Posted in: Hulu, Movies | Tagged: anna friel, Body Horror, books of blood, brannon braga, britt robertson, clive barker, horror movies, hulu, movies, Seth McFarlane, streaming, tv
Clive Barker's Books of Blood Movie to Premiere on Hulu in October
Clive Barker's Books of Blood are an essential collection of stories in the canon of horror fiction from the 1980s. Now a new movie adaptation will debut on Hulu on October 7th.
The Books of Blood were originally published in 1984 and 1985. It came in six paperback volumes totaling about 30 stories. They were part of the new wave of horror that dominated fiction and movies in the 1980s, at the time called "Splatterpunk", though that gimmicky name has long since fallen by the wayside. They were written in the era of AIDS and fear of sex, and themes of gender, body horror and sexual anxiety drove much of the horror fiction at the time. They were also amongst the few horror stories to deal with homosexuality and subtexts of sex work and BDSM. Several stories were considered seminal and adapted into movies: "Rawhead Rex", "The Midnight Meat Train", "Dread", "The Forbidden" became the Candyman movie franchise, to name a few. John Harrison, who made the SyFy TV adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune novels, made a Books of Blood anthology movie for theatrical release back in 2009.
The Hulu project was originally planned to be an anthology TV series but had since been changed to a single anthology movie. The cast includes Britt Robertson (For the People), Rafi Gavron (Godfather of Harlem), Anna Friel (Marcella), Yul Vazquez (The Outsider) and Freda Foh Shen (Elementary).
Books of Blood is directed by Brannon Braga (The Orville) who executive produces with Seth MacFarlane, Erica Huggins, Alana Kleiman, Brian Witten, Jeff Kwatinetz, Josh Barry, Clive Barker and Adam Simon. The movie is co-executive produced by Mark Miller and produced by Jason Clark and Joe Micucci.
As the moment, there is no information about whether the same framing device will be used for the movie or which stories will be adapted.