The second, and most ambitious, of Clive Barker’s self-directed features was this 1990 adaptation of his 1988 novella CABAL. Barker never quite hit his stride as a filmmaker, and that’s fully evident in NIGHTBREED, which was further hobbled by severe postproduction interference at the hands of Morgan Creek Productions (who similarly eviscerated the same year’s EXORCIST III).
NIGHTBREED THEATRICAL Trailer
Three alternate versions of NIGHTBREED appeared in the 2010s: A “Cabal cut” put together by Barker pal Russel Cherrington, featuring around 40 minutes of discarded workprint footage, turned up in 2013, followed by a Scream Factory released director’s cut Blu-ray in 2014, and a second Cabal cut, released in limited edition Blu-ray form, in 2017. All made for a more watchable and coherent viewing experience than the initial theatrical version, but did nothing to fix the film’s underlying problems.
NIGHTBREED “CABAL CUT” Trailer
The CABAL novella was far from Barker’s best work, but did at least contain the sinuous prose and dark imagination that made his name in the literary horror world. NIGHTBREED reduces the tale to a chaotic horror fest, with Craig Sheffer and Anne Bobby as the blandest leads imaginable. Sheffer plays Aaron Boone, a mechanic drawn to a monster-packed city called Midian, and Bobby his personality-free GF Lori.
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Boone is seeing Decker (David Cronenberg), a severely creepy shrink who convinces Boone that his longing for Midian stems from the fact that he’s a serial killer. In fact, it’s Decker who’s the killer, seeking to pin his murders on Boone. The latter, however, is not to be deterred in his quest, finding Midian, located beneath a graveyard, with remarkable ease. He’s promptly shot to death, thus allowing Boone to join the colorful assortment of undead Nightbreed (played by a retinue that includes HELLRAISER’s Doug Bradley and HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II’s Catherine Chevalier) residing therein.
Lori follows her lover to Midian, as do Decker and a gang of rednecks. Lots of mayhem follows, interrupted by Barker’s insistence on constantly introducing new characters (recalling the confusing viewpoint shifts of his fiction), such as a deranged priest (Malcolm Smith), assorted rednecks and a godlike entity known as Baphomet (Bernard Henry) who reveals Boone’s auspicious destiny.
HELLRAISER showcased Clive Barker’s filmmaking inexperience, but the film’s contained narrative and setting made for a conditional success. The major problem with NIGHTBREED is that its epic canvas, copious special effects and action-oriented arc, all pulled off on a rather scant $11 million budget ($27 million in today’s dollars), were beyond Barker’s abilities.
He wasn’t helped at all by a Bombastic Danny Elfman score that (as with Elfman’s music for SLEEPY HOLLOW) lacks a recognizable theme, nor the tendency Barker’s films have to, as voiced by the late Ken Russell, slip on the “banana peel of bad acting.” David Cronenberg (in an early entry in what became a lucrative side career as an actor) lends some much-needed performing flair as the psychotic Decker, but like most everything else in this film he ultimately gets lost in the tumult.
What saves NIGHTBREED is Barker’s core talent: his writing, which ensures that the narrative is always compelling (particularly in the gradual reveal of the Nightbreed populating Midian) and thematically rich, with Barker’s affinity for the monstrous and misunderstood presented in its most forceful and coherent possible state. Those attributes, keep in mind, apply only to NIGHTBREED’s director and Cabal cuts, and not the initial theatrical version, which is pointless, incoherent and largely responsible for the bad reputation the film had and still has.
Vital Statistics
NIGHTBREED
Morgan Creek Entertainment
Director: Ken Russell
Producer: Gabriella Martinelli
Screenplay: Clive Barker
(Based on a novella by Clive Barker)
Cinematography: Robin Vidgeon
Editing: Mark Goldblatt, Richard Marden
Cast: Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Charles Haid, Hugh Quarshie, Hugh Ross, Doug Bradley, Catherine Chevalier, Malcolm Smith, Bob Sessions, Oliver Parker, Debora Weston, Nicholas Vince, Simon Bamford, Kim Robertson, Nina Robertson, Christine McCorkindale, Tony Bluto, Vincent Keene, Bernard Henry