Nightbreed


Nightbreed is a 1990 American dark fantasy horror film written and directed by Clive Barker, based on his 1988 novella Cabal, and starring Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Charles Haid, Hugh Quarshie, and Doug Bradley. The film follows an unstable mental patient named Aaron Boone who is falsely led to believe by his doctor that he is a serial killer. Tracked down by the police, his doctor, and his girlfriend Lori, Boone eventually finds refuge in an abandoned cemetery called Midian among a "tribe" of monsters and outcasts known as the "Nightbreed" where they hide from humanity.
At the time of its release, the film was a commercial and critical failure. In several interviews, Barker protested that the film company tried to sell it as a standard slasher film, and that the powers-that-be had no real working knowledge of Nightbreeds story. Since its initial theatrical release, Nightbreed has achieved cult status.
Over time, Barker expressed disappointment with the final cut approved by the studio and always longed for the recovery of the reels so the film might be re-edited. In 2014 original film elements for much of the cut material were re-obtained and were edited into a director's cut, released thru Scream Factory.

Plot

Aaron Boone dreams of Midian, a city where monsters are accepted. At the request of girlfriend Lori Winston, Boone is seeing psychotherapist Dr. Phillip Decker, who convinces Boone that he committed a series of murders. Decker is actually a masked, family-hating serial killer who has murdered several families. Decker drugs Boone with LSD disguised as lithium and orders Boone to turn himself in. Before he can do so, Boone is struck by a truck and taken to a hospital. There, Boone overhears the rants of Narcisse, a seemingly insane man who seeks to enter Midian. Convinced that Boone is there to test him, Narcisse gives Boone directions to the hidden city before tearing the skin off his face in order to show his "true" face. He is quickly subdued by hospital staff, and Boone leaves.
Boone makes his way to Midian, a city beneath a massive graveyard in the middle of nowhere. He encounters supernatural creatures Kinski and Peloquin. Kinski says they should bring him below, but Peloquin refuses to allow in a normal human. Boone claims to be a murderer, but Peloquin smells his innocence and attacks him. Boone escapes, only to encounter a squad of police officers led by Decker. Boone is gunned down after Decker tries to get him to turn himself in and then yells that Boone has a gun. Due to Peloquin's bite, Boone returns to life in the morgue. When he returns to Midian, he finds Narcisse there and is inducted into their society by the Nightbreed's leader; Dirk Lylesburg. In an initiation ceremony, Boone's touched by the blood of their deity, Baphomet.
Seeking to understand why Boone left her, Lori investigates Midian. She befriends a woman named Sheryl Anne, and drives to the cemetery with her. Leaving Sheryl Anne at the car, Lori explores the cemetery, where she finds a dying wolf-like creature. A woman named Rachel pleads from the shadows for Lori to take it out of the sunlight. Once in the shadows, it transforms into a little girl; Rachel's daughter Babette. Lori asks after Boone, but is rebuffed by Lylesburg and scared off by Peloquin. While leaving the cemetery, Lori discovers Sheryl Anne's corpse and her killer, Decker. Decker attempts to use Lori to draw Boone out of hiding. Boone rescues Lori, and Decker learns Boone is unable to be killed due to his transformation. Decker escapes and Boone takes Lori into Midian. Rachel explains to Lori that the monsters of folklore were peaceful beings who were hunted to near-extinction by humans. Boone and Lori are banished from Midian by Lylesburg. Decker learns how to kill the Nightbreed, and murders the residents of the hotel where Boone and Lori are staying. When Boone discovers the crime scene, he is unable to control his thirst for blood and begins drinking. The police find Boone and take him into custody. At Decker's urging, the police form a militia led by Police Captain Eigerman. A drunken priest named Ashberry joins them as God's servant in their upcoming battle against Midian. Lori, Rachel and Narcisse rescue Boone, and the four return to Midian where Boone convinces the Nightbreed to stand and fight.
During the battle, Ashberry learns there are women and children amongst the Nightbreed. When he tries halting the attack, he is beaten by Eigerman. Ashberry finds the idol of Baphomet and swears allegiance to it. When he is splashed by its blood, he is burned and transformed. Boone learns from Lylesburg that Baphomet plans to destroy Midian. Boone argues to release the Berserkers, a monstrous feral breed that were imprisoned due to their insanity. When Lylesburg is killed before he can open the cages, Boone releases them and the Berserkers turn the tide of battle. Decker confronts Boone and is killed. When Boone faces Baphomet, Baphomet says that Boone has caused the end of Midian, which had been foretold. Baphomet charges Boone with finding a new home for the Nightbreed and renames him Cabal.
Boone leaves Midian with Lori and meets with the remaining Nightbreed in a barn where he says his goodbyes to Narcisse and promises to find a place where they will be safe. In the ruins of Midian, Ashberry stands in front of Decker's corpse and states that he wants vengeance on Baphomet and the Breed. When he presses Baphomet's blood to Decker's wound, Decker springs back to life with a scream as Ashberry repeatedly hollers "Hallelujah".

