Review: Nightbreed - The Cabal Cut

As you can tell by the name of the blog, I’m a big Clive Barker fan.  Nightbreed, flaws and all, has always rivaled the almighty Hellraiser as my favorite Barker flick.  I think every kid who grew up as an outsider has a soft spot for the Tribes of the Moon.  Just like the rest of the Nightbreed fans, I’ve dreamed of seeing the “uncut version” ever since the days when we all thought it might be a myth.  For many, many years it was spoken of in tones usually reserved for London After Midnight.  So, you can imagine my excitement when it was announced that the missing footage had been located.  You can also imagine how many expletive laden tirades I subjected my poor computer to when Occupy Midian kept sending me invitations to screenings that were half a country (and in some cases, an entire continent) away.  Then, it finally happened. Baphomet smiled upon me. One of the last screenings before it slunk back into the shadows to be restored happened in my back yard!  A few midnights ago, I got the opportunity to stagger (thanks to James Bickert and his spicy lemonade/tequila concoctions) into Gwinnett Arena’s screening room and behold something that, as recently as a few months ago, I feared I might never see.  And let me tell you, Cellmates, everything is true. God’s an astronaut, Oz is over the rainbow, and The Cabal Cut is just as bad ass as you’ve heard it is.

As Russell Cherrington (the Cabal Cut director and the man who actually found the footage) said in the pre-screening Q&A, this movie isn’t Nightbreed at all.  This is a whole different film.  It’s been a long time since I read Cabal, and I’ve killed off a lot of brain cells since then, but from what I do recall the new cut follows the book pretty closely.  One of the criticisms that has long been flung at Nightbreed is that it doesn’t make sense.  Admittedly, the plot in the theatrical cut is all kindsa disjointed and jumbled.  That’s definitely not the case any more.  Whole characters and subplots that were originally left on the cutting room floor are resurrected.  I think the main difference is the astounding amount of character development that’s been added.  It’s most evident with Lori, Boone’s girlfriend.  In Nightbreed, let’s face it, she’s downright annoying at times.  She becomes a fully realized character with an actual arc in The Cabal Cut.  She’s a major player, and the Lori/Boone love story is much more front and center.  She spends a lot more time in Midian too, which really does add a lot to the story.  We also get to savor more of David Cronenberg’s tour de force performance as Dr. Decker.  A lot of nuance is added to the good doctor.  There’s one scene involving Decker having a conversation with his mask that’s probably my second favorite re-inserted scene.  My favorite is definitely when Boone… ah, dammit.  I would be straying into spoiler territory if I told you.  That sucks, ‘cause I really want to gush about that scene.  Let’s just say that my murmured “holy shit” wasn’t the only one I heard during that moment.

The added footage also lets the outstanding set and creature design shine.  The clichéd line about this being “the Star Wars of monster movies” applies now.  The Tribes of the Moon are out in force.  The sheer amount of unique makeups is staggering.  There are some never before seen major effects and monsters that are, at very least, as impressive as anything in the theatrical version.  I can’t emphasize just how cool the army of monsters is.  A lot more of the proceedings take place in Midian.  It feels a lot more like the vast, labyrinthine subterranean city described in the book than the mere underground hideout we know.  I dare say that if this movie had originally been presented in this form, it might have deservedly won effects Oscars in 1990.

I can’t, however, call it a perfect movie.  I’m about to say something that will sound like heresy to a lot of the fanboys that are salivating over seeing this, but it’s a little too long.  Just because all of that footage was found doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all essential.  There are times that the flick gets a little slow.  It could stand to be tightened up by about 10 minutes.  Of course, the fans (myself included) want to see that footage. So maybe while it ought to be excised from the flick, it should all certainly be included as special features on the DVD/BD.

Speaking of which, I’m even more excited for Scream Factory’s 2014 blu-ray release after seeing the film in its current form. I’m not a hi-def snob, far from it actually, but the version I saw looked bad enough to take me out of the flick at times.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of it and knew what I was in for, but the new footage, quite frankly, looks shitty.  It looks like a fifth generation bootleg, which it essentially is.  Sometimes it was so blurry that it was hard to be sure what I was seeing.  It was a lot like listening to The Ultimate Warrior rant when I was a kid.  I had a vague idea of what he said, and it didn’t make a lot of sense, but I was so excited that it was happening at all that I just went with it.  As cool as this flick is, it deserves to look great.  Scream Factory has delivered in spades on all of their releases so far, and with this being one of those horror holy grails I have no reason to believe that it will receive anything but the same TLC.  The movie was awesome when it looked like shit.  Looking as it should, it’s gonna be downright orgasm inducing.

