Lost Souls: Interview: RIDING THE WAVES WITH CLIVE BARKER

RIDING THE WAVES WITH CLIVE BARKER
by Carnell / page 4

Carnell Someone once said to me "Serialization leads to trivialization. "Why do you yourself think that horror films are so prone to this and why, if you are at all protective of your work, did you allow "Hellraiser" to become a franchise?

Clive Barker I'll answer them in the reverse order. The answer is, contractually, you never have any choice. What you're doing essentially, when you're asking somebody to make a movie, is they're going to spend a million dollars, if it was the first "Hellraiser", eleven million if is the first "Candyman" movie, to make your idea a reality onscreen. That's a major investment. They're not going to enter that investment unless they know what if they make profit from the first one, they can go and make profit from the second one. There isn't an author or a film maker in the world who could sign a contract without having a sequel and remake paragraph somewhere in there.

Carnell Did you think that since it's a foregone conclusion, the best you can hope for is damage control?

Clive Barker Yeah. Absolutely. I've said that countless times at Fango conventions. Most recently at the one in L.A., with Doug right there in front of me. You know, Doug paid off his mortgage on Pinhead. I would love it if these movies would stop being made. Given that they are being made, and they are being made by other people and written by other people, I will continue to keep my finger in the mix if only to say "You know what? Don't do that.: [laughs] Sometimes I will succeed and sometimes I won't. That said, "Bride of Frankenstein" is a better movie than "Frankenstein"; "House of Frankenstein" is not a bad movie. There are a couple of entries into the Frankenstein and Dracula series from Hammer in the early sixties which are not bad pictures. "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is a very fine picture. It doesn't have to happen. I actually like elements of "Hellraiser 3" quite a bit. I mean, it's not my favorite movie, but I think it's got some cool things in it. I think there will be elements of "Hellraiser 4" which I'll like. I liked "Candyman 2" an awful lot more than the critics did. I mean, I think there were problems with it, but I think there's a problem with bringing out a man with a hook hand. The problem frankly is exposure to the monster which is a real drag. One of the reasons why, in "Lord of Illusions" if we make another movie about Harry D'Amour, it'll be based around the hero. It won't have to warm over a monster who has basically scared the fuck out of us once and can never scare us quite so much again.

Carnell Because you've shown him...

Clive Barker And you know who he is and you know what his voice is and you know what his modus operandi is. How scary could that be?

Carnell I think that, in the case of "Hellraiser", now that we know what Pinhead is and what he looks like, now the fear comes in not knowing when he is going to turn up next.

Clive Barker He is a limited source of fear. By comparison, with the first thrill that you have when you first see him in the first movie, or the first thrill when you see the Alien in the first picture.
It is a situation this far down the road that you feel that you can be happy? If "Hellraiser 5" is made, is it now no longer you looking at a film and then saying "this is really good" or is it "well, this moment is really cool".
I think it's more of the latter and that is a function of just the audience's exposure to those images. They've seen them so many times, how scary can it be? How original can it be?

Carnell I needed a blurb on it and the only thing they kept referring to it as was "Pinhead in Space".

Clive Barker Well, that's kind of cool. There's some very cool things in the movie, there's no two ways about that. The issue is whether it will all hold together. There's a Cenobite dog which is very cool and there is some very sexy stuff. I'm not knocking the picture. There's some really cool stuff in it. You just don't know until you see what you see. If I was directing the movie, I could give you a better assessment of how it is, but because I'm not, because I'm sitting here writing a novel and watching other people working on it, very talented people, but nevertheless, people I don't have daily contact with, it's really difficult to have a sense of how it's going to play out.

Carnell Did you have any input in the design of Angelique in "Hellraiser 4"?

Clive Barker No. It's Kevin Yager and the special effects guys. I'm out of all that stuff. I was making "Lord of Illusions" at the time and that was a more demanding thing. "Candyman" was being made in one part of the city and "Hellraiser 4" in another part, and "Lord of Illusions" in a third part. I was directing and co-producing "Lord of Illusions", so that was my baby.

Carnell Is Lord of Illusions getting to the screen, more or less, as you wished it would, or have there been concessions?

