You know you’re in trouble when a Hellraiser sequel opens like a bad knockoff of Seven, continues like a community college production of Jacob’s Ladder, and ends with you wondering why Pinhead is dressed like he just woke up from a coma. Welcome to Hellraiser: Inferno — the fifth entry in a franchise that once gave us exquisite suffering and now delivers exhausting confusion. Clive Barker didn’t write this one — though his name’s still stapled onto the branding like a rusted nail in a face — and you can practically hear him sighing in another dimension.
This 2000 straight-to-video stinker was directed by Scott Derrickson, who would go on to direct Doctor Strange, proving that everyone has to start somewhere — even if that “somewhere” is a Cenobite-laced turd wrapped in existential dread and mediocre voiceovers.
Let’s get into it. But bring aspirin.
If Books of Blood were a sandwich, it would be stale Wonder Bread slathered in expired ketchup and labeled “Gourmet” because someone sprinkled paprika on top. Allegedly based on Clive Barker’s influential anthology of the same name, this 2020 film adaptation, brought to you by director Brannon Braga (yes, that Braga, from Star Trek), manages the unholy feat of being both wildly overstuffed and depressingly empty.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of someone reading the back of a Clive Barker paperback and then attempting to reimagine it through the lens of a CW pilot, all while being pelted with notes from Hulu execs saying, “Make it sexy, but, like… trauma-sexy.”
Let’s crack open this bloodless grimoire.
The Premise: Three Tales, No Soul
The film serves up three interconnected horror stories, stitched together with the kind of care typically reserved for duct-taping a broken chair. The structure mimics the classic horror anthology format, but instead of building tension or creating intrigue, it limps from one uninspired plotline to the next like a drunk Frankenstein’s monster trying to find its pants.
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Jenna’s Story – A college student (played by Britt Robertson) flees her haunted past (and an allergy to sound, apparently) and winds up in the creepiest Airbnb run by two women who look like they got kicked out of a Suspiriaremake. There’s suicide, gaslighting, and one scene where someone gets buried alive—though, shockingly, that’s not the worst part. The worst part is the runtime.
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Books of Blood – A paranormal grifter named Simon scams a grieving mother by pretending to speak to her dead son, but wouldn’t you know it? He actually can—though in the least satisfying way imaginable. By the time you get to the inevitable “twist,” you’ll be too tired to care. This is supposed to be the spine of the film, and instead it’s a wet noodle.
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Bennett’s Story – A mob enforcer named Bennett searches for the actual “Book of Blood,” which sounds cool until you realize it plays out like a cut scene from American Horror Story that got deleted for being too meandering and dialogue-heavy. He ends up in the same death house from Story #1, thus creating the cinematic equivalent of a horror ouroboros: one bad idea devouring another.
The Horror: Where Is It?
You might be asking, “Is it scary?” and I’d say, only if you’re afraid of voiceover exposition and people staring at walls like they’ve forgotten their lines. The gore is minimal. The tension is nonexistent. The ghosts look like they were rendered on a PlayStation 3.
This is a Clive Barker adaptation, the man who gave us Hellraiser, The Midnight Meat Train, and Rawhead Rex. Where is the baroque horror? The erotically charged dread? The flesh-as-canvas body horror? Nowhere. Instead, we get:
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A CGI face stretching like a Snapchat filter.
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Shaky-cam dream sequences that look like a student short called I’m Sad and Everything is Red.
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The most anticlimactic haunted house reveal since Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.
The movie substitutes Barker’s grotesque lyricism for cheap jump scares and vague trauma metaphors. It’s horror boiled down to its blandest elements—like someone drained all the blood out of the books and replaced it with oat milk.
The Acting: Overqualified and Underwhelmed
Britt Robertson, who has survived worse (Tomorrowland, anyone?), does her best with what she’s given, which is mostly a series of confused expressions and one long, grim bath. Anna Friel, as the grieving mother Mary, tries to chew through her scenes with some semblance of gravitas, but the script has all the emotional depth of a motivational poster taped to a urinal.
Rafi Gavron as Simon manages to convey the charisma of a wet sock with a Bluetooth speaker taped to it. He’s supposed to be both mysterious and seductive. He ends up being neither. Watching him pretend to channel the dead is about as thrilling as watching someone order takeout via Ouija board.
The only person who seems to understand the kind of movie they’re in is Yul Vazquez as Bennett, who plays the violent thug with just the right mix of sleaze and surrealism. But the script lets him down too—his arc goes nowhere, and when it finally does, it lands like a drunk uncle falling through a folding table at Thanksgiving.
The Direction: Star Trek, But Make It Emo
Brannon Braga, whose work on Star Trek: TNG is genuinely respected, brings all the visual dynamism of a SyFy original movie and the tonal coherence of a Tumblr fanfic. Every shot is drenched in blue filter sadness, with overused slow motion and enough whispery voiceover to make Terrence Malick file a restraining order.
The pacing is abysmal. Scenes drag like they’re wearing ankle weights. Transitions are clumsy. And the ending is less of a payoff and more of a, “Wait, that’s it?” The final attempt to “tie it all together” is about as graceful as a high school improv group trying to land a three-act play in under two minutes.
Clive Barker’s Legacy: Bloodless and Betrayed
To say this does Barker dirty is an understatement. The Books of Blood are raw, imaginative, perverse, and surreal. They are filled with teeth and terror and twisted poetry. This film is filled with bath scenes, monologues about trauma, and ghosts that look like they came from The Frighteners.
Barker reportedly allowed his name to be attached, but I imagine he did so from a safe distance while muttering, “Well, at least they spelled it right.”
Final Thoughts: Burn the Pages
If you want real Barker adaptations, go watch Lord of Illusions, Hellraiser, or even The Midnight Meat Train. Hell, dig up the VHS of Rawhead Rex if you must. But this? This is Books of Blood in name only. It’s the cinematic equivalent of reading the CliffsNotes of Barker’s work, then deciding to make Paranormal Activity with a thesaurus.
The film wants to be smart. It ends up feeling smug. It wants to be scary. It ends up being sleepy. It wants to honor a horror icon. Instead, it drags his name through the dirt like a screenplay written by ChatGPT on Ambien.
Final Score: 1 out of 5 Whispering Ghosts
Books of Blood (2020) should come with a warning label: “Based on Clive Barker. Just not the parts you like.”