I told Leah and Nicole as we were leaving that as much as I cherish my innumerable Nightbreed viewings over the years, I sorta envy those who will see the film for the first time like this.  The Cabal Cut is a sprawling epic that finally does the mythology of its universe justice.  From the much more coherent beginning to the seriously protracted climax to the completely different finale, it left me slack jawed.  The film can finally be viewed for what it is, one of the most ambitious movies - not horror movies mind you, but MOVIES – ever made.  If you love Nightbreed, you’re in for a treat that will exceed any expectations you may have.  If you hate Nightbreed, I can’t see how The Cabal Cut won’t change your mind.  If you’re a horror fan at all, the Scream Factory release is the very definition of a “must own.”  Now more than ever, I’ve decided that when I die I don’t want to go to heaven or hell at all.  I want to go to Midian, dammit!  After all, it is Shangri-la on dope.  Could any place possibly sound cooler than that?  9.5 secret faces of 10.  Nathan says check it out.

30 Day Horror Challenge Day 23 - Your favorite made for TV horror film

First of all, I am aware that I’m a little bit late with today’s post. Sorry, it’s been a hell of a day. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me throw two names out and you tell me what you think of first. Stephen King and Clive Barker. Whatever you just thought, I bet it wasn’t “horror comedy.” That’s exactly what we have here though folks. Take stories by Barker and King, adapt them for TV, let Mick Garris direct, throw in Christopher Lloyd all gothed up, and what do you have? Just another Friday night at my…wait, no…I mean you have my favorite TV horror flick, Quicksilver Highway.

We open on a bride on her wedding night. No, it’s not that kind of story. Get your mind out of the gutter. She’s sitting in a broken down car in the middle of the desert, waiting for her groom, who went to find help, to return. A Rolls Royce pulls up towing an Airstream camper. That should have been her first clue that something screwy was going on. Then Christopher Lloyd, looking like the mutant love child of Dani Filth and Uncle Fester, gets out and invites her into his parlor. Clue number two. He proceeds to tell her a story based on The Chattering Teeth by Stephen King. I know the concept of Mick Garris directing a King adaptation is blowing your mind, but bear with me here folks. Bill is a traveling salesman traveling salesman driving through the desert in a dust storm. He almost hits a Brian, a hitch hiker. He decides to stop in at a roadside diner/gas station, where he buys a big set of metal wind up chattering teeth for his son. As he’s leaving, he sees the hitcher he almost flattened and offers him a ride. As the ride goes south, the hitcher pulls a knife and tries to commandeer the van. Bill swerves and crashes. Brian then decides it’s time to kill Bill. I thought about making a David Carradine joke there, but that would just be in poor taste, now wouldn’t it? Anyway, who comes to Bill’s rescue? That’s right, the chattering teeth!

Story two opens in a carnival. A pickpocket stumbles into Quicksilver’s tent to hide from the cops, and is told a story based on The Body Politic by Clive Barker. Dr. Charles is a plastic surgeon. He also looks a lot like our pick pocket. Could be because they’re played by the same actor, the always awesome Matt Frewer. His hands turn against him Evil Dead style. After almost killing Charles driving home and strangling his wife, the hands decide that one of them should be free to recruit more hands for the revolution, so righty chops lefty off. An epidemic of evil hands ensues, and only Charles can put a stop to the madness.

If you read reviews online of this movie, you’ll see a lot of people downing it for not being very scary. Just from a synopsis of the stories, I think it’s obvious that none of this is supposed to be taken seriously. A guy gets killed by wind up teeth. The hands have cartoon voices and talk to each other for crying out loud. In the hospital in the second story, we have an entire hospital wing having a titanic battle with their hands. It’s hilarious! Does it work as a straight up horror flick? Not really. As an outlandish horror comedy? Absolutely! It’s also impossible to take the amazingly AWFUL CGI crawling severed hands seriously, but that’s beside the point.

