I remember watching "Nightbreed" sometime during my teenage years and then again later on into my adult years. Then I decided to revisit it again, because I did remember it fondly.Now, I must admit that "Nightbreed" was actually weighed down by a fairly tame storyline, which was odd, because I remembered it to be much more entertaining. However, this lack of a deeper storyline, was more than made up for with lots of interesting make-up effects on the numerous members of the tribe.There was some good acting performances put on by an equally good cast, which includes the likes of Craig Sheffer and Doug Bradley."Nightbreed" is sort of a surreal mixture of horror and grotesque imagination from writer and director Clive Barker. But of course, one would suspect such an endeavor from a creative mind such as his, especially with all his other interesting work.This movie is not particularly outstanding in terms of the horror genre, although the creature design is something that will actually be imprinted in your memory for a long, long time. And that was a great accomplishment, in my opinion.I believe this is the third or fourth time that I have actually watched "Nightbreed" since it was initially released back in 1990.

Clive Barker's Nightbreed had a difficult production and an equally arduous release. The film was based on Barker's celebrated novella "Cabal," a fan favorite, and was adapted by the author himself, who also took over the directing reigns (his Hellraiser had been a hit only a few short years earlier). The ensuing marketing, release, and reaction was disastrous. First Barker's vision was re-edited and re-tooled without his consent, creating a film that felt oddly choppy and unfinished to many critics and viewers. While the plot was filled with unique characters and monsters (as well as a "the monsters are the heroes and the humans are the monsters" theme), the studio decided to market the film as typical slasher fare, pandering to the lowest common box office denominator. To Barker's horror, Nightbreed floundered in theaters and died a quiet death.Twenty five years after its initial release, Nightbreed has slowly but faithfully garnered a strong cult following. The fan base became so rabid—even starting a website called "Occupy Midian"—that a new cut of the film was created, cobbled together using old VHS quality tapes that became known as "The Cabal Cut, which was much closer to what Barker had in mind before the studio tampered with the film. Although extraordinarily rough in nature (and much longer in length), the new "Cabal Cut" was shown at various festivals to great enthusiasm from fans and even Clive Barker himself. The interest became large enough that Scream Factory, a horror offshoot of Shout Factory, decided to work with Barker and Morgan Creek to see if they could locate the missing film elements. After a lot of hard work and searching the Warner Brothers vaults (the footage had been thought to have been lost), the folks at Shout Factory were able to find the original camera negatives, and with Barker's help added nearly twenty minutes of footage to the theatrical cut thus finally offering fans a brand new look at Nightbreed: The Director's Cut the way Clive Barker had always intended.I've been a fan since I caught the film on video back in the early 1990s. There is a good reason why Nightbreed has become such a cult classic: It's a truly unique monster movie that doesn't attempt to play by the rules. While there's a lot of rubber suits and latex masks, Nightbreed separates itself from the pack by having something other than scares and violence on its mind. The core idea of the film—that the terrors living below Midian are no worse than the terrors living above in the cities—gives the film a lot more weight and meaning. The allegorical nature of the "us vs. them" theme makes the film less a scary monster movie and more a dark poem; while the monsters of Midian are physically grotesque, they only want what we want: do be left in peace to live a life of their choosing. This makes Nightbreed an especially topical film that has held up surprisingly well.The real standout is David Cronenberg as the film's secondary villain, who doesn't really act so much as stand there and look creepy in a mummy mask made of buttons and zippers. Fans of classic science fiction cinema should keep an eye out for John Agar (Tarantula, The Mole People) as a local gas station attendant who gets on the wrong side of Dr. Decker's knife.

