Nightbreed
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Clive Barker
Written by	Clive Barker
Based on	Cabal by Clive Barker
Produced by	Gabriella Martinelli Jon Turtle Joe Roth
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
Release date	February 16, 1990 (1990-02-16)
Running time	102 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11 million
Box office	$16 million[2]

Nightbreed is a 1990 Americandark fantasyhorror film written and directed byClive Barker, based on his 1988novellaCabal. It starsCraig Sheffer,Anne Bobby,David Cronenberg,Charles Haid,Hugh Quarshie, andDoug 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 ofmonsters 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 standardslasher film,^[3] and that the powers-that-be had no real working knowledge ofNightbreed's story.^[4] Since its initial theatrical release,Nightbreed has become acult film.^[5][6]

Over time, Barker expressed disappointment with thefinal 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 adirector's cut, released throughScream Factory.^[7]

Aaron Boone has recurring nightmares of a place called Midian. His girlfriend Lori Winston encourages him to resumepsychotherapy 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 takinglithium, but he actually gives BooneLSD.

Boone is hospitalized during the resultingtrip. 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 deityBaphomet.

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 fromfolklore 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 hollers "Hallelujah!"

InThe Cabal Cut, the resurrection of Decker plays as apost-credits scene.

In the alternative ending used inThe Cabal Cut andDirector'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.

• Craig Sheffer as Aaron Boone / Cabal, a man who is turned into a Nightbreed.
• 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/Ashbury, 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 asBaphomet, a demon who is the deity of the Nightbreed

Nightbreed has been characterized as containing themes related toqueerness and theLGBT community. In 1997, authorHarry 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".^[8]

FilmmakerAlejandro Jodorowsky calledNightbreed "the first truly gay horror fantasy epic", explaining how the unconsummated relationshipbetween doctor and patient is in his view the central theme.^[9][10] In 2015, Tyler Coates ofDecider called Jodorowsky's interpretation of the characters' relationship as being "only the tip of the iceberg and, I'd argue, ared 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."^[11]

In 2019, Trace Thurman ofBloody Disgusting wrote that the Nightbreed as depicted in the film "represent queerness, or any fill-in-the-blank 'Other' you can think of."^[12] Noting that, beyond writer-directorClive 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 watchNightbreed 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."^[12] That same year, Leigh Monson ofBirth. 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."^[13]

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 itshomoerotic subtext was initially removed when executives at20th Century Fox demanded that the film be trimmed during its post-production.^[14] 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."^[14]

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".^[15] He was interested in creating a "horror mythology from the ground up" and developing characters that would live on in sequels.^[16] As he finished writing the novellaCabal, he realized that it would make a good film that he would direct himself.^[17] He originally envisioned a trilogy of films.^[18][19]Mark Frost wrote the initial draft of the screenplay for Barker.^[20]

Nightbreed was the first of a planned three-picture deal Barker had withMorgan Creek,Joe Roth's production company, that included an adaptation ofSon of Celluloid and a sequel toNightbreed. The first compromise Barker made was to change the title of the film fromCabal toNightbreed because Morgan Creek insisted on a more commercial title and thought that the original one did not mean anything.^[21] He was given a budget of $11 million, which was a considerable increase from the $2 million he had to work with onHellraiser. His goal was to make theStar Wars of horror films. The monsters in the book are representedimpressionistically over two or three paragraphs and the challenge Barker faced was to visualize them in much greater detail for the film.^[22]

Originally several of the creatures were supposed to bestop motion puppets, in addition topixilation 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".^[23][24]

For the film, Barker used three soundstages atPinewood Studios shooting some scenes on location at Wexham Park Hospital, Slough, Berkshire, UK over several nights and inCalgary, Alberta, Canada.^[16]Bob Keen and his crew had two months to play around with ideas before doing any modeling work. They used computer-controlledanimatronics but only where necessary.^[25] Towards the end of principal photography, Barker broughtStar Wars concept artistRalph McQuarrie in to paint mattes for the Necropolis sequences and design the history of the Breed in a symbolic way on an enormous mural across a 60-foot space on the set at Pinewood to be used in the opening credits.^[26]

During an interview in 2022 onThe Ghost of Hollywood, cinematographerRobin Vidgeon mentioned that he disliked working withDavid Cronenberg, stating Cronenberg complained to Clive that he was being usurped.^[27]

