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YMMV / Clive Barker's Next Testament

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  • Cliché Storm: Tristan calls his father Julian this, he is a corporate shark with a manor and a secret room in a library, which is found by pulling the book Paradise Lost.
  • Complete Monster: Wick, "The Father of Colors", is a psychotic, hedonistic entity who inspired both God and the Devil from the Bible. Having caused all manner of chaos in the past, including flooding the Earth just to see how it would look, he was locked away for 2,000 years by his brothers, Unan and Filt, before being awakened by a rich old man named Julian Edmond. After taking Julian's lover as a sacrifice and brutally killing everyone at Julian's encampment, along with almost everyone at a dinner party back at Julian's mansion, Wick announces his second coming to the world by causing every single aircraft on Earth to plummet to the ground at once, killing hundreds of thousands. After traveling with Julian to Hollywood, Wick, bored with what humanity has become and deciding that he preferred the Earth with a smaller population, starts randomly wreaking havoc through the world, killing millions and wiping out the entirety of the Midwestern United States. Wick blots out the sun and has a swarm of locusts assault the world after he is dissatisfied with a pyramid built in his honor, and later murders both a young lady who he supposedly liked as well as Julian, both merely for questioning him. Wick, after failing to see anything worth saving, finally announces his intent to obliterate everything and start over, and even upon his defeat Wick gloats that he'll one day be back. A self-absorbed being with near-limitless power, Wick proves himself to be a far cry from the benevolent depictions of God.
  • Fanfic Fuel: We barely learn anything about Wick's fellow gods Unan and Filt other than they have humanity's best interest at heart and imprisoned Wick because of it. If Wick is the "Father of Colors" and derives his omnipotence from that, what domains do Unan and Filt hold? What have they been doing all this time?
  • Funny Moments:
    • It's just before things get real dark, but one dinner guest calls Wick's lengthy "The Reason You Suck" Speech "the coolest thing I've ever heard." Wick can only clutch his face in annoyance.
      Wick: Hopeless.
    • In general, Wick can be pretty darkly funny when he's not utterly ruthless and terrifying. Like when he goes around trolling Julian's guests or when he almost cartoonishly creates a loudspeaker shaped like a phonograph cylinder from nothing.
    • A junkie sees Wick licking his wounds and thinks he's just tripping.
    • Pretty much everything with the girl from San Francisco. At one point, while they're flying to France, she tells Wick she wants him inside her. Julian tells them to Get a Room! Then there's when even she gets tired of Wick's predictability.
    Girl: Dude. I wouldn't be surprised if Wick's next words are "look up."
  • Heartwarming Moments:
    • There's something touching about the Humans Are Flawed speech from one of Wick's brothers.
    As our creations, they are inextricably flawed. And though plagued by mortal fears and spiritual uncertainties beyond our understanding, still they wade through the darkness. Still they fight for what they believe. Still they love ... they live ... and they go on. If indeed, they are deserving of death, then we, dear brother, are deserving of far worse. Their fate is no longer in our hands. It is but the other way around.
    • Tristan's narrations in the epilogue are pessimistic, but take on more of a bittersweet, Anti-Nihilist stance in the end.
      Elspeth: So you wanna tell me what happened in the latest dream?
      Tristan: (narrating) The same thing that happens every time ... I die ... I wake up ... and then the wind comes. (out loud, pressing his head up against Elspeth's pregnant belly) No. It's too beautiful a day.
      Elspeth: I know. I can see the wind coming.
      Tristan: (aloud) I can't wait for her to see it. (narrating) So much has changed. The world is different now. And it's always been that way.
      (the two share a kiss backlit by a colorful sky)
  • Ho Yay: Tons between Julian and Wick. It's all but stated that Julian is in love with Wick, though Wick sees Julian as more of a plaything that he tolerates out of necessity and for his own amusement.
  • Love to Hate: Wick is such a deplorable, unlikable monster who epitomizes almost everything wrong with the god of the Bible, but that's what gives his character such charm.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Imagine, if you will, that the god you were taught is loving, benevolent, and wants to ensure you get into Heaven, is not only real, but doesn't care one bit about your well being, and the afterlife doesn't even exist. In fact, more than likely, he just wants to see you and everyone else in the world annihilated because he's not the center of attention anymore and thinks of his creations as disappointments.

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