The Hellbound Heart by Clive BarkerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Very similar to the movie. I perhaps expected a little more graphic detail in the prose. But still a good read.
Frank has spent his entire life in a sort of hedonistic frenzy. Expecting to get yet another “high” he acquires and opens the Lament Configuration puzzle box. Instead he releases the cenobites and is dragged into torment. Later, his brother Larry and wife Julia (with whom Frank had an affair) move into the old house. Frank partly comes back as a creeping monster in the attic, and Julia is enlisted to bring him through fully. Requiring blood sacrifices.
If you’ve seen the movie, which was written and directed by the author Clive Barker, then you’re not going to get much more out of this novella. The later movies become massively over the top, and diverge from Barker’s written stories. At the very least, this can whet your appetite for more of Barker’s work, in its original form.
Crown Jules Presents 