Nightbreed is a 1990 dark fantasy/horror film written and directed by Clive Barker and starring Craig Sheffer, David Cronenberg, and Anne Bobby. The story is a film adaptation of Barker’s 1988 novella Cabal and follows a young man named Aaron Boone who is plagued by recurring nightmares of an underground world filled with bloodthirsty monsters known as the Nightbreed, only to discover that that world is real and all too close to home. This movie feels like a lot to unpack in ways because it was trying to do a lot of fantasy world building and atmosphere creating and a lot of it worked, but a lot of it was also torn apart and destroyed by studio battles between Clive and the production company. There were parts of this movie that felt like ‘Dark Crystal’ or ‘Labyrinth’ to me in the fantasy world building and practical set design aspects because they were released in the same sort of era as well, and that’s not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination for me personally because I love ‘Dark Crystal’ and ‘Labyrinth’ is fun in its own ways as well I suppose. This movie was just trying to do so much and set up so much and didn’t feel like it had its chance to fully deliver on a lot of the ideas or premises laid out. Clive Barker initially went into this movie treating it like his precious brainchild and wanted to set up in his words “a film universe like Star Wars but for horror” and that honestly sounds so awesome, but the studio didn’t get his vision and ultimately butchered the thing in post-production and he didn’t get a chance to release his director’s cut version of the film till years later.
I will say that I just watched the director’s cut version, I wasn’t going to even waste my time with the theatrical release after reading the backstory and turmoil behind this movie, so if you’re interested that version is available on Prime and Shudder. Aside from Midian (the dark underground world that the monsters inhabited), this movie was also partly a slasher film because there was a serial killer going around killing people in the town and trying to set Boone up and make it look like he was the one committing these murders. The serial killer looked awesome in this though, he had like a burlap sack mask with buttons for eyes and a zipper at his mouth hole that was slightly askew. I’ve heard him referred to as ‘sack-head’ and ‘button eyes’ online, but I think button eyes just sounds a little more ominous, sack head just sounds like a testicle-based insult. The mask in itself had a bit of a BDSM vibe to it to be quite honest, which is right on par with Clive Barker and his work. He’s known for dabbling into the S&M and sexual undertones in his films, you can always feel that tension and get what he’s trying to do but he’s never really shoving it in your face either. Even the female monsters in ‘Midian’ all had a certain seductive energy about them and would easily manipulate human men into doing their biddings when it was necessary. For being a pretty openly gay man and one of the only ones at this time in horror, Clive certainly enjoyed his creepy, sexual undertones and human bodies on display as art in his work. Another aspect I really enjoyed here was that this film flipped the script compared to most horror movies and made the monsters the sympathetic ones that you cheered for, and the humans were the evil ones. The monsters felt like misunderstood outcasts that were cast away and destroyed by humankind for being different. I’ve seen people say that this was potentially in ways Clive speaking for himself and everyone in the gay community as part of his own lived experience and I could see that, or him speaking for all of society’s outcasts through art in a way, which is cool.
The sets in this movie were truly art and the monsters that made up ‘Midian’ were a spectacle to behold in practical effects, if you’ve ever read my horror reviews before you know how much of a huge fan I am of practical effects art and artists. David Cronenberg was probably the best acting performance in the movie for me personally as the creepy Dr. Decker (Boone’s psychiatrist). He’s known for being a writer/director himself and I get it, I love ‘The Fly’, but after seeing how unsettling and intimidating he can be and feel, I’m honestly surprised he didn’t do a lot more acting within the horror realm. Now, I will say I feel like they tried to cram a lot into this, even with the director’s cut this movie felt a little dense at times and like some things didn’t really need to be there. The “small-town” cops in this movie where ‘Midian’ was at underground were so over the top and absurd that it was kind of funny, but I was also annoyed by them rather consistently and wish they just weren’t there or at least didn’t act the way that they did. The ending was a bit of a confusing bummer to me in ways as well and his girlfriend, oof. She was so likeable the entire movie and then at the end she acts inhumanely toxic with Boone and pulls a Romeo & Juliet move on him because he won’t agree to stay with her and practically forces him to turn her Nightbreed in the process. Sorry, a little bit of a spoiler but I was so mad at that in the moment. I guess it was supposed to be romantic and portray undying love, but it flew way off base for me. That’s the thing with Clive man, I’m a big fan and I enjoyed this a lot and love ‘Hellraiser’, but the dude just needs to not include romance storylines in his films because it’s cringy when he does. Overall, I’d recommend giving this a watch for the fantasy world building aspect, the practical effects and art designs, and Cronenberg’s performance as an actor, but it really just left me wishing there was more. I wish we got to explore the ‘Midian’ mythology more and dive deeper into that universe, I wish the studio didn’t basically rip this film away from Clive and edit the crap out of it butchering it in the process for years, and I wish there wasn’t so much that had to be overcrammed into one film and we could have like a miniseries or something set in this universe and really flesh out the different characters and monsters within.
That’s all for this one though folks! Make sure to stay up to date on the blog and like the page if you haven’t already to see my latest posts over WWE, horror films, freshly released movies, NFL, and the NASCAR Cup Series!
