Sex, Death and Hollywood (Coldheart Canyon - Clive Barker)

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	Coldheart Canyon - Clive Barker
Date:	01/08/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An interesting mix of themes, dark and over the top

Disadvantages: Not one of Barker's most original books

The main character Clive Barker's Coldheart Canyon is Todd Pickett, a fading Hollywood film star who undergoes a plastic surgery operation to improve his declining good looks only for the procedure to go horribly wrong, leaving him disfigured and his career in ruins. He buys a secluded house in a little-known place of Coldheart Canyon, hidden amongst the lavish estates of the Hollywood stars, and it is here that he becomes embroiled in a turbulent relationship with a dominatrix-like Romanian woman by the name of Katya, who appears to be the spitting image of a Burlesque-style, Hollywood film actress from the 1930s who was briefly famous but who disappeared into obscurity overnight, never to be seen or heard of again.

Through Katya, Pickett discovers a strange basement room which appears to have magical properties, the walls coming to life and acting as a window to a bizarre and wildly imaginative new world. Pickett soon finds that Katya has her own vested interest in the strange room, and discovers that all is not as it seems at Coldheart Canyon, with the ghosts of long-dead stars from Hollywood's golden age congregating there to engage in wild drunken orgies throughout the night as the rest of Hollywood sleeps on, oblivious. Pickett must discover the true nature of Katya, as well as the significance and origin of the mysterious room, whilst avoiding the temptations of the wild and uncontrolled movie star spirits that surround him.

Coldheart Canyon is a very intriguing read that mixes wild fantasy elements, buckets of blood and gore, the media fascination with the cult of celebrity and lots of gratuitous sex, even by Barker's standards, to create a book that is very entertaining, although perhaps not hugely original. The notion of long-dead spirits from the early 1900s eternally engaging in extravagant and uninhibited drunken balls in some obscure spot away from the world of the living is eerie and exciting, but is strongly reminiscent of Steven King's The Shining, whilst the magical room device, though very well executed, borrows from some of Barker's own earlier work, particularly his early fantasy novel 'Weaveworld'.

However, though 'Coldheart Canon' may not be one of his most original books, it still remains a very enjoyable read that will not leave Barker fans disappointed, and is well worth a read for horror/fantasy fans in general. Readers of Heat magazine will likely find it strangely fascinating too, given its focus on the neuroses, train-wreck lifestyles and deranged mindsets that so frequently seem to accompany celebrity superstardom. A gratuitous, entertaining, and in places unsettlingly atmospheric read.

Summary: A entertaining read that shows Hollywood in a new, far more sinister light