2freensel I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

mr_facehead In a nutshell, 'Book of Blood' promisingly starts off with a jolt of well crafted horror, dangles monotonously throughout the middle, and seemingly gives up all hope at them end (at least you'd hoped they weren't trying).The film's beginning and whole premise draws you in enough to make the ending watchable. Had the curve of production quality been reversed I would have struggled to make it through to the middle of the film.Obviously, a great story from Clive Barker, which I still feel film portrays fairly well. Casting is good, and the narrative flows fairly well (despite a few notable acting faux pas, which are forgivable). The mood of the film has an apt feeling of eerie darkness right from the opening, but slowly looses momentum and completely hits you with unexpected scenes of modern schlock that you might find on DVD in Poundland.I wasn't overly hopeful, but with an introduction like in this one, you can't help but feel disappointed and I would say this is worth watching with caution.

Vomitron_G This film pleasantly surprised me. Recent Clive Barker adaptations haven't really been masterpieces (though thankfully there always has been enough talent involved to make them interesting, at least). "The Plague" (2006) just wasn't much to write home about. "The Midnight Meat Train" (2008) was better, but it basically just tried to blow your socks off with extreme violence & bloodshed. And now, "Book of Blood" might just be the finest recent adaptation so far. It relies more on mood & atmosphere and all this is handled well. A duo of paranormal investigators - Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward), the professor & Reg Fuller (Paul Blair), the technician - moves into a reputed haunted house. Mary invites student Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong) to come along, for she believes him to have psychic abilities that might tap into the house's paranormal activities. But distrust soon rises between the threesome as they try to determine what's real and what's not in this house of hauntings.Granted, the story remains pretty thin throughout the film, but director John Harrison takes this as an opportunity to not only create an eerie mood and build tension, but also to work on the main characters. There's a disturbing sexual tension growing between mentor Mary & student Simon which escalates in some keen exposure of betrayal. Actress Sophie Ward is an awesome woman and left a great impression on me with her toned-down performance. Both the pro- & epilogue make the movie a bit oddly structured, but it helped to flesh out the story a bit (pardon the pun). The film oozes with that sort of old school British Gothic vibe, but it's much darker portrayed than usual, adding a great deal of atmosphere to the picture. It's a rather little film, don't expect to be blown away, but it's a well-made effort and a clean adaptation carrying on the spirit of Clive Barker's work splendidly. I have yet to see his other recent outing, "Dread" (2009), but I've heard decent things about it already.

fedor8 Barker's story isn't flawed in the pace department, as some complain here. I didn't feel the plot dragged on. Rather, I found the characterization to be flawed.The student cheats his teacher by faking supernatural signs in the house. Where the hell did that come from? A totally unnecessary and puzzling plot-twist. However, much worse was Sophie Ward's totally inexplicable and illogical transformation from a normal woman to blood-sucking, amoral, brutal quasi-vampire. Just because a few insects landed on her face she made a 180 and turned into Satan's emissary? That was rather stupid. No explanation given, not even a hint. Suddenly she's the bad guy, period.No, Clive, landing a couple of insects on the character's face does NOT qualify as an explanation. Nice try, but no cigar.Was anyone truly surprised by that pathetic, predictable plot-twist involving Ward as being the person who hired the psychopathic killer? I saw that coming a mile away.And how the hell did she manage to fill that hole-riddled cottage with a pool of blood? Don't liquids leak through holes? So she established contact with the dead: fine. She reads their little stories: fine. But how does that suddenly turn her into an all-powerful witch? And since she is so powerful, why even bother to hire a killer?As for the dead, I have no clue what fascinating stories they might have had to tell the living. Perhaps about how bored they get in the after-life? How terrible the food is in Purgatory? About how dull it is to walk around like a zombie and stand in line for a chance to write down a few experiences on the skin of a living person? Did they get numbers when waiting in line? Did fights break out between the undead as they impatiently waited to cut his skin? The visuals offered of the crossroads of the Dead were very good, I thought, but I can't escape the nagging doubts that the dead were just a bunch of bored zombies who overvalued their own stories, to the point where they thought that a hot female teacher should read them from the skin of her hapless pupil.

Loveofthedark I must really be missing something after reading some of the other reviews. I thought this was a complete was of what should of been an enjoyable movie experience.To sum it up there is a professor who studies the paranormal and just happens to get a new student in class that happens to be a clairvoyant, how convenient, that she can use in here new research project. From that point on it just gets predictable. Professor and student start sexual relationship, student turns out to be a fake who sets up paranormal activity in house being researched, when project is set to be shut down student shows back up and swears he didn't fake all activities and just to prove it runs upstairs where ghosts just happen to appear at the right time to try to tie up the lose ends of this horrible story. A few obvious twists here, add some there and you end up with a very bad film. Not recommended for the avid Barker fan, very disappointing.