Review: “The Cilicium Quadra” by Barbie Wilde

Barbie Wilde’s 2024 collection, The Cilicium Quadra, is a masterclass in horror fiction that delves deep into the dark recesses of desire, power, and transformation. Renowned for her portrayal of the Female Cenobite in Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Wilde brings her intimate understanding of the Hellraiser universe to the forefront, crafting a narrative that is both haunting and erotically charged.​

Barbie Wilde’s The Cilicium Quadra is a richly imagined, exquisitely written, and deeply disturbing journey into the raw underworld of pain, power, and transformation. Barbie channels her intimate connection to the Hellraiser world into a fiercely original narrative that expands upon the lore while carving out something uniquely her own. With this book, she doesn’t just revisit the Hellraiser universe — she builds a throne in its blood-soaked depths and dares us to sit upon it.

At the center of The Cilicium Quadra is Sister Cilice, a woman imprisoned by a convent’s rigid expectations and repressive dogma, as well as her guilt for succumbing to her unfulfilled desires. Her discovery of an old Enochian Grimoire holding the key to the Schism — the portal to the Cenobite realm — is not merely an escape, but a deliberate act of liberation. Wilde’s writing here is breathtaking in its duality: lyrical yet brutal, spiritual yet carnal. Sister Veronica’s journey into the infernal is framed not as a fall, but as an ascent to reinventing herself as Sister Cilice — a dark awakening into a realm where pain and ecstasy merge, and where her transformation into a Cenobite becomes an act of terrifying self-realization.

Each of the four interconnected stories in this collection explores a different facet of Sister Cilice’s journey and legacy, weaving an intricate tapestry of sin, desire, and retribution. Wilde explores the psychological depth of her characters with unflinching empathy, revealing the ways in which repression — religious, sexual, societal — can morph into something monstrous when left to fester. Her characters are raw, broken, and beautiful in their unraveling, and their encounters with the Cenobitic forces are rendered with a sensual grotesquery that lingers in the imagination like a fever dream.

What makes this collection truly exceptional is Wilde’s fearless commitment to feminist horror. While the Cenobites have long been associated with themes of punishment and perversion, Wilde reclaims their mythology as a space for feminine rage and empowerment. Sister Cilice is not a victim — she is a revolutionary. In giving her a voice, a past, and a purpose, Wilde takes us back to that place within the Hellraiser canon, where the erotic and the terrifying are in ecstatic communion.

Featuring chilling illustrations by Adrian Baldwin and a striking cover by Steph Sciullo, the art complements Wilde’s prose with gothic elegance and raw intensity. The imagery, much like the stories themselves, oscillates between the beautiful and the grotesque, reminding us that horror, at its best, reveals both the wounds we hide and the truths we crave.

In The Cilicium Quadra, Barbie Wilde has delivered an anthology that is emotionally resonant, and viscerally unforgettable. This isn’t just a companion piece to the Hellraiser mythos — it’s a bold and blazing extension of it, infused with a distinctly female fury. For fans of dark fiction, Barbie’s work is essential reading — and with this collection, she firmly cements herself as a vital voice in contemporary horror and specifically in the Hellraiser fandom.

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