The Hellbound Heart - Clive Barker

Welcome to Hell!

This summer sees much awaited return of the leader of the Cenobites, Pinhead, with the release of the The Scarlet Gospels.

To celebrate this horrific (in a good way) event, for June and July we're having a double Clive Barker special!

In June we'll discuss The Hellbound Heart, the novella that inspired the 1987 film Hellraiser, and in July we'll return for more Pinhead high jinx with The Scarlet Gospels (sign up for that here (https://www.meetup.com/The-Horror-Book-Club/events/221284923/)).

The Hellbound Heart is only short (144 pages) but the influence on modern horror is enormous.

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/d/a/a/b/600_436555979.jpeg

You can buy it easily as an ebook and audiobook but it can be a bit more difficult to find as a hard copy so it might be worth trying to look for it early if you prefer your books in the good old dead tree format.

UPDATE - After discussing with a few members, we've decided that because it's so short we are also asking you to watch the film Hellraiser in addition to reading the novella (if you have time of course) so we can compare and contrast the two. However, we would very much recommend you read the book before watching the film. For those who don't know, Hellraiser is the film adaptation of The Hellbound Heart and was also written and directed by Mr Barker himself.

Description from Amazon

"Clive Barker is widely acknowledged as the master of nerve-shattering horror. The Hellbound Heart is one of his best, one of the most dead-frightening stories you are likely to ever read, a story of the human heart and all the great terrors and ecstasies within. It was also the book behind the cult horror film, Hellraiser.

"In a quiet house on a quiet street Frank and Julia are having an affair. Not your ordinary affair. For Frank it began with his own insatiable sexual appetite, a mysterious lacquered box- and then an unhinged voyage through a netherworld of imaginable pleasures and unimaginable horror… Now Frank- or what is left of Frank -waits in an empty room. All he wants is to live as he was before. All Julia can do is bring him her unfulfilled passions…and a little flesh and blood…"

http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/e/2/4/9/600_435417929.jpeg