Title: Coldheart Canyon
Author(s): Clive Barker
Publisher: Harper
Year: 2001
I love Clive Barker. The Hellraiser poster in the horror section of my local video store growing up was a spooky item of seminal importance. Of all the enchanting, alarming and titilating box covers to be found in that fertile VHS swamp, it’s that of Barker’s 1989 classic that sticks with me the most doggedly. Finally seeing the film itself, followed in short order by viewings of Candyman, Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions, would set me solidly on the path of becoming the horror obsessive I am today.
Later on, as a young man looking to fill in the gaps in his knowledge of horror literature, I’d read his short story In the Hills, the Cities, while in the waiting room at jury duty, and though I wouldn’t be selected to serve on any juries that day, I would be inspired to do my civic duty and devour all the Books of Blood on a summer trip to Ojai, California, contentedly hiding from the July sunshine in my darkened hotel room.
Coldheart Canyon is a more recent (but still 25 year old) outing from our favourite prince-alberted lord of plump vermillion darkness. It’s classic Barker, telling a story of hedonistic depravity and debauched blasphemy in an accurséd Hollywood Hills mansion. Fans of Barker’s work will find much to love here, and Los Angeles natives residing in exile in northern lands will feel their heartstrings tugged by Barker’s lovingly dismal renderings of that fallen city. RHCP’s Under the Bridge, but the bridge is a dungeon, and the city is an upholsterer’s nail being driven into your cock, forever.