Clive Barker shapes up Midnight Picture Show

Clive Barker is teaming with producer Jorge Saralegui to form a new venture called Midnight Picture Show, which intends to produce two horror films per year.

Most of its productions will be based on short stories from Barker’s six-volume The Books of Blood series or on his original ideas.

Among Barker’s many upcoming film projects:

Lakeshore Entertainment has been set to finance “The Midnight Meat Train,” an adaptation of the Barker story about a Gotham-based photographer’s effort to track down “the subway butcher,” a search that leads to an unholy secret. The pic was adapted by Jeff Buhler and will be directed by Patrick Tatopoulous, a horror vet who has done extensive creature and production design work.

“The Plague,” a Hal Masonberg/Teal Minton-scripted fright film that will be directed by Masonberg this summer. Pic concerns an apocalypse that causes kids to lapse into vegetative states, only to awaken years later bent on murdering their parents.

Anthony DiBlasi, an exec at Barker’s Seraphim Films label, to adapt the Barker short “Pig Blood Blues,” and John Heffernan to draft “New York Resurrection,” from an original idea by Barker. They hope these movies will be made in 2006.

Next up will be the Barker short “Age of Desire,” scripted by Charles Canzoneri, along with “Revelation,” a pic that Lori Lakin is writing, based on her own idea.

“Jorge and I want to wind up with a library of pictures that will reflect my sensibilities, which are decidedly R rated,” Barker said. “In fact, the moment I make a PG-13 horror movie, you can take me out and shoot me. Our desire is to leave you feeling that we’re a little crazy.”