Review Tuesday: Books of Blood, Vol. 4-6 by Clive Barker [January 1, 1991]

 

Books of Blood, Vol. 5

"In The Flesh"

by Clive Barker

[January 1, 1985] 

A collection of horror short stories by Clive Barker.

Volume five? What happened to the rest of the series? Well, I had watched the CANDYMAN films and saw that they were originally based on the short story THE FORBIDDEN, so I went straight to this tome.I hope to get to the rest of the series... some day....

The table of contents:

• "The Forbidden"
• "The Madonna"
• "Babel's Children"
• "In the Flesh"
  

The stories were all very original and clever. Some seemed very Lovecraftian in nature, so that was a surprise, a pleasant one at that! However, the main reason why I got started was for THE FORBIDDEN. 

Indeed THE FORBIDDEN is clearly the inspiration for the movie CANDYMAN with several passages pulled directly from the pages and placed directly into the script. It's far from the same story, apparently taking place somewhere in the UK, and it wasn't some woman trying to write a book on urban myths. Clearly, our protagonist had NO CLUE what she was getting into, but the major elements are clearly there. 

This book was really a lot of fun to read. Some good solid horror and it's even better when you are able to pick out the lines that made it into film. 

Pick up a copy on AMAZON