The directorial debut of Clive Barker, touted as the Stephen King of England. It's something to do with a fleshless man who occupies the attic above his brother and sister-in-law; he's been reduced to that state by some dough-faced ghouls called Cenobites, who can be summoned by a sort of magical Rubik's Cube; he is hoping to restore himself to full corporeality by a diet of fresh human blood, and the sister-in-law is willing to lure donors to him because -- but oh, never mind that. The special effects are mainly of the skinned-rabbit variety, and are of unskinned-rabbit prolificacy. There are touches (or whole strawberry-jam-smeared handprints) of dark humor, much less prolific, however, and arrested in development at roughly the peak age for pulling the wings off flies. (Certainly a King connection there!) At times Barker achieves a nightmarish quality in the best sense of the word: the quality achieved in actual sleep. More often he achieves that quality in the worst, widest-awake sense. The character who is offered up for the spectator to sympathize with is -- can you guess? -- a teenager. That's what's meant, or partly what's meant, by nightmarish in the worst sense. Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence. (1987) — Duncan Shepherd
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