Clive Barker always seems like he has good intentions and wants to do new things with horror films -- from wanting Julia to be the star of Hellraiser, giving slasher movies its first main female antagonist, to having a starring monster played by an actor of color, who represents urban legends, to trying to create a horror/fantasy hybrid described as the Star Wars of horror to creating a franchise around a horror hero rather than villain and so on. In the case of Julia, Pinhead stole her spotlight. Candyman had some success, but died a sadly quick death in direct-to-video land. The "Star Wars of horror," Nightbreed, was butchered by the studios until everything that was unique about it was gone. And the horror hero? Was introduced in a bizarre movie that people couldn't make heads or tails of. It's the horror hero I want to talk about here, the private detective Harry D'Amour.
Harry has appeared in a handful of Barker's stories -- his first appearance was in the short story "The Last Illusion," from The Book of Blood series; it was this short story that Clive chose to turn into the character's first feature film debut, "Lord of Illusions." One of the things I find most interesting about the idea of the Harry character and his world is how Clive's idea was to mash up horror and film noir; Harry's a hardboiled private-detective who always gets mixed up in terrifying supernatural cases because, to use a favorite phrase of Clive's, Harry is "paying off a karmic debt." Harry's a magnet for darkness and he doesn't know why -- all he knows is he doesn't like it. He's remarked about how much he misses mundane cases like tailing cheating spouses and investigating insurance fraud. Now, I'm a fan of hardboiled police stories, so I find this combination with horror pretty cool. Harry shares a lot of the common traits of the typical hardboiled P.I. -- the cynicism, the isolation, being burned out, being a damaged loner, haunted by cases gone bad -- but the horror elements gives him an additional weight and casts a unique light on him. He can literally be haunted by cases, and he mainly tries to distance himself from people not out of misanthropy, but because he doesn't want anyone to be affected by the things that target him. Harry seems more caring than a lot of the typical hardboiled detectives -- he's spiritually sensitive and fears for people, but he also fears for himself. Harry's tattooed with protection symbols and is religious, wearing a crucifix, crossing himself and saying prayers to victims he finds. (He's also open minded about religions other than Christianity, stating that one "can't have too many saviors.")
While I enjoy the movie "Lord of Illusions," I think it's very flawed, and not necessarily the scariest story that could have been told. (I find it goes more for being unsettling rather than going for scares.) Other than a brief scene introducing Harry early in the movie, in his home turf of NYC, it doesn't quite have the hardboiled or noirish feel, and I think it's overall inferior to the story it's based on, "The Last Illusion." Clive adapted his own story and directed the movie, so why would he change it around so much? The short story has the same model of a lot of hardboiled books, where Harry's assigned an odd, but seemingly small case that just spirals out of control, getting worse and worse. In the story, he's hired to stand guard over a magician's body until it's able to be cremated. Why is that important? Well, it turns out that the magician acquired his powers through demonic entities and, not liking the way he put those powers to use, demons are sent to claim his body. Harry's supposed to make sure the body is kept safe until it can be cremated so that the magician will be spared the eternal torments of the demons. The magician's widow found out about Harry based on news reports she saw of him, an exorcism he was involved in that went bad and generated bad publicity -- he still hasn't gotten over it and he hates to talk about what all went down with that case, which is a mystery that Clive gradually unfolds over the course of a few stories.
Now, other than Harry's character and the names of supporting characters, pretty much everything is changed for the movie! The movie's plot is the magician's wife hiring Harry to look out for her husband, who has ties to a cult leader who is trying to be revived by his remaining followers. The movie has its moments, and I think the casting is pretty good, but I thought the short story was just more interesting and more in line with the intention of the world Clive wanted to create for this character. The movie doesn't quite match up with his intentions, it's a bit odd and doesn't quite gel, and I wouldn't say it was the best way to try to kickstart a franchise. But I think there's just so much potential with the Harry character, I really like the idea of the character, so that potential is what I like about the movie. I know some people have questioned Scott Bakula's casting as Harry, not thinking he fits the role of a hardboiled tough guy, but like I said, Harry's not quite of the typical hardboiled mold. He's seen shit that would turn Mike Hammer white! Harry can beat the shit out of some two-bit thug with the best of them, but his encounters with supernatural cases have brought him a kind of weariness and -- this is important -- compassion. He doesn't like his fate, but he wants to do what he can to protect people and balance the good. So, I think Bakula works, and I like him in the role. I just think a lot of the problem is that it feels like the movie doesn't focus enough on Harry as a person, just his investigation. (It would have probably been wiser to have his film debut center on the exorcism case that's crucial to shaping the character.) Clive seemed to really like Bakula's casting, even making remarks that he's since envisioned Bakula when writing the character, and Clive doesn't BS. So, Bakula was good to base a figure of Harry of off...
Generally, horror fans don't speak well of Lord of Illusions. So...I can't imagine a company ever, ever making a Harry D'Amour figure. You think a Laurie Strode figure is impossible? No, a Harry D'Amour figure would be even less likely. You'll probably see a a box-set of Ethel and Junior from Friday the 13th Part V before a Harry D'Amour figure. Now, I'm no toy customizer. There are people out there who can do crazy-awesome stuff -- sculpt, repaint. My approach is much lazier. Luckily, thanks to Star Trek, there are figures of Bakula out there. But Harry never wears a crazy space suit, so...I looked and looked for a figure, matching the same scale, that best resembled something like Harry -- or at least a private-eye -- would wear. A simple head swap, and this is the result...
I think the character has such potential, I could easily see him being the center of a HBO or Showtime-styled series, a 10/12-episode long season, with a serialized storyline, one major case to serve as an ongoing arc per season. What also sounds interesting, though, is that Clive's been working for several years on a novel in which Harry is hired to retrieve a person who solved Lemarchand's puzzle box -- meaning Harry would be facing off against Pinhead! Some fans question whether Barker will ever finish it since he's been working on it for so long, but a lot of fans are interested in what Barker has said will be Pinhead's last appearance (as far as he's concerned). I'd also like to point out how I think Harry's a bit similar to John Constantine, and both characters were created around the same time, so I wonder which came first. (I prefer Harry more, to be honest. I've read several Hellblazer comics and enjoyed them, but Constantine can come off as a little too self-righteous. Harry's a regular guy, just tryin' his best. Harry's flawed and damaged, but does manage to have a sense of humor.)
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