I had seen NIGHTBREED at the time of its' release and never thought much of it. I recently finished a second viewing of the "Director's Cut" of Clive Barker's 1990 film and I find that my impressions of this movie have not changed much over the years. This is a movie that you want to love. It's Clive Barker. It has cool monster ideas and an attempt at a deep mythology. It has a creepy serial killer. It's like a checklist of horror geek wishes, but somewhere along the way it all goes wrong and the movie ends up falling flat and feeling, at times, like a bad BBC production. Clive Barker is an enigma to me. I would consider HELLRAISER to be one of my favorite horror films of all time. The horror genre is littered with the corpses, though, of directors who never matched their debut film and Barker seems to be one of those. I have found that none of his movies after after really grabbed me as being much more than average. In general movies like this tend to be great ideas with poor execution. That is true of this movie to a great degree. A self-admitted attempt at a "dark horror STAR WARS" the movie attempts to create a dense mythology full of different races and unique creations. While I have not read the novella, I would assume this idea works much better when left to imagination. It would even work great as a comic book. Barker just does not seem to have the directorial chops, though, to bring this vision to a cohesive visual experience. Even in director's cut, the movie is choppy and uneven and never creates any true sense of direction.I appreciate the attempts to bring a slew of practical effects makeup monsters to the screen. I, also, recognize the age of the movie, but some of these designs look much better than others. I guess you could say that was true of the Cenobites, as well, but I digress. For every cool Porcupine quill shooting femme fatale, there is a horrid, moon-faced oddity that looks like it would have belonged in a bad fast food commercial. We see better makeups each week on FACE/OFF than some of these creations.Another knock is the casting choices. The lead actor is not especially engaging, in my opinion. He has the requisite good looks and this would, certainly, not be the fist horror film to cast a bland attractive guy as the lead. The most egregious choice is the casting of Cronenberg as Dekker. This needed to be the anchor character at the core of this film and could have been a terrifying killer in the hands of a more adept actor, but Cronenberg comes off like every other director with "actor envy" and shows why he's better off behind the screen. He's completely flat and never hints at any true sense of malevolence. My last complaint is the odd sense of humor that seethes beneath the surface, but comes out bubbling in the finale. It's a cartoonish sense of tempering the horror with comedy and feels like bad British humor, which is essentially what it is, in the end. I have read several of Barker's works and like every one of them. The man is a wizard of ideas, with a rich imagination that is capable of conjuring vivid landscapes and rich characterizations. Unfortunately, he's shown a struggle to bring those ideas successfully to the screen and this movie is no exception.

First off, if you aren't watching the director's cut, cease and desist immediately! I can't imagine this being anything short of a crappy, incoherent mess with a half an hour of footage missing. So get it some way or another - it's on Netflix now, hope it stays...This had all the makings of a cult classic. I guess it is one. Perhaps it came out a few years too early, and didn't hit on the goth fad upswing. Otherwise, the studios might not have butchered this into a mediocre turd and - who knows? - maybe actually spent some effort on marketing and distribution. Seriously: angst-ridden adolescent has friction with his psychiatrist and dreams of a freak- filled graveyard city called Midian (more like a town, actually) where all the ghouls, monsters, and other outcasts can come party without fear of the Norms. But of course, the world of squares and morning people is slowly encroaching, and only a very special chosen hero can save the day...it's written in the prophecies and all. How a studio couldn't market something like that is beyond me.But the thing is...Clive Barker is a novels guy first and foremost, and to cram a story of such epic proportions into a two hour film is a difficult task for even the most seasoned filmmakers. So even the director's cut feels loose and baggy at the seams. For instance - there seemed to be no real narrative purpose for the black detective from Calgary, other than to provide legitimacy for Dr. Dekker (played wonderfully by a very creepy Cronenberg). And the priest - what was his deal? I am sure the novel does a way better job of inflating them with shade and nuance, but they were pretty hollow here. Likewise, many scenes of dialogue felt off because of a phantom backstory seemingly glossed over - similar to the sheepish feeling one sometimes gets watching movies that expect everyone to already know certain characters and their personality traits. But the dialogue and minor narrative problems aren't what hold this back from true greatness. Maybe it's the Elfman soundtrack, or the morose look of the male lead, or maybe it's the moon-face guy dragging down the visual dignity of the entire Midian freak crew...heck, maybe it's just the early 90s production values - whatever it is, it injects an unshakable, lingering odor of silliness throughout the entire affair. The story is a dark epic, and requires an atmosphere of minimum silliness and maximum magic to properly suspend disbelief and carry itself on its own inertia. The moon-faced guy stands in the way, his stupid moon-face resembling a long-lost member of Metallica viewed through the prism of heavy hallucinogenics...That being said, if a magical freak city called Midian (or Clive Barker's name) appeals to any of your sensibilities in any way, you won't regret watching this. You may not come out 100% stoked, but you certainly won't be disappointed.