With Nightbreed, Clive Barker set out to create the Star Wars of horror. It’s debatable if he reached that lofty goal, but there is no denying that his efforts produced something captivatingly unique.
Director’s cuts are often a dubious proposition. Blade Runner has a great one, and Tombstone comes to mind as well, but nine times out of ten a competent editor is a film-goer’s best friend. This is particularly true in an era where blockbusters routinely push the 2 ½-hour mark in their theatrical release. With Nightbreed, Clive Barker’s 1990 fantasy-horror opus, the director’s cut is essential to understanding his singular vision.
The film is basically two different horror genres smashed together. It features a straight-forward slasher villain, but he’s been dropped into a surreal fantasy about a city of ground-dwelling monsters. Studio executives at the time loved the tried-and-true slasher formula, but were less sure about the weird porcupine ladies and leech monsters. As a result, the original release of Nightbreed was re-cut and re-shot to focus on the former, at the expense of the latter. The recently-released director’s cut delivers a much more balanced movie.
Our chief protagonists, Boone and Lori, are lovers living in Calgary. Boone has dealt with some psychological issues in the past, mostly centered on the crazy dreams he’s been having about a place called Mideon. Mideon is where the monsters live. After a visit to his psychiatrist, Dr. Dekker, however, it turns out that the biggest monster may actually be Boone. Dekker informs him that he has been linked to a string of vicious home invasions where entire families have been slain. Boone leaves Lori to seek out Mideon where he will be accepted despite his supposed crimes, is bitten by a demonic denizen of the city named Peloquin, shot to death by the police, comes back to life, and escapes the morgue to return to the hidden city of monsters. All of which is really just set up to kick off the main plot, which involves Lori’s journey to re-connect with Boone, and Dekker’s efforts to bring down Boone and Mideon for good.
Nightbreed’s biggest strength has always been the incredible creativity on display. Barker has populated Mideon with all manner of monsters, some cool and dangerous, some hideous and deformed. There is also an interesting inversion of the monster film, as the monsters are not the default villains in the movie. Much like the X-Men universe’s Morlocks, they are forced into hiding underground due to their persecution at the hands of mankind, and they run the gamut of the moral spectrum just like we do. The cast is great, with solid performances by the leads and great supporting work from Hugh Ross and Oliver Parker (as Narcisse and Peloquin, respectively.) It’s famed director, David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome) who is arguably the star of the movie, however. He is simply a revelation as the icy, sociopathic Dr. Dekker. He is able to convey an incredible amount of menace without acting aggressively or modulating his voice. If this were the standard “killer stalking victims” picture that the studio clearly wanted, it’s safe to assume that Dekker would be a big horror icon right now.
The new cut steers the focus towards Mideon to some extent, but the most marked shift is the development of Boone and Lori’s relationship before they are separated. In the original version, Lori almost felt like an ancillary character, the type of love interest shoe-horned into movies because it that’s what is expected. The recently added scenes go much deeper, giving us more of a sense that these two are truly in love and helping the narrative that they are destined for each other go down a little easier later in the film. The ending is also very different (better, I think) and there is an unexpected character death late in the film that shocked me due to my familiarity with the theatrical cut. Nightbreed was always an uneven film, however, and the changes don’t fix all of its problems. The plot involves a prophecy about Boone saving the Nightbreed, and while I’m always wary of movie prophecies, I think it’s fair to say that this one doesn’t pay off in any meaningful way. You could actually argue the exact opposite, that Boone dooms his new “family” by breaking their laws in an effort to save Lori. Turns out they were laws for a reason. The grand crescendo of the film involves a posse of police and local gun enthusiasts descending on Mideon and doing battle with the Breed, and it is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it’s confusing that we have what are clearly caricatures of Southern rednecks crawling out of the woodwork in… Canada? Do the police even carry guns in Canada? While Barker does a good job of imbuing the Nightbreed with depth and personality, he makes no such effort for these one-note antagonists. Ridiculing the American South is something of a hobby for many film-makers, and these are some of the laziest stereotypes to fall back on. The battle itself is also pieced together a little wonky, making it tough to figure out who has the upper hand at any given time. Luckily, the more personal battle between Boone and Decker which occurs in parallel is very well executed.
I always liked this movie when I was younger, but I am much more firmly in its camp now. The restoration of Barker’s vision proves to resolve many of the film’s issues, and the ones that are left are easy enough to look past. I should probably note at this point that the film can be very violent and disturbing at times, so tread lightly if you like the concept but have an aversion to that type of thing. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly recommend this one. I don’t know of anything else out there that is like it.
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