Struck by madness, a man tears apart an enigmatic painting. This act throws him into a strange universe of sex and mutilation ….

In the 80s, the Books of Blood anthology reveals an author called Clive Barker. Stephen King declared "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker". The author of Christine was quite right as the British writer is now famous for books such as The Damnation Game, Imajica or Galilee. But at the opposite of his American fellow writer, Clive Barker revealed himself as a good director with the cult movie Hellraiser (1987) who initiated a series of film that counts not less that seven sequels. In 1990, he adapts his novel Cabal to the cinema, Nightbreed, starring David Cronenberg. Five years later he directs his masterpiece, Lord of Illusions, of which the financial failure brings his directorial career momentarily to a halt.

Barker was interested in cinema way before 1987, when he was a student in Liverpool and was writing and directing horrific plays with a bunch of friends. The group decided to start directing experimental short films. The first one made in 1973 is called Salome and is inspired by the Oscar Wilde tragedy. In 1975, Barker initiates a much more ambitious project with The Forbidden that will take him three years to complete. The film has no link at all with his novel of the same name that was adapted into a film called Candyman by Bernard Rose. To this day, it appears that only these two films still exist, thanks to Redemption Films that dug them up in 1995. One is inclined to forgive their sometimes annoying obscurantism because they were not meant to be shown to an audience. Of both shorts, The Forbidden is obviously the best as despite its referential and enigmatic aspect it sets up the universe that will become Clive Barker’s own in the future (especially with Hellraiser) through some very specific elements.

What is striking when you first watch The Forbidden is the "home-made" look and feel to the project. The film is shot in black and white with no sound recording. Industrial music signed by Adrian Carson accompanies the bizarre images. But the lack of budget definitely does not explain the peculiar esthetics of the film. Visually, the black and white works of Man Ray seem to have a preponderant importance in the visual rendition of The Forbidden. On several occasions, Clive Barker also declared that he was greatly influenced and marked by the works of underground filmmakers such as Andy Warhol or Kenneth Anger. Their movies helped to free the young student of literature through their do-it-yourself aspect. That is when Clive Barker grabbed a camera to capture the images that had always been in his mind….

However, Clive Barker does also share common themes with Kenneth Anger. Since his first film when he was 20, Fireworks, the Californian film-maker attempts to provoke his viewers by shocking them with sexual exhibitionism. In his cinematographic works are mixed homosexual images and occult symbols. Often the actors play divinities that are located in a symbolic universe. The Forbidden offers the same type of elements. The title itself is connected to the notion of prohibition. The film evolves in an ultra coded universe and shows the sacrifice of a man during a strange ritual. With regards to sex, the obvious pleasure that Clive Barker takes while filming his hero’s naked body (played by Peter Atkins, future scriptwriter of Hellraiser 2 and 3) or exhibiting his own erected sex during a crazy dance strongly connects him to Anger’s work.

This dance is also evocative of the famous Danse Antique from Jean Cocteau. The French painter and filmmaker is one of Anger’s most blatant references (he even worked with him). In The Forbidden, Barker manages to create a very peculiar atmosphere through simple special effects (negative exposure of the film, the animated birds or the painter being skinned alive). This almost "home-made" aspect connects once again this film with his elder’s masterpiece, La Belle et la Bête. As for the painter’s ordeal of getting dismembered, it perfectly illustrates Cocteau’s famous quote: "You do not dedicate yourself to poetry, you sacrifice to it" (*1). With this second short film, the future director of Lord of Illusion mixes underground art with purely horrific elements and at the same time develops his very own mythology… For those who know Hellraiser rather well, the parallel between the two movies is striking to say the least.

The main interest in The Forbidden lies in its premonitory theme and images, which give the heads up to what will make Hellraiser one of the most important horror movie of the eighties. First, the basis to the scriptwriting is built on the same theme. Clive Barker appropriates the Faust myth to himself by using a more or less obvious diabolical pact. In The Forbidden, this idea is still underlying while it is obvious in Hellraiser, which was actually translated to The Pact (Le Pacte) in French. This "contract" includes sexual pleasure obtained through extreme suffering. The pact serves as an object/artwork that is used as the starting point of the film’s dramatic issues. A painting makes a man fall into a strange world in The Forbidden while in Hellraiser, the famous Rubik’s Cube opens the doorways to the pleasure of pain to who will break its mystery.

