Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions

Directed by Clive Barker, Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions follows a grizzled private investigator (Scott Bakula’s Harry D’Amour) as he’s drawn into the mysterious underworld of creepy magicians and deadly cults. Filmmaker Barker, armed with his own screenplay, kicks the proceedings off with an underwhelming and rather unpleasant prologue that immediately establishes an arms-length atmosphere, and it’s clear, certainly, that Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions doesn’t begin to improve until it segues into its central storyline and the exploits of Bakula’s appealing protagonist – with the admittedly hit-and-miss narrative at least boasting a small handful of engrossing digressions and set-pieces (eg a magic trick involving swords goes brutally awry, Harry is attacked by a fiery specter, etc). There’s little doubt, then, that Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions‘ ultimate downfall is triggered by a lackluster midsection and somewhat interminable climactic stretch, which effectively ensures that the picture, at a palpably overlong running time of 109 minutes, could’ve benefited from a judicious pass through the editing bay.

** out of ****