We're in definite Barker territory here, with some face-tearing gore, bodily mutilation, a Doug Bradley cameo, and an ancient arcane book of lore, but there's a general seen-it-all-before sense to the proceedings that means you'll need to be in a forgiving mood to really enjoy it. Me, I wanted something more than a typical haunted house/evil CGI ghost movie, and I didn't get it. Jonas Armstrong's poor acting is more of a hindrance than a help, although Sophie Ward gives a neat performance as the protagonist.

I just finished watching this and found myself thoroughly impressed with the acting, story and pacing. Usually Clive Barker flicks are too concerned with blood and guts gore, which this one also has some scenes...but this movie was more supernatural and ghostly or creepy than gory. The creature designs were creepy, not over the top with nonsensical decorations or pins. The acting and direction was pretty realistic, in regards to reactions, actions, and details of what people would do in such situations. I enjoyed the detail of the characters actions in each situation. As with any movie, you can pick it apart if you so desire, but this one has enough attention to detail to cover its tracks for a movie. I gave it a 9 out of 10 because it was an unexpected treat for me, a fan of ghost stories. The production value was good too considering it was not a major Hollywood flick. Cinematography was good with nice dramatic lighting and great wide shots of scenery. I did not give it a ten because it started out a bit goofy with the forced narration at the beginning... I suppose trying to show the mechanism of the ghost visitations would be a bit challenging and time consuming so they took the easy way out via narration.I recommend it for fans of ghost stories. It is a well paced film, not too fast, not too slow. Although at one time, I got a bit tired of the imagination vs. reality effect.

I am a huge Clive Barker fan, but this is a weak adaptation. It is hard to stretch a very short story into a full-length film. Still, this script could have maintained the intelligence of the story better and the direction could have communicated Barker's distressing world view better. I have three main gripes. First, the story's focus: the film turns the original story's dysfunctional mentor relationship between the older female researcher and the younger male medium into a full blown, treacly love story. Ugh! Second, the tone: many scenes feature little more than furtive glances, longing looks, or sudden, eruptive declarations of love/hatred, which makes the movie too often feel more like a telenovela or an episode of Red Shoe Diaries than a horror film.Third, the film's vision of the supernatural: in the short story, the "ghosts" gleefully wreak havoc on the living. In the film, they just want to be heard. As if this diminished characterization of the avenging spirits weren't cloying enough, the film features a very long parade of see-through CGI phantoms, all of whom look like they just marched over from Disney's Haunted Mansion: "Run to the light, Carol Anne. Mommy is in the light!" Despite my complaints, the film has flashes of true Barker-- the young girl being flayed as her parents helplessly watch, the creepy séance scenes (hey- wasn't that Pinhead?), and the film's framing story (where Jonas Armstrong gets the chance to show that he can indeed act). Also, the film makes great use of Edinburgh locations to create an unrelentingly bleak Barkeresque atmosphere. It also makes great use of Jonas Armstrong's sumptuous, lacerated, naked body to generate the kind of exquisitely wrong homoeroticism that is pure Barker.