Did you people see the same film I saw?

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Plagued by weird dreams of a mythical place called Midian, Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) is drawn into a nightmarish world of monsters and madmen, with adoring girlfriend Lori (Anne Bobby) in tow.I first saw Clive Barker's Nightbreed in 1990 and couldn't believe that it was from the same man who gave us the excellent Hellraiser: the film was a total mess. I have since learnt that the movie was the victim of studio interference and that some footage was excised against Barker's wishes, but to be honest, more of the same doesn't make the experience any better. The Director's Cut still suffers from a dreadful story, weak performances, bad special effects (that cemetery matte painting is awful!), lousy monsters (pathetic creatures that we, the viewers, are supposed to empathise with), and an all-pervading, overblown score from Danny Elfman (of which the chanting sections sound uncannily similar to that old advert for Meow Mix… "I want chicken, I want liver…").Only David Cronenberg, as hooded serial killer psychiatrist Dr. Philip K. Decker, impresses, his character being a truly scary creation (although I still haven't quite figured out how he can see through those buttons on his mask); to be honest, I wish the whole film had been about Decker… it would have been a whole lot more entertaining than this muddled monster mash.3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

A masked serial-killer is slaughtering families. Meanwhile, the youngster Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) has nightmares with monsters in a place called Midian. He has therapy with the psychiatric Dr. Philip K. Decker (David Cronenberg) and his girlfriend Lori Winston (Anne Bobby) wants to travel on vacation with him. When Aaron visits Dr. Decker for a session, the doctor convinces him that he is a serial-killer and asks Aaron to turn himself in to the police. He also gives a medication to calm him down. However it is indeed a hallucinogen and Aaron is hit by a truck. He awakes in a hospital where he shares a room with the insane Narcisse (Hugh Ross). When he overhears the man talking about Midian, Aaron learns the direction to reach the place. He heads to the place and finds that Midian is a cemetery. Further, there are monsters hidden from the humans in the underground and is bitten by Peloquin (Oliver Parker). Aaron flees from the monsters and finds Dr. Decker, Detective Joyce (Hugh Quarshie) and a team of police officers waiting for him outside the cemetery. Decker lies and yells that Aaron has a gun and he is murdered by the police. However the bite revives him and he goes to Midian, where he joins a society of monsters hidden in the underground. Meanwhile Lori is seeking him out while Decker wants to destroy the ancient bred of monsters."Nightbreed" is a cult-horror-fantasy film by Clive Barker. The film is highly entertaining but screenplay has an abrupt beginning and a deceptive conclusion. The DVD I saw does not have an alternate ending in accordance with the director's cut, but the description gives a perfect conclusion to this film. Aaron says goodbye to Lori, but she suicides and resurrects as a Nightbreed. There is no resurrection of Decker and Ashberry kills Eigerman that is seeking revenge. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Raça das Trevas" ("Darkness Breed")

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.

I'm no stranger to looking past how certain movies have aged over the years. I can still enjoy a film from decades gone by and overlook their special effects and production values from the time. However, there are certain aspects I have a hard time ignoring. A lack of cohesive editing and scrambled arrangement is the downfall of "Nightbreed."There's always been a lot of talk about studio tampering when it comes to the theatrical version of "Nightbreed." Clive Barker's cut of the movie is a disjointed mess of scenes that jumps back and forth giving it a scattered and clumsy feel. It doesn't convey its creator's genius the way it should.If you look past all its negatives, "Nightbreed" does a great job showing Clive Barker's talent at manufacturing characters that are both sympathetic at a human level and unique in design. The creatures found in the movie each have their own characteristics and look, much the way Barker did for the Cenobites of "Hellraiser." You empathize with each one even if they do appear frightening on the outside. From a religious standpoint, most fundamentalist Christians are going to have serious issues with "Nightbreed." The title group worships Baphomet, which is an idol or deity most commonly associated today with the Church of Satan. Aside from that, it's referred to as a representation of the sum total of the universe – male and female, good and evil, etc. From what I understand, Barker is an atheist so it's safe to say he uses Baphomet as a symbol of the latter. Either way, its pagan in design which won't make Christians comfortable watching it."Nightbreed: The Director's Cut" is unrated but could easily hold an "R." There's some nudity and gore, but nothing that sends it into NC-17 territory. There's the usual amount of violence and gore found in horror films as well. It's said that Clive Barker was attempting to create a world of horror the likes of what "Star Wars" did for science fiction. As far as characters and settings go, he accomplished his goal. However, the breakdown for "Nightbreed" was in its lack of cohesion when it comes to narrative arrangement. Its unconventional editing and thrown-together feel hijacked any chances of conventional moviegoers catching on to it. I do believe it's ripe for a sequel in a day and age where older concepts and movies are being re-booted and given another chance.