The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

The Hellbound Heart

by Clive Barker

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...

Reviewed by empressbrooke on

4 of 5 stars

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Truly super creepy. I have not seen Hellraiser (or most 80s horror movies), so I wasn't sure what to expect. My only complaint is that it's really easy to dislike the victims. It might have been a little creepier if more morally ambiguous people had suffered; instead, I prayed for their painful demise.

Reading it after [book: Mister B. Gone] just confirmed what a disappointment Barker's newest book was. This one will be like [book: The Thief of Always], I suspect, which has stayed with me for over a decade.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 30 June, 2008: Finished reading
  • 30 June, 2008: Reviewed