It sounds like something a teenage goth might call their diary/book of poems (same thing), but then again, so does a Lament Configuration.
The Scarlet Gospels (2015) is Clive Barker’s long-awaited return to the work that made him so famous: horror. Specifically Hellraiser. It seems that Mr Barker is part of the large majority that thought the Hellraiser franchise went to pot since the instant he let go of creative control (after Hellraiser 2), so he’s decided to set it to rights.
Or so you might think...
The Scarlet Gospels is a follow-up to his classic novella, The Hellbound Heart (Not Hellraiser, the film. It completely ignores anything that happened in the film’s canon and that includes that time the Cenobites were in space. I bet you don’t believe me, but it’s true), and serves a continuation of Barker’s returning character, Harry D’Amour (from The Last Illusion and Everville predominantly). D’Amour is a PI/Occult investigator. He’s a ‘whiskey in the cornflakes’ kinda guy. He’s seen shit. He’s looked into the void and didn’t give a flying fuck if it looked back or not.
The book opens with a bunch of sorcerers (magic is real in this) resurrecting one of their number, because the Hell Priest (Pinhead to you and me) is hunting them down and they’re shit-scared.
The Hell Priest arrives and in true fashion, gives us plenty of silk-tongued speech. Simply by walking into the room, he instils such fear and reverence in these supposed powerful people. Their deaths are detailed at great length. Some involve hooks and chains. Others involve a degree of change. One in particular involves a man being broken down into the dog-like creature, then forced to fuck a woman in the group who then undergoes a change of her own. I won’t tell you more, but suffice to say it lives up to the gore that Barker is known so well for.
And that’s just the first 26 pages.
Turns out the Hell Priest has abandoned his MO of waiting around, presumably sharpening knives and stroking chains until someone susses out what may be the easiest puzzle box in the world. He wants power. Ultimate power.
This is where Hell is introduced and again, it’s not what you think. Barker’s Hell has a dark fantasy feel to it rather that it being a place where the walls are made from skin. It’s full of councils and bureaucracy and the like.
D’Amour’s own investigations intercede with the Hell Priest’s lust for power when his blind medium friend is kidnapped and taken to Hell. D’Amour and his band of ‘Harrowers’ venture forth into the pit and-
I’m saying no more about the plot.
Like most Barker, it’s very well written. Succinct and not overstated. The journey they go on is truly an epic one, with a finale more grandiose as anything else he’s written.
This book was actually written years before its release, but was unable to find a publisher for a long time. The hints Barker dropped about it spoke of more to the story that what is actually contained within the book. He promised a true origin for the Hell Priest (again, ignoring the film’s own involving Captain Eliot Spencer) and scenes involving goings on at Golgotha. The book has obviously had some hefts cuts made to it, and thankfully you can’t see too many of the scars left over.
Personally I’d like to see the original manuscript. D’Amour’s descent into Hell could have provided a much larger playground for Barker to experiment with, and maybe at one point it did. But who knows? I want those lofty themes and the theological grandeur spliced in with Barker’s signature body horror. If Hellbound Heart was a tale of forbidden love, then Scarlet Gospels could be Barker’s Inferno.
If you can separate the Hellraiser film franchise from this book, then it’s well worth a read. If you can’t, then you’ll only hate it on the principal that it isn’t exactly the same.
And look at that fucking artwork!
Enjoyed this piece? Then 'like' The Crusades of A Critic on Facebook. Sam also has a Tech Noir novel, 'An Inside Joke', which can currently be viewed here; his first novella 'Iron Country' is available to buy here; a horror short story, 'We Must Never Found Out', published here; and finally, another short horror story 'Eagal' available to buy here. Phew.
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