`FREAKZ' ALIVE, CLIVE!; HIS `LIVING MOVIE' AN A-MAZE-ING EXPERIENCE.

Byline: Rob Lowman Daily News Entertainment Editor

Clive Barker is at peace. No, not as in RIP.For the past few years, Barker had been uncomfortable being seen as the ``horror guy,'' who is invited out at Halloween to comment on the Dark Side. He felt remote from his earlier works, such as ``Books of Blood'' (1984), intense horror tales that Barker calls ``violent, visceral, erotic stuff.'' But these stories and his ``Hellraiser'' movies had made his reputation. And no less an authority than Stephen King had christened him ``the future of horror.''

But Barker felt that he had grown as an artist and gone on to other things, including his fantasy novels and his painting, and bristled at being pigeonholed.

Then last year, he attended a Halloween celebration and, well, enjoyed himself. And Barker still seems to be enjoying himself.

``That's exactly right,'' he says with a laugh when it's suggested that he's come to peace with himself and his image. Though he still feels remote from the man who created ``Books of Blood,'' Barker says, he has a new respect for the stories and for his former self.

Now, the man who created Pinhead, the urbane, spike-faced minion of evil with a bloodlust for human souls from the ``Hellraiser'' movies, has turned his talents to creating a maze for Universal Studios Hollywood, ``Halloween Horror Nights II,'' which will begin Friday, to give fright fans their ``own private piece of horror theater.''

``Clive Barker's Freakz,'' which Universal is billing as a ``living movie,'' will use 35 actors, Barker says, and ``each person will get a slightly different experience.''

Barker says Universal was indulgent with him. ``They haven't made me water anything down,'' and he wasn't obliged to use Universal horror figures such as the Frankenstein monster, either.

``About 15 minutes into the meeting with Clive I knew we had the right person,'' says Norm Kahn, vice president of entertainment at Universal Studios Hollywood.

``He understands how to build horror and tension.'' ``Freakz,'' says Kahn, is ``an assortment of horrific oddities that Clive has gathered from around the world.''

And while Barker admits that creating the maze appeals to the showman and voyeur in him, he also acknowledges the public's craving to be frightened. ``If we gave them watered-down scare they'd be angry,'' he says.

`Strong public appetite'

``There's something deeply perverse about this. If something like this happened to us in real life - a completely negative thing - we'd reject it wholesale. But if it's a safe environment, like a movie or a ride or a book that we can put down, there's a very strong public appetite for it.''

Barker says that what he is doing with the maze is the same as what King calls ``taking the reader into the morgue and feeling beneath the sheets.''

``What it is,'' Barker says, ``is a confrontation with death in a very safe environment. If we walk away from the play environment having confronted death ... then maybe we are stronger when we confront it in the real world.

``We all need to do this. We're all going to die.''

On the day we talk, Barker is celebrating his 46th birthday, and so maybe mortality is on his mind. ``The years tick on and you get closer to the end,'' he philosophizes, ``and that's part of the dynamic of being alive. Knowing we're on that journey.''

He then points out how newspapers tell us every day that there are innumerable ways we may not die peaceably, and that there is this need in people to feel an adrenaline rush - such as a near miss on the highway - that makes them feel more alive than they did before it happened.

``Maybe that goes again to why people need these kinds of experiences (horror shows, etc.) in their lives,'' he says.

But Barker is sounding very upbeat and alive this day, enjoying a Havana cigar as he talks. And there isn't much time to be ``at peace.'' Besides the horror maze, the Renaissance man has a list of ongoing projects that would make the rest of us just tired from looking at it.

``Clive is like David Bowie. He constantly reinvents himself,'' says Del Howison, the owner of Dark Delicacies, a horror book shop in Burbank. ``I think that's almost for sanity reasons. ... When you've accomplished something, why would you want to repeat yourself? Clive constantly has broken new ground, whether it's his artwork, writing or filmmaking.''

Hooked from early books

Howison was hooked on Barker from his early books but has watched the author expand his horizons, citing Jean Cocteau, the French film director, as one of Barker's inspirations. ``Cocteau,'' Howison says, ``didn't limit himself to one thing, and Clive hasn't done that, either.''

If you doubt it, just look at what's on Barker's calendar.

Beginning Halloween eve at a gallery in Silver Lake, an exhibit of Barker's artwork, ``The Weird and the Wicked,'' goes on display. He describes it as ``chiefly erotic work and some fantasy stuff.'' Howison points out that Barker always has made himself accessible to fans, and prices his artwork beginning at around $600 so it's not out of reach for his public.