Clive Barker It is, it is. There's twenty-five seconds that the M.P.A.A. took away from us, but, you know, that's not a huge amount.

Carnell Are you serious?

Clive Barker Yeah.

Carnell Just twenty-five seconds.

Clive Barker That's not bad at all. It's a very brutal movie.

Carnell You once said something to me about your feelings on the M.P.A.A. Has that relationship become better?

Clive Barker I think, this time around, it was better and I don't quite know why. I don't know what the consequences of the Bob Dole nonsense will be, to be perfectly honest.

Carnell The whole thing is really scary.

Clive Barker I fear, honestly, that we will see some knee-jerk response from the M.P.A.A. on that.

Carnell But, you just got your rating and you're going to take it and run. [laughs]

Clive Barker Well, we got our rating, but I care about the next movie. I'm not worried about this picture at all. It delivers to people, which is the main responsibility.

Carnell Finally, you did some acting in "Sleepwalkers." Based on your theater background, is that something you have any desire to do again?

Clive Barker None whatsoever. What a great thrill. I get to go on set, I have two lines, I get to say something to Steve King. What fun! But no, there are people who do this professionally and well, [laughs] I'm a guy who directs movies and writes books and paints pictures. That's what I do. It's much more important to me to get those processes right. The acting thing is fun, but that was about the limit of my contribution for the great art.

Carnell One last thing occurs to me, David Cronenberg was in "Nightbreed." Was directing him a difficult thing to do?

Clive Barker David was a complete joy and very, very good about it. He promised he would never raise an eyebrow when I decided where the camera should go. He was true to that all the way through. He was wonderful. He's one of the great talents. For me, it's one of the great losses to the genre [since he is not making horror films] right now. God, it would be wonderful to have a Cronenberg horror movie to look forward to.

Carnell Man, just the thought...Will you be releasing any further books of your drawings and paintings?

Clive Barker Absolutely. We are also publishing the plays. We are publishing three of the plays in December from Harper Prism in a collection called "Incarnations." I am hoping that we'll get more of this stuff to more people. That is definitely an ambition.

