Lord of Illusions

"I was born to murder the world."

I know I've joked before about my strange inability to separate Lord of Illusions and In The Mouth Of Madness in my head but, in all seriousness, I know that they are very different animals. As I sit down to write this post I have to ask myself: how does one set about deconstructing a Clive Barker movie?

We'll start with the man

Ask the horror community to describe Barker and most will say he's a genius. In the late 80's, when his first novel hit the stands, it was a mystery story that embraced horror in the way Dante and Lovecraft would have admired but few other writers were really capable of. This really set the bar for his future stamp on the genre but, it also set the bar for his peers. By the time we were getting to sink our teeth into Lord of Illusions, we expected Barker to shake us to our cores - and he constantly delivered in that expectation.

Clearly, he's a complicated man with a vast imagination and an extremely consistent history of butting heads in Hollywood. I think this clashing can make it hard to decipher what his true vision is VS what the MPAA forced him to commit to film. Who can really be surprised by any of this? The depth of his vision can easily be explored on paper but does not easily, or inexpensively, translate to film.

Knowing that Barker is passionate about practical effects, I imagine this contention created some of the atrocious digital effects in Lord of Illusions. Although I'm also pretty sure there was no studio in Hollywood with enough money to properly use computers in 1995 (Johnny Mnemonic, Batman Forever, GoldenEye, need I go on?) because Pixar was hogging all the skill and or equipment.

Lets talk about the movie

What a tangled web of sexuality and violence, lust and anger, death, religion, resurrection, vengeance, murder, magic, fantasy, and horror Barker has twisted together here.

The plot? A magician and an intended human sacrifice escape from a cult (after killing the leader), only to find out later that he's not really dead - and now he's very angry. VERY, VERY ANGRY. They cross paths with a private detective who falls in love with the escaped sacrificial woman (surprise) and together they must battle the resurrected cult leader.

Hmmm. I'm not sure that entirely covers it.
Let's try this:

You've got Scott Bakula, running around, battling magicians in something that could be a noir film if you stripped out the color and slowed down the pacing. Did I mention his terribly fake tattoo? Yeah, he's got one of those. We love him anyway because hey, he was on Quantum Leap!

There's Daniel Von Bargen playing someone like Charles Manson crossed with Jesus who really wants to be one of Lovecraft's elder gods were he not so obsessed with Freddy Kruger-esue one-liners.

You've got Famke Janssen playing the character she plays best: a sort of snarky, sexy, femme fatale type with moments of vulnerability and plenty of deviousness. Blink blink, I'm so innocent. Blink blink, I'm going to tear your heart out and devour it. Blink blink, what?...

Mix all of that up with a little 90's computer animation and you've got Lord of Illusions.

I'm fairly certain that I've done a terrible job of selling this movie.
I'm going to stop writing now, before I make things any worse.
You should watch the Lord of Illusions trailer and let Clive sell his own work.

And for your additional entertainment, you can watch the In the Mouth of Madness trailer here, too:

Rebuttal: 17 Disturbing Horror Movies You Will Never Watch Again

When I'm not watching movies, I'm reading about movies. I stumble across all kinds of articles, blog posts, book excerpts, etc. in my quest to absorb as much movie knowledge as possible. Now, I'm snotty and loud-mouthed and opinionated but I'd never begrudge another human their opinion. Seriously. You're absolutely welcome to have any opinion about any thing you want. However, I must warn you, if I think your opinion is stupid, I'm absolutely going to say so. I've recently stumbled on an article completely brimming with so many idiotic opinions that I'm actually compelled to craft a response. Here's the gist of the original article: there are some horror movies out there that are so disturbing , you'll only ever want to watch them once. I've have taken her original list and refuted her claims without pulling her entire article over. You can read the original article here . Let's start at the beginning, with her opening statement

Escape From Tomorrow

I love creative people who are willing to take risks with their art. I appreciate the refusal to do things by the rules. I'm also terribly impatient with mediocrity. Enter Escape From Tomorrow . Created by a team of rogue filmmakers, the movie was shot in the video mode of high-end still cameras. Actors shared scripts and shooting locations across their smartphones. Shot on location at Disney World, the parks were completely unaware this was all going on right under their mouse ears. I wanted to love Escape From Tomorrow. More than that, I wanted to be completely taken with its ingenuity and creativity and - oh yes - its originality. And there is really a simple brilliance to their covert plan; all families are roaming around the parks, taking videos and chatting on their phones. Just blend the fuck in, act like you belong, and you won't get caught. Too bad the movie can be summed up as: ambitious but Rubbish. As you can imagine (or possibly know), there was a ton of con

The Witch (2015)

You know the drill - there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you, come back after you've seen it. Also - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! I keep hoping that the cultural obsession with zombies will end; literally every other damn movie that comes 'round seems to feature some sort of shambling, undead being bent on devouring the weak flesh of regular humans. Once upon a time, zombies have have been used as a metaphor for the blind consumerism created by our capitalist society, or the perceived depletion of resources by immigrants, or even the ravages of time and disease on our frail bodies. Now it seems that the deeper social commentary has been lost as audiences mindlessly consume "zombie fiction" in an attempt to keep up with trends. ( How very meta - a film buddy of mine commented on this assessment! ) All of this is just a sideways rant, leading up to my actual point: it seems that zombie may actually

i'm kael's ghost

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