Nightbreed

Nightbreed
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Clive Barker
Written by	Clive Barker
Based on	Cabal by Clive Barker
Produced by	Gabriella Martinelli
Starring	Craig Sheffer Anne Bobby David Cronenberg Charles Haid
Cinematography	Robin Vidgeon
Edited by	Mark Goldblatt Richard Marden
Music by	Danny Elfman
Production company	Morgan Creek Productions
Distributed by	20th Century Fox (United States) J&M Entertainment (Overseas)
Release date	February 16, 1990 (1990-02-16)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11 million
Box office	$16 million

Nightbreed is a 1990 American dark fantasy film written and directed by Clive Barker, based on his 1988 novella Cabal. It stars 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" who 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 Nightbreed's story. Since its initial theatrical release, Nightbreed has become a cult film.

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 the cut material were re-obtained and were edited into a director's cut, released through Scream Factory.

Plot

Aaron Boone has recurring nightmares of a place called Midian. His girlfriend Lori Winston encourages him to resume psychotherapy with Dr. Phillip Decker. Meanwhile, a serial killer has been massacring entire families. When Boone returns to Decker's office, he is horrified to learn that his dreams mirror these ritualistic killings. Decker tells Boone to turn himself in and start taking lithium, but he actually gives Boone LSD.

Boone is hospitalized during the resulting trip. Another patient is ranting about Midian and explains where it is. When the patient peels his face off, Boone escapes from the hospital during the commotion and heads to Midian. All he finds there is a graveyard where he falls asleep. At night, he is confronted by monstrous beings who argue over whether he belongs there. Boone claims he is a murderer, but they know he is not. One of them tries to eat Boone, but he escapes.

Outside the graveyard, Boone is confronted by the police who have been led there by Dr. Decker. He tricks the police into shooting Boone. In the morgue, Boone is revived by the bite he received in the graveyard. He returns to Midian and learns about the Nightbreed who live there. He is inducted into their society through the blood of their deity Baphomet.

Lori follows Boone's path to Midian. She is followed there by Decker who is the serial killer. He framed Boone for the murders in an attempt to locate the Nightbreed. He tries to lure Boone out of Midian by using Lori, but Boone rescues her. The Nightbreed explain that they are just creatures from folklore who used to live in peace until humans tried to extinguish them. They banish Lori and Boone from Midian.

They check into a motel but find that Decker has been there and slaughtered people in the room next door. Boone is arrested for Decker's murders, and the doctor convinces the police to storm Midian. His ultimate goal is to destroy the Nightbreed.

While the police head to Midian, several Nightbreed break Boone out of jail and enlist his help. A chaotic battle ensues between the Nightbreed and the police. Decker confronts Boone and is killed. Boone seeks out Baphomet, and he explains 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.

Determined to stay with Boone, Lori commits suicide and Boone resurrects her with a bite. He promises the Nightbreed that he will follow Baphomet's orders.

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 shouts "Hallelujah!"

Alternative endings

The Cabal Cut

In The Cabal Cut, the resurrection of Decker plays as a post-credits scene.

Director's Cut

In the alternative ending used in The Cabal Cut and Director's Cut of the film, Narcisse is killed earlier in the battle by Decker, so he is not present during the subsequent events. 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 knowing that Boone will retain his youth and immortality as she grows old, Lori suddenly stabs herself, forcing Boone to resurrect her as a Nightbreed. They profess their love for one another and begin their journey.

Meanwhile, Captain Eigerman wanders the underground remains of the cemetery where he stumbles upon the transformed Ashberry, who longs for revenge after his burning by Baphomet. 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. Rachel tells Babette that Boone will return soon, perhaps the next day, to lead them to a new haven. Boone and Lori now appear together as part of a prophecy in a Nightbreed painting.