And then there's ``Gods and Monsters,'' which will be out in November. The film, which Barker produced, deals with the life and career of ``Frankenstein'' director James Whale. Directed by Bill Condon (``Candyman Farewell to the Flesh''), ``Gods and Monsters,'' stars Sir Ian McKellan, Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave, and has been getting early raves.

The energetic Barker hopes that ``Weaveworld,'' the miniseries adaptation of his fantasy novel for Showtime, will go before the cameras next spring. He's also developing ``Heretics,'' a TV series for HBO that is described as being about America's dark secret lineage.

And he's still writing. In June, he released his 11th book, ``Galilee'' (HarperPrism), a novel he labeled ``a romance'' that chronicles the interwoven histories of two powerful families, one human and one divine. For next October, he is writing a collection of short stories - something he hasn't done since ``Books of Blood'' - that will contain both horror and fantasy tales. And then two years down the road, there's ``The Book of Hours,'' which is 25 6,000-word stories.

``Everything brings out a slightly different side to what I'm up to,'' he says, quipping that all these projects keep him off the streets, which means he's busy coming up with new adrenaline rushes for his fans.

So, what scares the man who scares us?

Barker admits to a fear of ``airplanes, elevators, anything that's claustrophobic.'' Seeing a couple of his friends committed to mental institutions and going to visit them made him feel uneasy. It's that ``fear that we might be perceived as crazy or that we are crazy and don't know it,'' he says.

Anything else?

``Running out of Havanas,'' he says, laughing.

Barker's bite of multimedia

Clive Barker is a busy fellow.

Today, you can hear him talk about horror at E! Online (www.eonline.com/Hot/Realtime/Filmschool/) at 3 p.m. To hear the Webcast, you'll need Real Audio's Real Player. Sections of the transcript will be posted later.

On Friday night, he'll be at Universal Studios Hollywood for the opening of his maze, Clive Barker's Freakz, during Halloween Horror Nights II and will sign books for his fans around 9 p.m.

On Oct. 30, artwork by Barker, ``The Weird and the Wicked: A Halloween Exhibition of the Erotic and the Fantastic,'' will be unveiled at La Luz de Jesus, 4633 Hollywood Blvd., Silver Lake, where it will remain through Nov. 29. An artist's reception will be held from 8 to 11 p.m. opening night. For information, call Leslie Napoles at [phone].

To find out what else he's up to, check out the Clive Barker Web site (www.clivebarker.com).

- Rob Lowman

Return of the horror

Universal Studios, which was once the fright king with films such as ``Frankenstein'' and ``Dracula,'' wants to reclaim its role as leader in horror, says Norm Kahn, vice president of entertainment at Universal Studios Hollywood.

``It's a corporate priority,'' he says, citing not only the Halloween extravaganzas at the theme parks here and in Florida but upcoming films such as ``Bride of Chucky,'' ``Psycho'' (by the way, you can see the film's trailer before it hits theaters on the Internet at www.psychomovie.com) and the recently announced ``Untitled Frankenstein CGI Project,'' which is a full-length all-digital computer-generated film.

Part of that priority, Kahn says, is to build up attendance at the theme parks during off-peak times. Acknowledging that it faces tough competition from Knott's Berry Farm, Universal hopes that ``Halloween Horror Nights'' becomes an annual draw.

Kahn says that along with ``Clive Barker's Freakz'' maze this year there will be three other mazes - the sci-fi based ``Alien Assault!''; the ``Crypt Keeper's Screaming Room,'' which is a tribute to modern horror; and ``Classic Creature Features,'' spotlighting Universal monsters such as Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman and the Mummy.

Many of the park's usual attractions will take on a Halloween theme, too. ``Waterworld'' will become ``Slaughterworld,'' and there will be an ``Animal House of Horror.'' There also will be a Kiss tribute band performing at the Beetlejuice Rockin' Graveyard Revue and a host of ``scaracters'' roaming the park.

Universal's ``Halloween Horror Nights II'' runs three consecutive weekends beginning this Friday and Saturday and running Oct. 23-24 and Oct. 29-31. It will be open 7 p.m. to midnight Thursdays and 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Tickets are $24 in advance, $34 at the gate. For information, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos, 2 Boxes

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) BOO!

Find out what scares Clive Barker - and how he's going to terrify you

(2)``What it is,'' Clive Barker, center, says of ``Clive Barker's Freakz,'' ``is a confrontation with death in a very safe environment. If we walk away from the play environment having confronted death ... then maybe we are stronger when we confront it in the real world.''

(3) no caption (Halloween Horror Nights II)

Box: (1) Barker's bite of multimedia (See Text)

(2) Return of the horror (See Text)