Any movie trailer that starts like this is bound to get my attention, even if the naked guy is caressed by a woman before collapsing amid threatening graffiti in his cell. Besides, it's Books of Blood, based on the collection of stories by gay horrormeister Clive Barker. Many of the stories had gay protagonists, so there are bound to be some gay characters in the movie, right?
In the frame story, an elderly bookseller with a cavernous bookstore runs afoul of mob enforcer Bennett. To save his life, he reveals that the extremely valuable Book of Blood is hidden in the abandoned town of Ravenmore. So Bennett and his partner, Steve, set out to fetch it. Maybe they're a gay couple? While they're driving, we see some stories:
1. Jenna. A college student suffering from a mental disorder, Jenna stumbles upon a bed-and-breakfast run by a sinister heterosexual couple that paralyzes their guests and seals them in the walls.
Contrary to expectations, she doesn't end up in the wall, but she does die, in a car crash, during an unrelated story about an guy blaming her for his son's death.
Kenji Fitzgerald (left) plays fellow guest/ "love interest" Gavin.
2. Miles. Psychic Simon (Rafi Gavron) and his girlfriend Mary are running a foundation that communicates with the dead (using Mary's money). His technique involves getting naked and asking the ghosts to write messages on the walls in blood (that's what we see in the trailer) Then Mary's dead son Miles appears to tell her that Simon is a grifter; it is all a fake. So Mary and Ghost Miles get revenge.
The stories over, Bennett (Yul Vasquez, photo from several years ago) and Steve (Andy McQueen) finally reach the abandoned town of Ravensmore. Nope, not a gay couple: Bennett says that after this score, he and "Jeanne" are going to retire and live on the beach. Was it really a good idea to give his wife almost the same name as Jenna in Story 1, so you think they're the same person?
Steve hears his dead mother calling him, so he shoots himself so they can be together. Ok, the "in love with his mother" stereotype might code him as gay.
Bennett presses on. He meets Mary and Ghost Miles, and discovers that -- spoiler alert -- the book is actually stories told by ghosts, written on Simon's body. And now Bennett's story will be there, too, after he's eaten by rats.
Hmm -- I guess it wasn't a frame story after all. We return to Jenna, who survived the car crash. But she still feels guilty because, before the bed and breakfast incident, she talked her boyfriend Tony (Seamus Patterson) into jumping off a building to "make a statement" about the futility of life. Maybe being walled up in a B&B is a good idea, after all.
Beefcake: Simon is naked all the time.
Gay Characters: No.
Heterosexism: Everybody has or alludes to a heterosexual partner.
Convoluted Plot: The frame story turns out not to be a frame after all. And why does it say "Books" of blood, when there's just one book?
Grossness: Lots. Fortunately, it's usually too dark to see what's going on.
My Grade: F.
Barker does have some stories with gay protagonist like "In the Hills, The Cities" in which a gay couple on holiday stumble into an ancient battle between two small villages- but it would take a lot of expensive special effects to do it right
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