Editorials
Clive Barker’s ‘Dread’: Appreciating the Underrated ‘Books of Blood’ Adaptation
Clive Barker‘s stories often feature fleshy abominations and nightmarish hellscapes, but there’s a lot more to his writing than supernatural terror. His real skill as an author is in exposing the unmistakably human desires and anxieties behind these horrors and forcing us to reckon with that inner darkness. While we’ve seen several films that successfully translate this human side of Barker’s terrors, often directed by the writer himself, there is one underrated Books of Blood adaptation that perfectly distills why the author is a Master of Horror without the need for otherworldly threats. Naturally, I’m referring to Anthony DiBlasi‘s underrated 2009 feature, Dread.
Like the short story, Dread is a psychological thriller chronicling an ill-fated fear study conducted by a group of college students. In need of a thesis project for his Film degree, Stephen (played by Twilight favorite Jackson Rathbone) partners up with the mysterious philosophy major Quaid (Shaun Evans), who suggests an ambitious project documenting the source of people’s deepest, darkest fears. With a little help from fellow student Cheryl (Hanne Steen), the group begins to investigate the titular dread behind their volunteers’ assorted traumas, though it soon becomes clear that Quaid is planning on using their subjects as guinea pigs in his own sociopathic experiments.
While the film deviates from the original tale by rearranging certain plot points and motivations, it’s still incredibly faithful to the existential undertones of its source material. On paper, this premise may sound like yet another example of 2000s “Torture Porn,” but the characters and backstories are believable and detailed enough to allow for a more personal exploration of fear and its origins. Fortunately for us horror hounds, that doesn’t make things any less frightening. There may not be any cenobites on display, but there’s plenty of appropriately horrific imagery to remind you that this is still a Clive Barker story. From trippy axe murders to moments of emotionally charged body horror, Dread derives its scares from both psychological turmoil and physical suffering, succeeding as a genuinely unnerving scary movie (something akin to a more cerebral version of Saw) and an intimate character study.
It’s even scarier with context.
The film is admittedly a bit too edgy for its own good at times, containing a few instances of pretentious dialogue and some questionable needle-drops, but a collection of solid performances mostly makes up for this. Evan’s tormented yet charismatic interpretation of Quaid results in an almost-sympathetic antagonist, even as his obsession with fear leads him to torment his own friends. Rathbone also makes for a compelling lead, with his doomed friendship with Quaid becoming the true heart of the story.
Of course, the movie’s most powerful scenes are carried by Laura Donnelly and Hanne Steen as Abby and Cheryl, with both characters being forced to face their own traumatic memories during Quaid’s misguided attempts at “therapy”. Abby coming to terms with reactions to her unique birthmark is exceptionally cruel, but Cheryl’s stomach-churning confrontation with her childhood memories is one of the film’s depraved highlights, proving that no supernatural boogeyman can compare to the inner horrors of the human mind.
It’s this added character work that makes the inevitable suffering so hard to watch, as these believable traumas make the victims seem like real people instead of disposable “Torture Porn” fodder. In fact, Stephen’s car accident story is based on a real incident involving the director, and the film’s down-to-earth approach to real-life horrors like sexual abuse and bullying make for a surprisingly mature experience. On the other hand, Quaid’s trauma feels a lot like an exploration of the emotional aftermath of a Slasher flick, making some of the same points as Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2, where a lone survivor is forced to cope with the knowledge that the source of their pain is still out there somewhere.
The film student angle also adds a dimension of meta-commentary to the story, with the characters’ reactions to the fear study hinting at some of the strange reasons why us horror fans are so enamored with fear in the first place. We can’t help but watch as these poor college students become trapped in an almost operatic tragedy, culminating in a gut-wrenching finale that’s even more disturbing than the ending of the original story, but no less meaningful. This also leads to one of my favorite final lines in any horror movie, though I’ll avoid spoiling it for first-time viewers.
This will not end well.
Not everyone will appreciate Dread‘s low-budget indie aesthetic, with handheld cameras and dark, grainy footage making it clear that this isn’t a large studio production, but I actually think that the gritty visuals help with the film’s dreary atmosphere. The grimy urban photography really grounds the story in a familiar American college town despite the fact that the movie was shot in London (which is fitting for a Clive Barker adaptation). The no-frills aesthetic also enhances some of the film’s surprisingly effective moments of violence, adding another layer of filth to already-disturbing situations.
Curiously, the movie contains some subtle references to Barker’s other works, as Cheryl can be seen editing a sequence from 2009’s Book of Blood film, and Quaid’s eerie portraits (painted by Nicole Balzarini after a contest where horror fans were selected as models) are done in a style reminiscent of Barker’s less-surreal artwork. The director even had plans for another Barker adaptation with Pig Blood Blues, though that project sadly never materialized, making this the closest we ever got to a Books of Blood cinematic universe. At the very least, DiBlasi went on to direct the John-Carpenter-inspired The Last Shift, which is another criminally underrated thriller.
Ultimately, I think Diblasi’s Dread is one of those rare adaptations that improves on the source material by expanding on it. The original yarn may have been a short but sweet dive into fear-induced madness, but the film manages to also make us care about these characters as we follow them down the rabbit hole. It may not be a perfect movie, but the existential terrors of Dread will linger long after the credits roll, and I’d rank it up there with the best Books of Blood adaptations. I only wish Barker would tell more stories where the monster under the bed happens to be one of us.
That’s why I’d recommend Dread to any connoisseur of fear. Because if you don’t go out and find the beast, sooner or later the beast finds you.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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