Oh yes, there will be blood! Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane travel to the set of the upcoming movie adaptation of two short stories from Clive Barker’s first horror collection…

At first, we seem to be driving straight into the middle of nowhere. Eventually, the landscape reveals a winding path (it can’t really be called a road) that leads to Dundas Castle, just outside Edinburgh – the location for today’s filming of Midnight Picture Show’s new movie, Clive Barker’s Book of Blood.

Cast and crew are hard at work on the penultimate day’s shoot, which finds Robin Hood’s Jonas Armstrong in full body make up – literally covered head to toe in writing – as Simon McNeal, and Sophie Ward (The Monk, Wuthering Heights) as Dr. Florescu, paranormal investigator.

Although we do see one exterior scene being shot – a car crash when young Simon sees his brother die – the majority of the day’s activities are inside the castle. A mercy, as on this particular day we see wind, rain, snow… often all at the same time.

Scottish Cities

Despite some scenes being filmed in Glasgow, the bulk of shooting has taken place in Edinburgh. Producers Joe Daley and Jorje Saralegui explain that there were originally four choices of location, for budgetary and other reasons. Those options were the Midlands, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

When they got to Edinburgh, however, their minds were made up. “It was amazing when we got here and saw Edinburgh. Your mind is blown by what it looks like, because it’s just such an amazing city,” Jorje tells us. “And the minute we saw it, Joe and I said, ‘OK, forget it, we’re shooting here!’”

Filming has taken place at several locations around Edinburgh, making full use of the variety of architectural styles apparent in the city. By the time we visit the shoot, however, the focus has shifted to the Castle. Set against beautiful countryside, the location has also been used for some exterior stunt shoots. But Glasgow has seen some action, as Jorje tells us. “We used that city for one of our University settings, because the campus is just so amazing. We definitely intend to make more movies in Glasgow…”

Skin Deep

Those who have read the original short stories, The Book of Blood and On Jerusalem Street, will know that the tales themselves have supposedly been etched into Simon’s skin by the dead, as a punishment for faking his psychic ability. Once the stories have been carved onto his flesh, he has no choice but to tell the truth. Indeed, his skin tells it for him.

Artem Designs have been assigned the unenviable task of creating the real ‘Book of Blood’, etched on Simon’s body. If this didn’t look convincing, a lynchpin of the entire movie, then the audience would quickly lose faith. The make-up consists of many pieces of latex, each with a passage or line from one of the stories, in all the languages of the world.

As producer Joe Daley comments, “We all had a bunch of the short story collections around the room and we made a list of the best sentences: the most horrific, or graphic, or eloquent, or whatever. Then we just highlighted the ones we thought were the best, which was a whittling-down process.” The procedure itself, covering actor Jonas in these bloody words, took several hours to complete, but looks absolutely stunning.

Tell Me A Story

The production company Midnight Picture Show brought writer/director John Harrison on board with a view to adapting one of the stories from The Books of Blood. “John initially wrote a script for us that wasn’t related to Books of Blood,” Daley explains. “But then he was asked to - and wanted to - do Book of Blood. And Clive, of course, said, ‘It’s perfect for you!’ So the two of them just worked together. John and Darin Silverman wrote the script, but Clive and John had some brainstorming sessions about the look of the film. They did sketches and shared images, which went great.”

The two stories themselves needed some expansion to make a full length movie, but John is loathe to reveal too much in advance of the film’s release. All he will say is, “I don’t want to sound too pretentious about it, but it seemed like it had more about it – even though those stories are thinner and just a little shorter, and we had to make up a lot to bridge them together. There was just something just lovely and really classic about them. So I was really lucky they let me do it.”

The Doctor Is In

Playing the part of Dr. Mary Florescu, psychic researcher, is Sophie Ward. Familiar to many from roles in films like Young Sherlock Holmes and A Village Affair, she is nevertheless no stranger to horror movies. In fact she started her career in them.

“Well, I did a children’s one that J.B. Priestley had written,” she reveals on set, “about a girl who sees through the window to the past. [Thames Television’s 1975 anthology series Shadows: The Other Window.] That was the first thing I ever did when I was 10. Then I did a post-Rosemary’s Baby film [Full Circle, aka The Haunting of Julia] with Mia Farrow and I was her daughter. She gave me an ill-judged tracheotomy and I then haunt her for the rest of the film!”

What drew Sophie to this role was the good characterisation and depth. The script really leapt off the page, and she admits to finding the make-up strangely compelling – all of which helped her get into character. “Every time I see the skin I just want to touch it, and there’s actually some scenes where I’m almost... well, I’m licking it!”

Clive Barker has said he is proud of the two main actors’ complete fearlessness, in terms of what they were willing to present to camera. The result is an intense, emotionally involving movie that deals with the emerging love affair between Simon and Mary, as Barker himself elaborates.

“I think the story does concern itself with people making emotional decisions – decisions that would be foolish if they didn’t have love as a justification, if you see what I mean?” the author begins. “We have Sophie who has produced a beautifully modulated performance, and I’m very aware that she also has something in common with Julia from Hellraiser. That is, she’s a woman who has a completely dysfunctional love life and is reaching out to the comfort of somebody who she can trust and love, even though he’s a cheat and liar. And I think that’s kind of interesting.”

The Dead Have Highways

Some weeks after the initial set visit, we’re invited to witness the post-production work at Black Island Studios in London. Here, Artem are once again on hand to make up the variety of people needed to form the spearhead of the army.

Yes, the dead are walking among us - and in great numbers. Limbs are hanging off, there are wounds aplenty, and the deceased are of all ages, sexes and periods in history. All of this is filmed on green screen and overlapped with footage from earlier.

Meanwhile, Motion Effects are busy bolstering their number even more, and creating the highways they’ll walk upon digitally. As we watch the dead ‘come to life’ the air of unreality definitely recedes – and we finally began to see that Book of Blood does, indeed, promise to be one very slick and scary horror movie. We can’t wait to see the finished result.

Book of Blood’s release date is TBC.