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Carnell	Someone once said to me "Serialization leads to trivialization. "Why do you yourself think that horror films are so prone to this and why, if you are at all protective of your work, did you allow "Hellraiser" to become a franchise?
Clive Barker	I'll answer them in the reverse order. The answer is, contractually, you never have any choice. What you're doing essentially, when you're asking somebody to make a movie, is they're going to spend a million dollars, if it was the first "Hellraiser", eleven million if is the first "Candyman" movie, to make your idea a reality onscreen. That's a major investment. They're not going to enter that investment unless they know what if they make profit from the first one, they can go and make profit from the second one. There isn't an author or a film maker in the world who could sign a contract without having a sequel and remake paragraph somewhere in there.
Carnell	Did you think that since it's a foregone conclusion, the best you can hope for is damage control?
Clive Barker	Yeah. Absolutely. I've said that countless times at Fango conventions. Most recently at the one in L.A., with Doug right there in front of me. You know, Doug paid off his mortgage on Pinhead. I would love it if these movies would stop being made. Given that they are being made, and they are being made by other people and written by other people, I will continue to keep my finger in the mix if only to say "You know what? Don't do that.: [laughs] Sometimes I will succeed and sometimes I won't. That said, "Bride of Frankenstein" is a better movie than "Frankenstein"; "House of Frankenstein" is not a bad movie. There are a couple of entries into the Frankenstein and Dracula series from Hammer in the early sixties which are not bad pictures. "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is a very fine picture. It doesn't have to happen. I actually like elements of "Hellraiser 3" quite a bit. I mean, it's not my favorite movie, but I think it's got some cool things in it. I think there will be elements of "Hellraiser 4" which I'll like. I liked "Candyman 2" an awful lot more than the critics did. I mean, I think there were problems with it, but I think there's a problem with bringing out a man with a hook hand. The problem frankly is exposure to the monster which is a real drag. One of the reasons why, in "Lord of Illusions" if we make another movie about Harry D'Amour, it'll be based around the hero. It won't have to warm over a monster who has basically scared the fuck out of us once and can never scare us quite so much again.
Carnell	Because you've shown him...
Clive Barker	And you know who he is and you know what his voice is and you know what his modus operandi is. How scary could that be?
Carnell	I think that, in the case of "Hellraiser", now that we know what Pinhead is and what he looks like, now the fear comes in not knowing when he is going to turn up next.
Clive Barker	He is a limited source of fear. By comparison, with the first thrill that you have when you first see him in the first movie, or the first thrill when you see the Alien in the first picture. It is a situation this far down the road that you feel that you can be happy? If "Hellraiser 5" is made, is it now no longer you looking at a film and then saying "this is really good" or is it "well, this moment is really cool". I think it's more of the latter and that is a function of just the audience's exposure to those images. They've seen them so many times, how scary can it be? How original can it be?
Carnell	I needed a blurb on it and the only thing they kept referring to it as was "Pinhead in Space".
Clive Barker	Well, that's kind of cool. There's some very cool things in the movie, there's no two ways about that. The issue is whether it will all hold together. There's a Cenobite dog which is very cool and there is some very sexy stuff. I'm not knocking the picture. There's some really cool stuff in it. You just don't know until you see what you see. If I was directing the movie, I could give you a better assessment of how it is, but because I'm not, because I'm sitting here writing a novel and watching other people working on it, very talented people, but nevertheless, people I don't have daily contact with, it's really difficult to have a sense of how it's going to play out.
Carnell	Did you have any input in the design of Angelique in "Hellraiser 4"?
Clive Barker	No. It's Kevin Yager and the special effects guys. I'm out of all that stuff. I was making "Lord of Illusions" at the time and that was a more demanding thing. "Candyman" was being made in one part of the city and "Hellraiser 4" in another part, and "Lord of Illusions" in a third part. I was directing and co-producing "Lord of Illusions", so that was my baby.
Carnell	Is Lord of Illusions getting to the screen, more or less, as you wished it would, or have there been concessions?
Clive Barker	It is, it is. There's twenty-five seconds that the M.P.A.A. took away from us, but, you know, that's not a huge amount.
Carnell	Are you serious?
Clive Barker	Yeah.
Carnell	Just twenty-five seconds.
Clive Barker	That's not bad at all. It's a very brutal movie.
Carnell	You once said something to me about your feelings on the M.P.A.A. Has that relationship become better?
Clive Barker	I think, this time around, it was better and I don't quite know why. I don't know what the consequences of the Bob Dole nonsense will be, to be perfectly honest.
Carnell	The whole thing is really scary.
Clive Barker	I fear, honestly, that we will see some knee-jerk response from the M.P.A.A. on that.
Carnell	But, you just got your rating and you're going to take it and run. [laughs]
Clive Barker	Well, we got our rating, but I care about the next movie. I'm not worried about this picture at all. It delivers to people, which is the main responsibility.
Carnell	Finally, you did some acting in "Sleepwalkers." Based on your theater background, is that something you have any desire to do again?
Clive Barker	None whatsoever. What a great thrill. I get to go on set, I have two lines, I get to say something to Steve King. What fun! But no, there are people who do this professionally and well, [laughs] I'm a guy who directs movies and writes books and paints pictures. That's what I do. It's much more important to me to get those processes right. The acting thing is fun, but that was about the limit of my contribution for the great art.
Carnell	One last thing occurs to me, David Cronenberg was in "Nightbreed." Was directing him a difficult thing to do?
Clive Barker	David was a complete joy and very, very good about it. He promised he would never raise an eyebrow when I decided where the camera should go. He was true to that all the way through. He was wonderful. He's one of the great talents. For me, it's one of the great losses to the genre [since he is not making horror films] right now. God, it would be wonderful to have a Cronenberg horror movie to look forward to.
Carnell	Man, just the thought...Will you be releasing any further books of your drawings and paintings?
Clive Barker	Absolutely. We are also publishing the plays. We are publishing three of the plays in December from Harper Prism in a collection called "Incarnations." I am hoping that we'll get more of this stuff to more people. That is definitely an ambition.