Cast

• Craig Sheffer as Aaron Boone
• Anne Bobby as Lori Winston, Aaron's girlfriend.
• David Cronenberg as Dr. Philip K. Decker / Curtis, a psychotherapist who doubles as a masked serial killer.
• Charles Haid as Captain Eigerman, a police captain that allies with Decker.
• Hugh Quarshie as Detective Joyce
• Bradley Lavelle as Cormack
• Hugh Ross as Narcisse, a Nightbreed with a removable face.
• Doug Bradley as Dirk Lylesberg, a Nightbreed who serves as their acolyte and lawgiver.
• Catherine Chevalier as Rachel, a shapeshifting Nightbreed who cannot deal with sunlight.
• Bob Sessions as Pettine
• Malcolm Smith as Father Ashberry, a drunken priest who allies with Decker.
• Oliver Parker as Peloquin, a Nightbreed that is responsible for biting Aaron.
• Debora Weston as Sheryl Ann, a woman that Lori befriends.
• Nicholas Vince as Kinski, a Nightbreed with a crescent moon-shaped head.
• Simon Bamford as Ohnaka, a tattooed member of the Nightbreed.
• Kim Robertson and Nina Robertson as Babette, the Nightbreed daughter of Rachel who has the same traits as her.
• Christine McCorkindale as Shuna Sassi, a Nightbreed with an animalistic face who is covered in quills.
• Tony Bluto as Leroy Gomm, an overweight Nightbreed who has retractable tentacles coming out of his stomach.
• Bernard Henry as Baphomet, a demon who is the deity of the Nightbreed

Themes and interpretations

[Writer-director Clive] Barker, himself a gay man, makes his Nightbreed spectacularly queer, chiefly through its visual design and dishy repartee: the monsters sport leather, tattoos, body-piercings, shaved heads and/or pony-tails, Doc Marten boots, vests upon bare chests, and van dykes ("Satan beards" or "queer beards"), a look that was concurrently being made fashionable by Queer Nationalists, members of Act Up, and the visual stylizations of queer theatre pieces such as Reza Abdoh's Bogeyman.

— Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film (Inside Popular Film) by Harry M. Benshoff, 1997.

Nightbreed has been characterized as containing themes related to queerness and the LGBT community. In 1997, author Harry M. Benshoff called it, "One of the first horror films to make an explicit connection between monsters and the activist politics of the queer community".

Filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky called Nightbreed "the first truly gay horror fantasy epic", explaining how the unconsummated relationship between doctor and patient is in his view the central theme. In 2015, Tyler Coates of Decider called Jodorowsky's interpretation of the characters' relationship as being "only the tip of the iceberg and, I'd argue, a red herring"; Coates focuses instead on the presence of queer subtext "blatantly seen in the Nightbreed's culture", writing that, "Because normalcy is subjective and based solely on how the majority defines it, it's important to establish mini-societies and cultures with people like you."

In 2019, Trace Thurman of Bloody Disgusting wrote that the Nightbreed as depicted in the film "represent queerness, or any fill-in-the-blank 'Other' you can think of." Noting that, beyond writer-director Clive Barker being "one of the most famous queer horror artists of our time [...] The narrative itself is filled to the brim with queerness and serves as an allegory for intolerance. Can anyone watch Nightbreed and not automatically associate the titular creatures with queer people? They've been outcast by society and are deemed as dangerous by the 'normal' people. The climax of the film culminates in an assault on the Nightbreed's home base of Midian as the 'normies' would rather kill all of them as opposed to understand them." That same year, Leigh Monson of Birth. Movies. Death. wrote that the director's cut of the film "places on display the full scope of a narrative that is a broad and potent allegory for the persecution of the queer community."

In 2021, The A.V. Club's Charles Bramesco also examined the presence of queer themes in the film's director's cut, writing that some of its homoerotic subtext was initially removed when executives at 20th Century Fox demanded that the film be trimmed during its post-production. Bramesco argued, "They were blind to the subtext of this community as a home for misfits, where the placeless Boone—who doesn't seem all that interested in sex with his torch-singing girlfriend—can find an accepting family. The director's cut allows us more time with the creatures and ups their number, emphasizing that they're only fearsome to those afraid of difference."

Production

Development

Barker 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. Mark Frost wrote the initial draft of the screenplay for Barker.

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.

Originally several of the creatures were supposed to be stop motion puppets, in addition to pixilation for the Boone and Peloquin transformation scenes, but make-up gradually replaced the puppets, and barely any of the stop motion made it till the finished movie. Animator Rory Fellowes said "The fact is we were too late for stopmotion and too early for CG".

Filming

For the film, Barker used three soundstages at