Alternative ending

In the alternative ending used in The Cabal Cut and Director's Cut of the film, the Nightbreed await Boone in a barn whilst Boone says his goodbyes to Lori, as he must find a new home for the Nightbreed. Boone promises to return to her, but fearing she will become old whilst Boone will retain his youth and immortality, Lori stabs herself, forcing Boone to resurrect her as a Nightbreed. Narcisse is killed earlier in the battle by Decker, so he is not present during these events. Meanwhile, Captain Eigerman wanders the underground remains where he stumbles upon the transformed Ashberry, who now desires revenge. Eigerman shares this desire, but Ashberry rejects Eigerman's offer, kills him, and starts his hunt for the Nightbreed.
The surviving Nightbreed watch Boone and Lori in the distance. Babette asks Boone's name, and Kinski replies: "His name is Cabal. He unmade Midian". When she asks how soon he will come to take all of them to a new haven, Rachel's answer is: "In the next wind. If not tonight, then tomorrow". Babette repeats: "In the next wind", as the Nightbreed look expectantly at the couple, who are far away in the fields. It is then shown that Boone/Cabal and Lori are now part of their people's prophecy, and they are seen together as one of the paintings on the wall that relates the Nightbreed's history. In The Cabal Cut, the resurrection of Decker plays as a post-credits scene.

Cast

Development

always loved monsters and felt that "there's a corner of all of us that envies their powers and would love to live forever, or to fly, or to change shape at will. So, when I came to make a movie about monsters, I wanted to create a world we'd feel strangely at home in". He was interested in creating a "horror mythology from the ground up" and developing characters that would live on in sequels. As he finished writing the novella Cabal, he realized that it would make a good film that he would direct himself. He originally envisioned a trilogy of films.
Nightbreed was the first of a planned three-picture deal Barker had with Morgan Creek, Joe Roth's production company, that included an adaptation of Son of Celluloid and a sequel to Nightbreed. The first compromise Barker made was to change the title of the film from Cabal to Nightbreed because Morgan Creek insisted on a more commercial title and thought that the original one did not mean anything. He was given a budget of $11 million which was a considerable increase from the $2 million he had to work with on Hellraiser. His goal was to make the Star Wars of horror films. The monsters in the book are represented impressionistically over two or three paragraphs and the challenge Barker faced was to visualize them in much greater detail for the film.

Filming

For the film, Barker used three soundstages at Pinewood Studios shooting some scenes on location at Wexham Park Hospital, Slough, Berkshire, UK over several nights and in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Bob Keen and his crew had two months to play around with ideas before doing any modeling work. They used computer-controlled animatronics but only where necessary. Towards the end of principal photography, Barker brought Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie in to paint mattes for the Necropolis sequences and design the history of the Breed in a symbolic way on an enormous mural across a 60-foot space on the set at Pinewood to be used in the opening credits.
Barker was contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated film and could not make it as gory as his previous picture Hellraiser. Barker previewed the first cut of Nightbreed with a temporary soundtrack that did not go well as people were confused by the characters' motives. He made some changes and the second test screening was much more successful. However, the ending with Decker's death was not well received and Barker changed it. In late July 1989, the studio announced that the release date for Nightbreed was being pushed back from its original autumn 1989 date to early February 1990 instead. The press release cited "the complex demands of the film's ground-breaking post-production optical effects", but this also included McQuarrie's mural and matte paintings, and a week of additional shooting in late August that would see key parts of the narrative re-shot. Barker shot extra scenes over three days in Los Angeles in late 1989 which included additional scenes with David Cronenberg which expanded and clarified his character. Barker's original version ran two-and-a-half hours and Fox asked for almost an hour to be cut prompting editor Richard Marden to leave the project in protest. Nightbreed was cut to two hours and then again to 102 minutes.

