Barbie Wilde is best known as the Female Cenobite in Clive Barker’s classic cult horror movie Hellbound: Hellraiser II, as well as appearing in Death Wish III and Grizzly II: The Concert. She’s had four short horror stories published in four different anthologies over the last few years. In November 2012, Comet Press published Barbie’s first dark crime novel, The Venus Complex.
What first attracted you to horror writing?
To be frank, my interests have always been more concentrated in the area of dark crime – horror with a human face, if you like. When Paul Kane, my editor on Hellbound Hearts, asked me to write a story based on the mythology that Clive Barker created for his novella, The Hellbound Heart, I initially told him that I didn’t think I could come up with anything. However, he persevered and my story about the making of a female cenobite, Sister Cilice, popped into my head. After that, I was asked to write horror short stories for more anthologies such as ‘Uranophobia’ for Phobophobia, ‘American Mutant’ for Mutation Nation and ‘Polyp’ for The Mammoth Book of Body Horror. I have to admit, I now really enjoy writing horror, but it wasn’t a natural step for me. Of course, I’ve always enjoyed watching many kinds of horror films. (As well as being in a couple of them, too!)
What is your most notable work?
I’m best known for playing the Female Cenobite in Hellbound: Hellraiser II and I suppose that ‘Sister Cilice’ from Hellbound Hearts is my best known story so far. I’ve even written a ‘further adventures‘ type story about Sister Cilice for the Followers of the Pandorics website, as I am co-designing ‘The Cilicium Pandoric’ with Eric Gross.
My new dark crime novel, The Venus Complex (a fictionalised journal of a serial killer), is also getting some great reviews from publications such as Starburst Magazine and Fear Magazine.
What are you working on now?
I’m concentrating on promoting The Venus Complex, as it’s just been published by Comet Press. I’ve got a new short horror story coming out soon in the anthology The Demonologia Biblica (edited by Dean Drinkel and published by Western Legends Press), along with two more short horror stories in 2013. I’m also co-writing a musical drama for stage and screen, which is a very interesting departure for me. And finally, I’m just about to start writing a screenplay from one of my published short stories.
Who do you admire in the horror world?
Writers: Clive Barker. Ramsey Campbell. Shirley Jackson. Jack Ketchum. Paul Kane. Edgar Allen Poe. Stephen King for Carrie, The Stand and The Shining amongst many others.
Directors: John Carpenter. Cronenberg (for all his body of work, not just horror). Guillermo del Toro for Pan’s Labyrinth. Robert Wise for The Haunting. Ridley Scott for Alien. Japanese horror such as Ringu and Audition aka Odishon.
Writers-directors: Jen and Sylvia Soska (Dead Hooker in a Trunk and American Mary).
There are also two other female writer-directors that I’ve met and have a lot of respect for: the former editor of Rue Morgue, Jovanka Vuckovic (The Captured Bird and Self-Portrait) and Devi Snively (Trippin, Death in Charge and Last Seen on Dolores Street).
Do you prefer all out gore or psychological chills?
Oh, psychological chills any day!
Why should people read your work?
They should read my work if they are interested in finding out what makes disturbed people tick. I’m fascinated by the psychological motivations of those psychopaths amongst us with smiles on their faces and death in their hearts.
Recommend a book.
Only one book?! All Hellraiser fans should read Clive’s original novella that was the basis of the series: The Hellbound Heart. I also love the work of Paul Kane, in particular The Gemini Factor and Red. And Sarah Pinborough’s The Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy is fantastic reading as well.
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