TheRedDeath30 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.

SnoopyStyle Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) has disturbing dreams of Midian where monsters live. Psychiatrist Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg) is treating him and convinces him that he committed a series of murders. He tries to go to Midian for real and is rejected by its inhabitants. The police catches up to him outside the gates and Decker tricks the police into killing Boone. Boone is resurrected and he is accepted into Midian. His girlfriend Lori Winston tracks down Boone but she is followed by Decker who turns out to be the real monster.Clive Barker is not quite good enough to direct this. Cronenberg is competent as a villain but he would have been a far superior choice as the director. This is filled with the grotesque and weird monstrosities. Some of it is very effective gore. Narcisse slicing through his own head is amazing although other creatures are less effective. There's only so much real makeup can do and CGI is rather primitive. The movie attempts for grand horror but Barker doesn't have it in him. He is still stuck in a lot of B-movie horror tropes. The cops are too silly. There are not enough good actors for the minor roles.EDIT: Director's Cut It's been so long that I can't tell what's been added in this version. There's almost twenty minutes more. This probably flowed a bit better although it could cut down Anne Bobby's singing. Neither her nor Craig Sheffer are A-list performers. The limitations are still the same in this extended cut. I still don't see why body-horror expert Cronenberg isn't doing the directing. He's right there on set already. The creature creations are pretty good especially considering the limited budget although Midian is short-changed. It needs to be more other-worldly. The secondary acting is still B-level. This will never be better than a relatively good B-movie. I do wonder if a bigger remake could be great.

Scott LeBrun Note: this review and rating applies to the directors' cut recently released on DVD and Blu-ray by Scream Factory.Clive Barkers' adaptation of his own story Cabal is one that actually could be described as epic in this incarnation. While it would have been even nicer to get to know our characters a little better before the darkness falls, the film succeeds on a visceral and visual level. The look is something special, and the theme is resonant. The end result comes about through intolerance, hatred, and xenophobia, and one cannot help but root for the monsters. Unfortunately, the producers at Morgan Creek did not see eye to eye with Barker, and compromised his vision. They didn't think it possible for monsters to be sympathetic or to be heroes.Craig Sheffer stars as Aaron Boone, a young man unsure of whether or not he is committing murders. His psychiatrist, Philip Decker (a well cast David Cronenberg) is not really any help. Unfortunately, the police are convinced that Boone's a killer, and track him down to the gates of a mysterious community named Midian. There he is pumped full of bullets. However, what Boone had wanted was to become a part of this community, believing that it's a place where sin can be forgiven. The monsters soon accept him as one of their own.Sheffer is okay, but is easily out acted by Cronenberg, who creates a memorable creep indeed. Anne Bobby is very appealing as Lori, Boones' lover who embarks on a journey into this other world in search of answers. Charles Haid is excellent as a gung ho antagonist, police captain Eigerman. The very fine supporting cast also includes Hugh Quarshie, Doug Bradley, Catherine Chevalier, Nicholas Vince, and Simon Bamford. It's a treat to see screen veteran John Agar in a small role.The varied and vivid makeup effects work on all of the characters is most impressive. Hats off to Bob Keen and his company Image Animation for all of their efforts.In addition to an engaging romance at the centre of things, Barker is able to create a fierce, dynamic apocalyptic climax that should have its viewers' full attention.A creature feature with a sensitivity towards its creatures, "Nightbreed" is definitely worth a look, or another one, for fans of the genre.Eight out of 10.

Darth-Helmet Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) has been having bizarre nightmares about monsters and there has been some horrific murders going on, his psychiatrist Dr. Deckar (David Cronenberg) believes he's going nuts until he is set up to be murdered. Boone's body is whisked away by a secret cult of outcast creatures called the Nightbreed and becomes one of them, however Deckar and some other humans have discovered their realm as a war between man and beast clashes for a true battle of who is the real monster.Writer-Director Cliver Barker creates another outstanding masterpiece of the macabre combining ghastly horror with Gothic fantasy all combined in one. The music score by Danny Elfman is quite outstanding especially the brilliant creature and make-up effects used in this motion picture which made it the best special effects film of the year 1990. After two years in the making, Mr. Barker delivered a very underrated cult classic of art with a moral about that sometimes humankind is the monster while the creatures are just misunderstood beings. The film is quite gory at times yet the movie itself was butchered by Morgan Creek and was originally gonna be released in August 1989 after being filmed in 1988 for a year and a half as there were reshoots and all that as for the next years, the original director's cut was thought to be lost but then since 2009 a cut called the Cabal Cut which ran for nearly 3 hours was shown in film festivals and in conventions over the 4 years, Shout Factory made a deal with Barker and Morgan Creek to bring the director's cut to the public as they finally did after fans have been waiting for the years to see the missing footage. The new Director's Cut really is a MUCH much better movie than the theatrical cut was as it gives more character development, stuff you never seen, more history on Midians and all that with different ending.Recommended if you like monster movies, fantasy and horror. Oh yes i forgot to mention, Shauna Sassi she is one of the hottest creature chicks you'll ever see and Rachel the smoke woman, wow! what a woman. Also recommended: "Beetlejuice", "Hellraiser 1 & 2", "Hellboy 1 & 2", "The Island of Lost Souls", "The Island of Dr Moreau (1977 and 1996)", "Freaks", "Freaked", "Little Monsters", "Re-Animator", "Pan's Labyrinth", "Pumpkinhead", "Cronos", 'The Lost Boys", "Near Dark", "