Soundtrack

The score was composed by Danny Elfman and conducted by Shirley Walker, who also wrote the additional cue "Charge of the Berserkers" for the film's climax and received an onscreen credit. Elfman said of his score, "Once again it was time for me to stretch out... Combining dark/fun/sweet/tribal all into one. The great joy in the score for me, other than working for Clive Barker, was being able to use the children's voices and a whole slew of ethnic drums and instruments together with an orchestra, in an attempt to bring a unique musical tone to the film." Barker said "Danny is an extraordinary talent. The most uncompromised portion of that entire movie is the score."
In an article on Elfman, described as a rising composer in Hollywood who had just scored Tim Burton's Batman and was about to score Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, Entertainment Weeklys Ron Givens noted that Nightbreed wouldn't get as much attention as these two big-budget movies, yet Givens praised Elfman's "needle-sharp crescendos and creepy choral plainchants" and added: "Seldom has scary-movie music been so spiritual."
The song "Country Skin" is a country-and-western rendition of the Oingo Boingo song "Skin", it was written by Elfman and performed by country singer Michael Stanton. It can be heard in the film, played on a radio. It was available as a bonus track on the CD and Cassette version of the soundtrack.

Release

Marketing

According to Barker, the studio did not promote it well with posters that misinterpreted the content. When he saw the way they were selling Nightbreed, he "freaked out and said, 'What you doing? This isn't the movie, and was given all kinds of excuses... 'Well, there isn't time to change it, we have to release it now'." The head of marketing at Morgan Creek never watched all the way through because it "disgusted and distressed" him, according to Barker. The studio did not understand it, it had no movie stars, it was violent, and it had elements of fantasy and horror which they saw as a weakness while Barker saw it as a strength. They ended up marketing Nightbreed as a slasher film with television teasers that were confusing and did not represent it. The trailer was sent to the MPAA and it was rejected 12 times. They forbid any monster footage and it was cut down to someone being terrorized with a razor which constituted only five minutes of Barker's film. Looking back, Barker realized that Fox was better at promoting films like White Men Can't Jump but "not so good at selling the quirky stuff".
The studio argued that there was no point showing Nightbreed to critics because the people who see horror films do not read reviews. Therefore, the film had to be sold to the lowest common denominator. They refused to preview the film for critics, a decision which angered them.

Reception

Critical response

Nightbreed was not well received by critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports 41% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based on 27 reviews, with a rating of 5.43 out of 10. In his review for the Toronto Star, Henry Mietkiewicz wrote "Nightbreed might have been a monster movie milestone, if Clive Barker's directorial abilities had kept pace with his skill as a master of British horror fiction. Unfortunately, Nightbreed probably will be remembered as much for its haphazard plotting and underdeveloped characters as its delightfully daring concept". Derek Malcolm wrote in his review for The Guardian that "it is neither direct nor subtle enough as a piece of film-making. It is difficult to suggest that evil is human and monsters have souls within the context of a mountain of special effects. The result is patchy in the extreme and not always capable of transcending a genre that has become less and less intriguing as less and less is left to the imagination".
However, Entertainment Weeklys Ty Burr gave the film a "B" rating, writing "From the film's Gothic sets, fantastic makeup, and nightmarish plot line, it's clear that Barker owes as much to Poe and Lovecraft as to classic Hollywood screamers like Island of Lost Souls. But Barker's most perverse touch is that he makes these creatures the good guys. Despite their grotesque appearance, they're a more colorful and engaging bunch than the emissaries of the normal world. Barker piles on more subversive subtext than his story can bear — it's a monster movie, after all — but his daft, Grand Guignol vision has real power. The quality that freaked out the studio, Barker's ambition, is precisely what makes Nightbreed so impressive."
Filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky liked the film, calling it "the first truly gay horror fantasy epic", explaining how the unconsummated relationship between doctor and patient is in his view the central theme.

Box office

Nightbreed was released on February 16, 1990 in 1,488 theaters, grossing $3.7 million on its opening weekend. It went on to make $8.8 million in North America, below its $11 million budget.

