Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. It seems the art gods are smiling on me this year. In the span of 5 months I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with some iconic authors. First, Stephen King back in February and now Clive Barker.

I was always a King nut, but of the other popular horror authors (John Saul, Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, etc) of the time, the only one I took to at all was Barker. His worlds are twisted, his outlook bleak, his characters fucked beyond measure.

You’ll notice in the below interview that he randomly invites me to his house. Trust me, it was as much a surprise to me as it is to you. I’ve actually seen a lot of his art on TV and online and I’d love to go get a closer view in person, so the invitation was very much appreciated. Hopefully I can make it work out with the next LA visit.

Anyway, we talk about MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN. If you missed it, my con coverage of the trailer and footage shown can be read here!

Enjoy the interview!

Clive Barker: So fire away.

Quint: Let’s go! I’ve read your novella and I really dug it. It goes to some really fucked up places and I was curious…

Clive Barker: You’re talking about THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN?

Quint: Yes, and so I was worried, well not worried, but I was questioning whether or not the film would go to the same lengths.

Clive Barker: And then you saw the trailer and you realized that it did.

Quint: Yeah.

Clive Baker: Yeah and trust me, you didn’t see anything like the places the movie goes. The trailer is a tease and that’s all it can ever be really, but the build, my God, the build of really nice performances and really lovely performances and then this descent into madness, which the character of Leon, who is an accountant in my original story, has become a photographer, which is actually a much better choice in the movie. It’s a better choice, because like Weegee… Are you familiar with Weegee?

Quint: Like the board?

Clive Barker: No, this is a photographer whose name was Weegee and Weegee was, if you google him, you will find some of the most profound and well-known images of New York are of his creation. And he’s an extraordinary power and I thought it was a great idea to turn this accountant, who was very hands off, into somebody who was investigating with his camera, you know?

Quint: Yeah.

Clive Barker: The feeling with his camera, going into the heart of the city…

Quint: So it’s more his fault when he finds what he’s looking for…

Clive Barker: Yes, but is it fault or is it simply destiny? Is it fault or fate, you know? Also faith, it’s just a couple of letters difference and you have a very different conclusion.

Quint: That’s cool, sounds like a change with a lot of motivation behind it.

Clive Barker: Well, I think it’s cool, because I think the kinds of narratives that work on the page are not always right for the screen and while I’m… there are times when it annoys me when narratives are arbitrarily changed for a movie. Most of the time and in the case of THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, the changes aren’t arbitrary, they’re thought through. They are really about giving weight and meaning and class to the journey that this man is taking into the heart of darkness, to quote another famous journey. I actually hadn’t thought about that, but I suppose that’s what he really is doing. Maybe I thought about that at the beginning. Maybe I did think of that one when I first started to write it, but I haven’t thought of that in a long long time, but yeah.

Quint: Well [Ryuhei] Kitamura seems to be getting it. He has such a great style to his films and that was probably the thing that impressed me the most looking at those trailers, because I have seen some Asian filmmakers that have come over and their style will change to fit Hollywood…

Clive Barker: To accommodate, yeah…

Quint: Definitely, but it does feel like it could have been in his pre-Hollywood catalogue.

Clive Barker: And that’s what I like. He’s true to himself. Am I understanding you correctly?

Quint: Yeah.

Clive Barker: Yeah, I think he is definitely finding his way through the maze of… he has honed one hard style and the style which American audiences are most familiar with and American audiences are… we have to win them over and I think we have a good chance of doing that. I think it’s a wonderful piece of story telling.

Quint: And visually, I think we’re getting so used to that SAW type of filmmaking. They definitely have their place and they have their audience, but I think the horror audience especially is growing tired of it and they’re ready for a new kind of look.

Clive Barker: Yeah and well, I began this day talking about that very thing, about the fact that SAW and HOSTEL and a number of other smaller movies along the same lines are designed to appall.

They’re atrocious in the proper sense of the word that is they describe atrocity and we are meant to be horrified, disgusted and it works. It works for me anyway, I mean at a certain point I feel as though I can only watch that up until a certain point and then I feel like “well now OK, I’ve watched this… I’ve watched all of these killings and so on, but what’s next? What happens now?” Not enough is the answer for me. I want more narrative complexity and I think that’s what we can give them in a picture. I think that we can definitely provide them with characters who are all taking very very strong arcs in their lives... They’re moving from a place of darkness and confusion into a place of more darkness and confusion.

[Both laugh]

Clive Barker: I think it’ll be powerful stuff.

[A representative asks for one last question]

Clive Barker: We’ll finish all of this, the rest, when you go to the house and you come and see the paintings and do all of that stuff. I want you to come and see the paintings.

Quint: Well, yeah I’d love to.

Clive Barker: Where do you…

Quint: I live in Austin, so that’s a little difficult, but I do make it out to LA quite often if that’s where you live.

[Mr. Barker talks with a representative about coordinating something]

Clive Barker: So how regularly?

Quint: Well, I’ll probably be out either sometime August or sometime September.

Clive Barker: Let’s try to make the August thing happen. And I will absolutely confess, I am weary today, but at least it’s giving you a starting place and when you see the paintings and when we get talking about that, there’s a whole other jumping off place. I’ll have Joe walk you around those 800 paintings, you know?

Quint: Well Moriarty has talked very highly of your art and…

Clive Barker: Oh really? That’s nice, I’m very fond of him. He’s a very cool guy, so one more question.

Quint: The Ain’t It Cool readers will kill me if I don’t bring up the HELLRAISER remake. Is that still going on?

Clive Barker: That’s a tough one, because the answer is I don’t know. I have waited for a long time to see somebody give me a clue. You know, “Are we doing this or are we not doing this?” “Is it happening or is it not happening?” Nobody seems to know and I’m not going to hold my breath while I wait, because it’s frustrating. I’m very lucky, I’ve got control over a lot of my artistic life. I’ve got control over my movies. I’ve got control over my books. I’m sorry, I don’t have control over my movies, but I do have control of my paintings and of my books. My movies… no… I don’t. I have, on a good day, a little bit of control. On a bad day I don’t really have any at all and I’m trying to figure out a way to make movies for myself that are cheap to make, so I don’t have to rely upon other people… I don’t have to rely upon other people’s funding and other people’s creative whims. I want to be able to make movies that are “heartbreakingly beautiful” and you will see what I mean by that and all of this should go in parentheses I think, this whole paragraph. You’ll see what I mean when you see the paintings, because there’s something… William Blake, who was a huge influence upon my life, said “make your own laws or be a slave to another man’s.”

It’s like “write rule number one” and I have tried so hard to hold to that. “Make your own rules or be a slave to another man’s.” I’ve tried so hard to…

[There’s a strange noise]

Clive Barker: What is that noise?

Kraken: Sounds like there was an explosion downstairs.

Quint: It’s a geek stampede.

[Everyone laughs]

Clive Barker: Well, we will finish up in “The Barker Lair.”

Hope you guys liked it. If I end up going to the “Barker Lair” I’ll let you know, although how many horror stories start like that? Quirky cult writer invites unwitting fat journalist to a secluded home… cue monsters in the walls, paintings coming to life and me ending up in a loony bin hugging myself and talking to the padded walls.

But yeah. Sounds like fun.

Got more coming, including possibly my favorite interview of the Con… with a certain Captain America… Stay tuned!

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com