Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions (1995) Dir. Clive Barker

Watched this movie for the first time in a month of Sundays, and truth be told I don't I think I'd ever seen it in it's entirety.  I used to be a huge Clive Barker fan (particularly Everville and Imagica) but over the years I stopped reading his books.  As far as the movies he directed I only really enjoyed Hellraiser and even then I think I'm more of a fan of Hellraiser II.  So I wasn't expecting much at all from Lord of Illusions - in fact I expected it to pretty much suck.  I was mistaken, Lord of Illusions was actually pretty good.  Creepy and gory (borderline ero-guro) in that way only Clive Barker used to be able to do - this mid-90s horror flick is pretty solid.  Sure the CGI effects are pretty dated (not as bad as Altered States but still amazingly crude by today's standards) but the good old fashion gore and splatter is still wince inducing.  The movie is solidly constructed, written, acted (surprisingly Scott Bakula was pretty good), and though Famke Janssen kept her clothes on she was still stunning.

What was kind of funny is the person I watched it with was only familiar with Barker's young adult novel Abarat.  I guess that, for me, Clive Barker was such a well known name - what with Hellraiser being released in 1987, The Books of Blood, Barker's name on Candyman (1992), The Great and Secret Show, Everville, and my favorite dark fantasy epic Imagica.  Hell, Barker was excellent when it came to splatterpunk (one of the best) and I read a shit ton of splatterpunk in its heyday (1987-1995).

I really had a good time watching Lord of Illusions and was pleasantly surprised.  It's not as good as some horror releases from the mid-90s but it's definitely one of the better ones.