One thing that is of particular note in this flick is the acting. Christopher Lloyd plays creepy so incredibly well. I don’t know about the Doc Brown Hot Topic makeover look, but this character could easily carry an anthology TV series. I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie was actually conceived as a pilot. Both of the leads in the first story, Raphael Sbarge as Bill and Silas Weir Mitchell as Brian, are great. I think Silas might have been a little too good though. He’s so creepy that it’s hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would let him into their car. Matt Frewer is great, which is to be expected. The scenes of him fighting with his hands will have you crying with laughter, but his moment of “I’m watching my hands kill my wife and I can’t stop them” is actually pretty heart wrenching. You can tell that he’s really relishing the opportunity to ham it up. Interestingly, Stephen King foregoes his usual cameo. Clive Barker doesn’t, however, and is in a pretty amusing scene with John Landis.

Sometimes I think people get so caught up in horror being intense, meaningful, and terrifying that they forget that it’s supposed to be fun too. It’s ok to be silly sometimes. Sure, you don’t want too much comic relief if your movie is supposed to be a spine tingling thrill ride, but a movie can’t be bad just because it’s goofy. Quicksilver Highway is horror comedy, but it doesn’t have jokes. It has a premise so out there and bizarre that it’s funny because it’s played fairly straight. The good source material, great acting, and competent direction make this one a fun ride. After all, isn’t that what a movie is supposed to be? It’s a bit tough to find, but it’s worth it. Two severed thumbs up. Nathan says check it out.

30 Day Horror Challenge Day 19 - Your favorite horror film involving the powers of Hell

There are a hell of a lot of great movies that involve Satan and the powers of hell. My favorite, however, is unique in that it involves the powers of an apparently Satan-less hell. What the hell? A hell with no Satan? Clive Barker says hell yes. Clive introduced the Cenobites in Hellraiser, but in Hellraiser 2: Hellbound, he introduces an entire new mythology and hierarchy to the infernal realm. Instead of the biblical lake of fire or Dante’s circles of hell, we get a never ending maze, more Cenobites, Leviathan, and a much more personal hell. It’s a hell of a movie.

Hellraiser is one of those series where I like the second film the best. Don’t get me wrong, Hellraiser is an amazing movie, and I know that is blasphemy to some, but I think this is a bigger, better, meaner, scarier, all around more horrific Hellraiser movie. The plot is pretty basic. Of course, no one believes Kirsty about the events of the first movie, so they throw her in Dr. Channard’s asylum. Channard, it turns out, is obsessed with the Cenobites. He resurrects Julia (hell hath no fury like a woman scorned) and tricks a mute patient named Tiffany into solving the puzzle box, opening the gates of hell. Kirsty has been tricked by Frank into thinking that he is her father. She is determined to save her father come hell or high water, so she goes into hell to find him. Channard and Julia go to hell because Channard is curious. The Cenobites seemingly head back just for the hell of it. Tiffany gets drug along and becomes a pawn in the game. Violence and much running through hallways screaming each others names ensues. Will they all live happily ever after? Like hell!

This film plays out a little less like the straight ahead horror of the first and goes for more of a dark fantasy feel. Normally I wouldn’t dig that change, but here it works. It ups the blood and grue quotient of the first. The violence here is pretty hellacious. The movie even starts like a bat out of hell, giving us the bloody origin of Pinhead. Short version; open the box and there’s hell to pay. The visuals, aside from a stylish as hell but very obvious matte painting, are great. The acting is actually much better than in the first movie. Ashley Laurence had obviously grown as an actress, and Kenneth Cranham as Dr. Channard is spot on. He has a low key British elegance underlying the evil, perfect for a wicked psychiatrist. Hellbound also advances the Cenobite concept, showing us how one is “made.” I dig the hell out of the fact that this movie set up its own version of hell that didn’t really draw upon any other mythos. Satan? Who the hell is he? Here we have Leviathan, infernal lord of law and order. I also dig the concept of each person having their own personal hell according to their own vices and sins. “Fire and brimstone” is just generic as hell.

