J Edward Tremlett's Reviews > The Scarlet Gospels

A number of years ago, we received confirmation that Clive Barker was working on a continuation, and ending, of the story he’d started with The Hellbound Heart and his directorial debut, “Hellraiser.” The Scarlet Gospels would be a final showdown between the most infamous Cenobite of all, Pinhead, and Barker’s demon-fighting PI, Harry D’Amour, who’s appeared in a few of his other works.

Twenty years and a few format changes later, these gospels may at last be unsealed, but they may not bring much joy to those who’ve clamored for their approach. In fact, they’re something of a disappointment.

Spoilers abound below.

When Harry D’Amour gets a case by way of a ghost, he knows he should be careful. Not that it’s any more unusual than how he gets his cases, as those who’ve kept up with his character would know. But something about how the spirit went straight to his blind medium friend, Norma Paine, and asked for Harry by name should have tipped him off.

That said, there was no reason to imagine that purging a man’s gay sex-magic hideaway would lead to a run-in with one of the most powerful demons in existence – one who’s become even more powerful of late, thanks to stolen magic.

It would seem the most infamous member of the Order of the Gash – Pinhead, himself – has taken an unhealthy interest in D’Amour. He’s got a plan for this meddlesome mortal, itself part of a much larger scheme that’s had the Cenobite hunting and killing all the world’s major magicians over the last few years. The demon is about to do something truly mighty and terrible, down in the pit, and wants Hell’s number one adversary to be witness to it. Apparently, Pinhead wants the tale of what follows to be honest, and thinks he’ll get a better reckoning from an enemy than a loyal follower.

Of course, Harry wants nothing to do with the Hell-Priest’s proposal, but this explorer of pain and pleasure’s come too far and done too much to take “no” for an answer. So, when Norma gets carted off alive into Hell, it’s up to him and a rag-tag group of good friends and suspicious allies to go into the Pit to find her – bearing witness to Hell’s unmaking along the way…

To say more would be to deprive the reader of joys and surprises some twenty years in the making. Unfortunately, for something that’s been percolating for that long, these Scarlet Gospels are also something of a disappointment. Admittedly, it’s almost impossible for such a long-awaited work to fully live up to its promise, but many of the things we were promised would be in here, over the years, are not in the finished product.

Worse, there are other serious deficiencies at hand – things I never thought I’d see from our premier author of literary dark fiction.

The primary issue is the language, itself. Normally Barker’s powerful writing is a lush and sensual journey – one we are gladly tempted into, if only to be enveloped in such sinister and mischievous prose. Carefully crafted and lovingly laid down, with a surplus of wit and playfulness, its artifice is such that, even in his less-successful works, the letdown of the destination is largely redeemed by the voyage, itself.

Sadly, the writing in Gospels is mostly lackluster and sparse, especially in the first half of the novel. Even the magnificently-gruesome opening – brimming with a glorious surfeit of dark humor and transgressive transformation – is positively lacking in description compared to earlier efforts. It’s almost as if Barker was too harried by time constraints to properly conduct us from New York City to New Orleans and then unto Hell, and settled for the penny tour, instead.

Thankfully, once we get down below, some semblance of his luxurious word choice comes back to us. Unfortunately, he seems either unable or unwilling to put any of them towards explaining Pinhead’s ultimate motivations. The Cenobite forces D’Amour to bear witness to his works, but ultimately fails to explain why this plan – in motion since before Harry was alive – was implemented in the first place. Did he want to rule Hell, remake it, or simply bring it to ruin? We never truly learn.

And that omission forms the other major disappointment within the Gospels. Barker’s fiction has always shown us that the misshapen need not be mindless; even the most alien and loathsome of his creations has both personality and drive, sometimes more than their human foils. So having Pinhead play Don Juan – upturning the infernal applecart for no clear reason – reduces the most recognizable member of the Order of the Gash to little more than a mustache-twirling scoundrel.

Putting Pinhead into that role is also a betrayal of the source material. In both The Hellbound Heart and the first “Hellraiser” – which Barker wrote and directed – the Cenobites are not the true villain, but rather an otherworldly force that presents the chief danger of the narrative. They’re no one to trifle with, obviously, as their gruesome explorations of pain and pleasure really can tear your soul apart. But the real evil of the piece comes from Frank’s boundless lechery, and Julia’s willingness to do anything – even kill – to escape her boring life.

This is in keeping with one of Barker’s running themes: that the monstrous need not be monsters, and sometimes the most evil thing of all is humanity, itself. He doesn’t always hold to that motif in his writing – indeed, some of his most terrifying creations are beasts both in form and intent – but when he deviates there’s usually a good reason. Sadly, as the reason for Pinhead’s ambitious rampage is never made clear, the Cenobite becomes just another movie monster having a senseless tantrum. Given that one of his last acts is a truly horrific sexual violation of a main character, this seeming pointlessness truly grates.

Fortunately, in spite of its linguistic and motivational shortcomings, The Scarlet Gospels is teeming with Barker’s seemingly-boundless imagination. His full realization of Hell reconciles his earlier writing’s two entirely different visions of that locale, allowing the iconic exploratory torture of the Cenobites to take place alongside D’Amour’s more traditional demons and devils.

This more complete perdition is a fantastic, nightmare-laden landscape filled with institutions both torturous and baroque, their perversity mirrored by the uncanny architecture they dwell within. It’s not unusual for chroniclers of the Pit to use it to hold our reality up to a sinister mirror, but Barker’s surreal reflections of society, law, and order are truly and darkly magnificent. So much so that, as Pinhead gleefully dispatches them, one sickening and clever encounter at a time, we regret that we glimpse them but briefly before their extinguishing.

Thankfully, that snuffing is truly epic, and is perhaps the best payoff to take from these Scarlet Gospels. After years of living in the echoes of The Hellbound Heart, and the shadow of every movie to bear the name “Hellraiser” that wasn’t at least aided by Barker, himself – especially the truly horrendous, later ones – Pinhead is finally able to unsheathe his hook and be about his true work. Indeed, once the Hell Priest reaches what may have been his final goal, D’Amour bears witness to a titanic battle that unmakes much of what lies below, and portents drastic change on a personal and metaphysical level.

What then of that ending? Simply saying “everything changes” is quite trite, given Barker’s marked tendency to gleefully smash the fantastic worlds he carefully crafts. But one gets the feeling the echoes of this cataclysm will ring out loudly for some time to come, and across several of his series.

The elegiac and hopeful epilogue that rounds out these blood-soaked scriptures – perhaps the most compelling and heartfelt slice of the book – offers us some promise that we’ve not seen the last of these players. Hopefully the books they appear in will be more in keeping with the exquisite works Barker has produced in the past, rather than the lackluster offering The Scarlet Gospels has turned out to be.