We now have a release date for Hulu’s Books of Blood movie! The streaming service’s official Twitter account has unveiled a properly terrifying poster for its upcoming Clive Barker adaptation, revealing an October 7 premiere in the process.
The official synopsis for the film is pretty vague (“A journey into uncharted and forbidden territory through three tales tangled in space and time”), but it seems to be another anthology horror film in the vein of Trick ‘r Treat (2007) and Southbound (2015), with its short-film length stories linked together by a frame narrative. Last fall, Variety and Deadline published character descriptions that shed some light on the storylines for the different tales. However, as we reported, the film appears to depart pretty significantly from its source material.
One tale takes the names from the Books of Blood’s original frame story, but otherwise completely changes the characterization and plot. In this one, Mary (Anna Friel) is now a psychologist who debunks the paranormal as opposed to a psychic researcher, and instead of a phony medium employed by her to check out a haunted house, Simon (Rafi Gavron) is now a self-proclaimed “ghost whisperer” who becomes Mary’s lover and convinces her he can speak to her child, whom she lost to leukemia.
The other two tales appear to be largely original work by director Brannon Braga and his co-writer Adam Simon. One follows Jenna (Britt Robertson), a sufferer of misophonia who steals her mother’s cash and runs away to Los Angeles to avoid being institutionalized, only to be taken in by Ellie (Freda Foh Shen) and Sam (Nicholas Campbell), a seemingly lovely old couple with a “cozy home.”
The other centers around a pair of contract killers, Bennett (Yul Vazquez) and Steve (Andy McQueen), who get tipped off by their latest mark about a priceless tome, presumably the titular “Books of Blood,” which was something…very different in Barker’s original stories. As we theorized previously, this last one does sound like it could potentially be a loose adaptation of “On Jerusalem Street,” the final and concluding frame story of Books of Blood, with the assassin Wyburd expanded to two characters, but the description makes it sound like the hitmen are looking for an actual book, as opposed to the…you know…of the original.
Of course, these character descriptions are vague enough that Hulu’s adaptation could end up being quite faithful, and to be fair, Clive Barker is credited as an executive producer. We’ll find out when the film premieres in two months.
Step into uncharted and forbidden territory. Based on Clive Barker’s acclaimed and influential horror anthology book series, #BooksOfBlood, a Hulu Original film premieres on October 7 on Hulu. pic.twitter.com/pMynS6llmN
— Hulu (@hulu) August 10, 2020