I talk about acting, direction, story, effects, and that sort of thing a lot, but one aspect of film that I don’t mention a whole hell of a lot is score. I’m not big on orchestral scores usually. One really has to be something special to make me take notice, and Christopher Young’s score did just that. It is grandiose gothic at its finest. Dramatic as hell. My favorite use of the score is in the scene where Tiffany opens the portal to hell. The strings, horns, and choral elements swell and recede at just the right moments. It’s evocative of the almost regal presence of Pinhead mixed with an other-worldly frightening quality. Like the Cenobites themselves, it is genuinely creepy yet darkly beautiful. This score will only be matched when hell freezes over.

There are 2 things I’m not crazy about in this movie though. One is Channard’s conversion into a Cenobite. His human character is creepy as hell, the “Cenobite machine” is a cool touch, but when he emerges it all goes straight to hell. Cenobite Channard had the potential to be an incredibly cool character, but instead he starts spouting one liners that Commando era Schwarzenegger would have balked at. Then he beats the hell out of Pinhead and the original Cenobites. Just trounces them. Guys, what the hell were you thinking? That should never have happened. The other is when Pinhead stops the Cenobites from touching Tiffany after she opens the box because “It is not hands that call us, it is desire.” Um, excuse me Pinhead, but weren’t you eager as hell to take Kirsty when she unknowingly opened the box in the first movie? A bit hypocritical there, don’t ya think? Actually, I think Pinhead just has a thing for Ashley Laurence. I can’t say I blame him. I sure as hell would love to have an eternity to know her flesh.

Plot issues not withstanding, I’m a hell of a lot more forgiving than many are towards the Hellraiser series. Most seem to be hell bent on the fact that anything past the first one or two sucked. I thought they were good all the way through Bloodline. After that it went to hell in a hand basket. While I love the first Hellraiser, I think the series reached its peak with Hellbound. It’s one of my favorites of all time. Two severed thumbs way the hell up. Nathan says check it out. Hell.

30 Day Horror Challenge Day 05 - Your favorite monster movie

What do you call a group of monsters? A gaggle? A herd? A murder? A horde? That’s it, we’ll go with horde, and in Nightbreed we get a whole horde of monsters. This isn’t just a monster movie though; it’s a film that’s all about exploring what it means to be a monster. Not all monsters are evil, and those we would never expect can be the most heinous and ruthless “monsters” imaginable. It explores many themes, and along the way, we get the best collection of bizarre creatures on screen since Jabba the Hutt’s palace.

Boone dreams of Midian, a secret underground city populated by monsters. When his serial killer psychiatrist drugs him and pins his murders on Boone, he flees to Midian, where he is not accepted. Suffering a bite from one of the monsters, he becomes a true member of the “Nightbreed.” Decker, the killer shrink, leads the local police in a raid of Midian, battling the Nightbreed until Boone unleashes the “berserkers” and wins the day, leading the Nightbreed from Midian to find a new home. This synopsis is an incredibly simplistic outline, because the movie is so complex and the mythology of Midian so extensive that a proper synopsis would be pages long.

Along with the abundance of unique and downright cool looking monsters, this is a truly sophisticated film. It has religious undertones. It has racial undertones. It can be read as a metaphor for being gay in the 80’s. What I choose to see it as is an exploration of “monsterhood.” The denizens of Midian may be frightening and grotesque in appearance, but they live by a moral code that makes them far less “monstrous” than the humans that attack them. The monsters aren’t the villains. The true villain, and true monster, is Decker, played amazingly by David Cronenberg. Yes, THAT David Cronenberg. Had he not decided to direct some of the greatest horror films ever, he could have easily had a career as an actor. Decker dons a very creepy mask to become the “monster”, but his real mask is one of humanity that he wears for the world. The mythology of Midian is expansive and well realized, without overpowering the central narrative. I could go on and on, but this is one of those movies you really must see and interpret for yourself.

The battles between writer/director Clive Barker and Morgan Creek Studios over Nightbreed movie are legendary. The studio forced Barker into massive reshoots and rewrites. It was promoted as a slasher flick, when it is anything but. The most tragic thing to come out of all the studio interference is that Barker’s original two and a half hour cut had to be trimmed to 101 minutes. The uncut version exists, but whether or not it will ever see the light of day on DVD is a mystery. There was also a sequel planned that never came to fruition. Will we ever see either of these? We can only hope. Two severed thumbs up. Nathan says check it out.