Best laid plans, yadda yadda yadda. Everything was going so well this month until I got hit first with a severe ear infection and then with a severe reaction to the antibiotics I was given to combat said ear infection. It's difficult to focus on anything when even sitting up makes you dizzy and you can't even keep water down, and so reviews had to be put on hold until I was feeling well enough to give this, my 200th review on this blog, the attention it deserved. And because it's my 200th review it needs to be of something special as well, so it's time for another of my (current) favourite films of all time - Clive Barker's Nightbreed.
Aaron Boone is a young man suffering from some mental problems, most notably a recurring dream of a place called Midian, inhabited by monsters, that he feels strangely drawn to. He tells all of this to his psychiatrist, Phillip Decker, not realising that Decker has ulterior motives for treating him - Decker is in fact a serial killer who is framing Boone for his crimes, and also wants to find Midian for himself. A chance encounter with another seemingly insane man in a hospital who also knows of Midian sets Boone on a journey to find the mysterious city; shortly after finding Midian and encountering some of its residents, however, the police catch up to and kill Boone for the crimes he has been framed for. His devastated girlfriend Lori refuses to believe that he was a killer, however, and starts her own journey retracing his steps to try to understand what was going through his mind before he died. This eventually leads both her and Decker to Midian and its monstrous inhabitants; meanwhile Boone's body has disappeared from the morgue...
First off, if you're going to watch Nightbreed for yourself, try to get hold of the recently-released Director's Cut, which restores about 20 minutes of footage that was cut from the original because of - you guessed it - studio meddling. 20th Century Fox didn't understand the story Barker was telling with Nightbreed, and so they cut the film to ribbons in order to reshape it into something they could understand, trying to turn it into a standard slasher horror movie rather than the dark fairy tale horror that it is. According to Barker himself, at one point a producer was even concerned that "The monsters [were] the good guys," to which Barker replied, "That's the point."
Obviously then, Nightbreed is not a traditional horror film. The "monsters" (the 'Breed or Tribes of the Moon as they're known in the film) live hidden in Midian, far away from humanity, because humanity over the centuries hunted them to near-extinction simply for what they were. It is a rather heavy-handed allegory for bigotry of all stripes, but really no less so than the X-Men. And of course, once people like Decker discover Midian, the 'Breeds' lives are in danger yet again as he brings down a literal redneck hunting posse onto them, simply because they are different (and because they reject Decker utterly). The fact that the 'Breed are the protagonists for the movie does not mean that they are literally "good guys" though; most of them are more than capable of defending themselves in combat if necessary, and some, like the Bezerkers and the feral Peloquin, actively enjoy killing and eating humans (although the latter usually refrains because it is against the Law set down by the 'Breed's god Baphomet). Regardless, until Decker brings destruction down upon them they've harmed nobody, and so of course we root for them to survive and get their revenge on the people who hate and harm them.
Another unusual and stand-out thing about Nightbreed is the casting of David Cronenberg as the murderous Decker. He's not normally thought of as an actor, although he does have an extensive filmography in that area - usually in small cameos or bit parts - but here he does play an evil serial killing psychiatrist very well. I think it helps that he looks "normal" (at least for a horror director) and so he has a "banality of evil" look about him - death in a tailored grey suit and glasses. Although the "Zipperface" mask he wears when he kills is remarkably disturbing for something so simply designed.
Obviously with this being a Clive Barker film, Nightbreed has a lot of outsider, eroticism and LGBT themes, which is probably another reason why the studio execs hacked at it so much. There's the idea of people being uncomfortable in their own skin and yearning to become someone - or something else, and eventually achieving that transformation but becoming hated for it. There's also a lot of raw sexuality on the part of the 'Breed, most notably in one scene where one member of the 'Breed seduces and incapacitates a prison guard while completely naked - also a homage to that other cult film ruined by studio meddling, Lifeforce. When Nightbreed was first released it was not well-received by critics, most likely because of its botched editing and marketing; but over the years it has achieved a much-deserved cult status, like several other similarly maligned films. Personally, I think it's a beautiful film, both in the incredibly detailed designs of the 'Breed and of Midian, and as that cautionary dark fairy tale where the monsters are the heroes who have to fight back against the evil people who want to destroy them simply for being who they are.
(And also, the characters of Rachel and Shuna Sassi were two of my earliest girl crushes.)
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