This is one of those horror films you remember renting on video at school and being quite excited about seeing because it looked really scary and you knew you shouldn�t actually be watching it. In this case I distinctly remember me and a mate taking advantage of his parents being out at a party to hire Nightbreed from the dodgy fella in the army surplus jacket who used to run a video rental business out the back of his estate car (I think it was a Ford, not too sure about that bit though). He was a bit weird, I think he claimed he was in �Nam, although maybe we made that up, and once tried to hit on my friend�s older sister when she was babysitting us in a dressing gown, although maybe she made that up too. The reason we chose this film above any old Child�s Play-esque taboo vid was because you got the Nightbreed game free in one of the old Amiga software bundles and we had been addicted to it for some time, even though it was almost impossibly difficult (kinda like Shadow of the Beast, I think we never got past the third screen of that). Anyway to cut a long story to middling length, we enjoyed it at the time and when, much later, I found out it was adapted by Clive Barker from his Cabal novel, I bought and read that too.
The book is about Boon, a suspected serial killer who is gunned down by police, but resurrected by a mysterious animal bite and goes to live with the fabled Nightbreed in the secret underground labyrinth of Midian. It is a terrific story and I decided I had to see the movie again in the cold light of maturity (stop sniggering Matthew). It took me a while to track down, so when I did was it worth it?
It is an extremely average horror movie in most respects. The acting is nothing special at all, although David Cronenberg doesn�t embarrass himself when moving in front of the cameras to play Boon�s shifty psychiatrist. Unfortunately the lead, Craig Sheffer, looks like a kind of poor man�s David Boreanaz and has even less charisma, so he cannot pull of the messianic Boon or produce any of the rage and inner turmoil required.
Even though Cabal is by no means a weighty tome, it is poorly adapted by Barker and it seems he wanted to try and fit absolutely everything in, at the expense of motivations or more considered character development. Screen adaptation is always a problem with Barker�s brand of mind-melting mythology and so Nightbreed loses much of its raw vicissitude, instead coming across as a fumbled morality tale about human prejudice (two of the most sympathetic characters are coloured, the police sergeant and the morgue worker).
Despite this there is fun to be had, especially with the fantastic creature effects which are onscreen lamentably briefly for the work which must have gone into them (and they should never have tried to show Baphomet). It�s not as dire as many horror films, mainly due to the power of the source material but it could have been done so much better. Finally, the ending is nicely unconventional (after an unnecessarily incendiary climax) and sets it up for what could have been a more effective sequel or TV series, but I doubt that will ever be made. Instead read the book and let your own imagination do the work. |