The very existence of this other world – which is clearly not the "Beyond" - reveals itself in the private sphere. The story of The Forbidden takes place in one unique room. The "huis-clos" is broken only by the introduction of the "other world". The Cenobites from Hellraiser also appear in an intimate setup. This appearance becomes much more unsettling because it happens in a supposedly secure and hidden environment. At this very moment, the two worlds are intertwining. This is why Clive Barker films rays if light coming through blinds or bricks that release some kind of weird smoke. This juxtaposition of light and shadow materializes the momentary cohabitation between these two universes.

Faust in The Forbidden is literally skinned of his flesh. This "skin undressing" is treated in practical real time and demonstrates a degree of perversity that the author will reutilize in his next movies. The image of the sacrificed being lying on a bed will give birth to Kirsty’s nightmare in Clive Barker’s first feature film.

Relieved of his skin, the curious man then accedes to the "other world". The vision of this Faust at the end of the short film leaves no doubt on the origins of Hellraiser’s "hero" (*2) : he resembles Frank freshly resuscitated. The only thing that changes is the undressing method. In Hellraiser, flying chains rip away the man's flesh with hooks which makes the whole process much more efficient. The apparition is sudden, generating real anguish, and then reinforces the sadomasochist theme of the film.

After destruction comes re-formation. Bit by bit, the painting in The Forbidden is reformed as is the Rubik’s Cube that comes back to its original position in Hellraiser. The invisible hand that reassembles the parts is directly linked to the Cenobite’s hand that reforms Frank’s face with different bits of flesh in Hellraiser.

Last but surely not least the most incredible element in The Forbidden are the nails nailed into each intersection of a square pattern filmed in close up which announces Pinhead, character that became one of the most powerful horror film icons ever. The meaning behind this image remains obscure but it surely has a specific justification for Clive Barker who uses it again in Hellraiser to make Pinhead’s face. The leader of the Cenobites becomes terrifyingly beautiful, becoming an actual sex symbol in Japan. There is a similar shot in the second film of the Hellraiser series, Hellraiser-Hellbound.

The concept of the square pattern and the square is strong in both films. In the beginning of The Forbidden, the camera falls onto a chequered floor. The window opening onto the "other world" is also in a square pattern. In Hellraiser, Frank is at the center of a square made of candles when he contacts the Cenobites without realising it. The Rubik’s Cube itself is a cube. As Jean Chevallier and Alain Gheerbrant highlight in their Dictionary of Symbols, "lots of sacred spaces have a square form" (*3) and this connects Barker’s universe to the spiritual as mentioned above.

For those unfamiliar with Barker’s world, The Forbidden is a dispensable experience as the film suffers from an obscure plot and an obvious problem with rhythm. But despite its abstruse aspect, Hellraiser fans will appreciate the fact that this short film's iconography is primordial for the film and its seven sequels and results from long gestated obsessions. Clive Barker is not just another horror movie director due to the fact that he displays recurring and eminently personal themes all through his career. The other main interest of this short is to reveal his obvious references, enabling us to understand who Clive Barker the artist is and where he is coming from.



*1 The influence goes further as it is possible to find Jean Cocteau’s touch in Barker’s paintings too.

*2 Les Ecorchés is the French subtitle of the second film of the series, Hellraiser- The Hellbound

*3 Dictionnaire des Symboles by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, p165 (Robert Laffont/Jupiter, Bouquins collection, Paris, 1982)

• The Forbidden (along with Salome) can be bought as an all region DVD from Image Entertainement, Inc. These two shorts are also available as special features in the Hellraiser Boxset (limited edition) edited by Anchor Bay in region 1 and 2 which also includes the first three films of the saga.

• A DVD with films from the first part of Kenneth Anger’s career, The films of Kenneth Anger, is available from Fantoma in region1.

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