Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

julian kennedy Nightbreed is an early nineties horror film by Clive Barker that has developed a decent cult following and has a newly restored director's cut that includes a half hour of previously cut footage and apparently changes the ending. It tells the story of a young man who dreams of a place called Midian where an extremely varied group of monsters hide from humanity that hunts them.The Good: David Cronenberg. Yes, this is a film written and directed by horror auteur Clive Barker but it is David Cronenberg that steals the show. David plays a soft-spoken serial killer wearing a Coraline mask simply slaughtering all that come before him while setting up our protagonist to take the fall. The creature designs are also, on the whole, very well done. It is a delight to see McDonald's moon mascot Mac Tonight in his big screen debut.The Bad: David Cronenberg's character really should have had his own movie. The story of the creatures also really needed their own story. Putting both together seems to cheat each story. The feeling one gets is as if halfway through Jaws Richard Dreyfuss' character started making mashed potato mountains on the Orca and left the boat to hook up with Terri Garr and some aliens. Another thing that does not quite click unfortunately is our leads. Craig Sheffer and Anne Bobby seem to lack a certain chemistry, More damning they clearly were chosen based on their resemblance to the leads of Dirty Dancing which graced screens three years earlier, Anne Bobby, in particular, seems to be channeling her inner (and outer), Jennifer Grey. Somebody really needed to put that baby in the corner. Lastly, the film's direction and tone seem all over the map, particularly in the third act. You have a sheriff and various yahoos who are seeming out of a cartoon, you have the monsters reenacting a particularly sad version of 1932's Freaks, you have David Cronenberg who clearly is in a better movie somewhere, and you have direction that never makes it clear who is where related to everyone else and how many of whom there even are. Overall Nightbreed is more entertaining than I made it sound above. It reminds me of all things the recent Monster Trucks in terms of theme and tone. If Monster Trucks had Michael Myers killing entire families in the first half.

tonyband Clive Barker's Nightbreed had a difficult production and an equally arduous release. The film was based on Barker's celebrated novella "Cabal," a fan favorite, and was adapted by the author himself, who also took over the directing reigns (his Hellraiser had been a hit only a few short years earlier). The ensuing marketing, release, and reaction was disastrous. First Barker's vision was re-edited and re-tooled without his consent, creating a film that felt oddly choppy and unfinished to many critics and viewers. While the plot was filled with unique characters and monsters (as well as a "the monsters are the heroes and the humans are the monsters" theme), the studio decided to market the film as typical slasher fare, pandering to the lowest common box office denominator. To Barker's horror, Nightbreed floundered in theaters and died a quiet death.Twenty five years after its initial release, Nightbreed has slowly but faithfully garnered a strong cult following. The fan base became so rabid—even starting a website called "Occupy Midian"—that a new cut of the film was created, cobbled together using old VHS quality tapes that became known as "The Cabal Cut, which was much closer to what Barker had in mind before the studio tampered with the film. Although extraordinarily rough in nature (and much longer in length), the new "Cabal Cut" was shown at various festivals to great enthusiasm from fans and even Clive Barker himself. The interest became large enough that Scream Factory, a horror offshoot of Shout Factory, decided to work with Barker and Morgan Creek to see if they could locate the missing film elements. After a lot of hard work and searching the Warner Brothers vaults (the footage had been thought to have been lost), the folks at Shout Factory were able to find the original camera negatives, and with Barker's help added nearly twenty minutes of footage to the theatrical cut thus finally offering fans a brand new look at Nightbreed: The Director's Cut the way Clive Barker had always intended.I've been a fan since I caught the film on video back in the early 1990s. There is a good reason why Nightbreed has become such a cult classic: It's a truly unique monster movie that doesn't attempt to play by the rules. While there's a lot of rubber suits and latex masks, Nightbreed separates itself from the pack by having something other than scares and violence on its mind. The core idea of the film—that the terrors living below Midian are no worse than the terrors living above in the cities—gives the film a lot more weight and meaning. The allegorical nature of the "us vs. them" theme makes the film less a scary monster movie and more a dark poem; while the monsters of Midian are physically grotesque, they only want what we want: do be left in peace to live a life of their choosing. This makes Nightbreed an especially topical film that has held up surprisingly well.The real standout is David Cronenberg as the film's secondary villain, who doesn't really act so much as stand there and look creepy in a mummy mask made of buttons and zippers. Fans of classic science fiction cinema should keep an eye out for John Agar (Tarantula, The Mole People) as a local gas station attendant who gets on the wrong side of Dr. Decker's knife.

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.

ersinkdotcom 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.