Accolades

Merchandise

Comic books

In 1990, to tie in with the film's box office release, Epic Comics produced a four-issue adaptation of the film, which included significant differences from the finished movie, more closely related to Clive Barker's original script. The comic book continued to run past the end of the film, ultimately stretching to twenty-five issues before it was cancelled. The comic book was drawn by Alan Grant, John Wagner and Jim Baikie.
A two part graphic novel was also produced, Hellraiser vs Nightbreed: Jihad, which merges the two worlds created by Clive Barker and features the Cenobites as agents of order against their chaotic nemesis the Nightbreed, and the Jihad of extermination that the first wage on the latter.
Nightbreed returned in 1992, as a short story in the second issue of the four issue Epic anthology series.
A 12 issue mini-series was published by BOOM! Studios in 2014-2015 following the storyline of the Director's Cut of the film.

Video games

Two video games based on the film were released shortly after the movie. The games were intended to form a trilogy but due to the poor performance of the first two the third was never made.
The first was a traditional action game and was released for the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, and for DOS. Loosely following the same plot as the movie, it intersperses various action sequences.
The second game was released for the Amiga and ST and for DOS. Also based on the film, there was less action involved as it was more of an interactive movie.

Legacy

TV series

In 2014, it was announced that Morgan Creek was developing a television series based on the original film. In September 2015 Morgan Creek announced the sale of the domestic rights to its library of 78 films. However, the production company plans to retain the TV rights to Nightbreed. In June 2018 Syfy, Morgan Creek and Barker will develop the series.

''The Cabal Cut''

In 2009, Mark Miller, co-head of Barker's production company, Seraphim Films, helped track down the missing footage that was cut out of the director's cut of Nightbreed. Miller discovered, after talking to a production executive at the studio, that the footage was never actually lost but readily accessible. When asked, a studio executive said that there was not a big enough audience to warrant the studio spending money on a new, extended cut of the film. A VHS copy of Barker's 145-minute version of the film's mid-1989 workprint was discovered. It did not feature any of the re-shoots of Decker's murders. An extended 159-minute cut version, from another VHS found in July 2009, was premiered on March 27, 2010 as part of the HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis. This new version adds almost a whole hour that was cut from the theatrical release, including a musical score and more animation. In an interview, Barker said that he hopes to bring back Danny Elfman "and give us just a little bit of extra music for it."
In early 2012, Russell Cherrington, a senior lecturer in film and video production at the University of Derby, created a composite cut of the film using the footage found on both VHS tapes as well as a DVD then recently released by Warner Archive Collection, Warner's made-to-order DVD service. This version is the most complete version of Barker's film available and has been dubbed The Cabal Cut. The cut runs 155 minutes long and was shown at that year's "Mad Monster Party" in North Carolina with actors Craig Sheffer and Anne Bobby attending.
The "Mad Monster Party" projection of the Cabal Cut led to a renewal of interest among fans, especially on the Internet. A new petition was created and social networks were used to raise awareness for the extended cut and to encourage producers to release it. This would be colloquially known as "Occupy Midian", a term coined by actress Anne Bobby.
A Blu-Ray release of the "Cabal Cut" was announced on July 13, 2017 via the Clive Barker Podcast. This release utilized then-restored footage from the Director's Cut as well as the pre-existing VHS copies. The release also featured new material that wasn't previously released and commentary tracks exclusive to that release. Handled by Morgan Creek and Seraphim Films, the Cabal Cut Blu-Ray was released in a limited quantity through Clive Barker's online store.

Shout! Factory restoration and ''Director's Cut''

On July 19, 2013, Barker announced via his official Facebook account that The Cabal Cut would be released on DVD by Shout! Factory through its horror dedicated label Scream Factory. This was confirmed during a Scream Factory panel at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con, a deal finalized by President David Robinson at Morgan Creek and Executive Producer Michael Plumides, just minutes before the announcement. It was later confirmed to be a brand new director's cut that uses the footage and not the full Cabal Cut.
Shout! Factory announced The Director's Cut Blu-ray in July 2014, with details following in September, with a release date for October 28, 2014. This version, overseen by Clive Barker, will run twenty minutes longer than the theatrical version and contain forty minutes of new and altered footage. Shout, with Warner Home Video, were able to locate the original film elements in the Warner archives to newly restore the sequences. Barker stated, "when Scream Factory told me that they found the Nightbreed film footage, I was gob-smacked! This is the ultimate validation of choices made by myself and Mark Miller all the way back in 2008." Shout announced a Special Edition Blu-ray / DVD combo pack and a 3-disc limited edition Blu-ray, containing a booklet and the theatrical cut. The limited edition almost sold out of its initial 5,000 units when pre-orders began for it, Shout ordered another 5,000 units for popular demand.