Barker was contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated film and could not make it as gory as his previous pictureHellraiser.^[16] Barker previewed the first cut ofNightbreed with a temporary soundtrack that did not go well, as people were confused by the characters' motives. He made some changes and the second test screening was much more successful. However, the ending with Decker's death was not well received and Barker changed it.^[28] In late July 1989, the studio pushed the release date forNightbreed from its original autumn 1989 date to early February 1990 instead. The press release cited "the complex demands of the film's ground-breaking post-production optical effects", but this also included McQuarrie's mural andmatte paintings, and a week of additional shooting in late August that would see key parts of the narrative re-shot.^[26] Barker shot extra scenes over three days inLos Angeles in late 1989 which included additional scenes with David Cronenberg which expanded and clarified his character. Barker's original version ran two-and-a-half hours and Fox asked for almost an hour to be cut prompting editor Richard Marden to leave the project in protest.Nightbreed was cut to two hours and then again to 102 minutes.^[28]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[29]
SoundtrackNet	[30]
Filmtracks	[31]
Musicfromthemovies	(favorable)[32]

The score was composed byDanny Elfman and conducted byShirley Walker, who also wrote the additional cue "Charge of the Berserkers" for the film's climax and received an onscreen credit. Elfman said of his score: "Once again it was time for me to stretch out... Combining dark/fun/sweet/tribal all into one. The great joy in the score for me, other than working for Clive Barker, was being able to use the children's voices and a whole slew of ethnic drums and instruments together with an orchestra, in an attempt to bring a unique musical tone to the film".^[33] Barker said "Danny is an extraordinary talent. The most uncompromised portion of that entire movie is the score".^[34]

In an article on Elfman, described as a rising composer in Hollywood who had just scoredTim Burton'sBatman and was about to scoreWarren Beatty'sDick Tracy,Entertainment Weekly's Ron Givens noted thatNightbreed wouldn't get as much attention as these two big-budget movies, yet Givens praised Elfman's "needle-sharp crescendos and creepy choral plainchants" and added: "Seldom has scary-movie music been so spiritual".^[35]

The song "Country Skin" is a country-and-western rendition of theOingo Boingo song "Skin" (which appears on the 1990 albumDark at the End of the Tunnel), it was written by Elfman and performed by country singer Michael Stanton.^[36] It can be heard in the film, played on a radio.^[37][38] It was available as a bonus track on the CD and cassette version of the soundtrack.^[39]

According to Barker, the studio did not promote it well with posters that misinterpreted the content. When he saw the way they were sellingNightbreed, he freaked out and said: "What you doing? This isn't the movie, and was given all kinds of excuses ... Well, there isn't time to change it, we have to release it now".^[40] The head of marketing at Morgan Creek never watched all the way through because it "disgusted and distressed" him, according to Barker.^[40] The studio did not understand it, it had no movie stars, it was violent,^[40] and it had elements of fantasy and horror which they saw as a weakness while Barker saw it as a strength. They ended up marketingNightbreed as a slasher film with television teasers that were confusing and did not represent it.^[41] The trailer was sent to theMPAA and it was rejected 12 times. They forbade any monster footage, and it was cut down to someone being terrorized with a razor, which constituted only five minutes of Barker's film.^[28] Looking back, Barker realized that Fox was better at promoting films likeWhite Men Can't Jump but "not so good at selling the quirky stuff".^[42]

The studio argued that there was no point showingNightbreed to critics because the people who see horror films do not read reviews. Therefore, the film had to be sold to the lowest common denominator.^[43] They refused to preview the film for critics, a decision which angered Barker.^[41]

Nightbreed was released on February 16, 1990, in 1,488 theaters, grossing $3.7 million on its opening weekend. It went on to make $8.8 million in the United States and Canada and $7 million internationally for a worldwide total of $16 million on an $11 million budget.^[44][2]

Rotten Tomatoes, areview aggregator, reports 56% of 34 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 5.7 out of 10. The site's consensus states: "Nightbreed's imaginative world-building and startling creature designs are no match for its clumsy, uneven plotting".^[45]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 40 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[46] In his review for theToronto Star, Henry Mietkiewicz wrote "Nightbreed might have been a monster movie milestone, if Clive Barker's directorial abilities had kept pace with his skill as a master of British horror fiction. Unfortunately,Nightbreed probably will be remembered as much for its haphazard plotting and underdeveloped characters as its delightfully daring concept".^[47] Derek Malcolm wrote in his review forThe Guardian that "it is neither direct nor subtle enough as a piece of film-making. It is difficult to suggest that evil is human and monsters have souls within the context of a mountain of special effects. The result is patchy in the extreme and not always capable of transcending a genre that has become less and less intriguing as less and less is left to the imagination".^[48]

However,Entertainment Weekly'sTy Burr gave the film a "B" rating, writing: "From the film's Gothic sets, fantastic makeup, and nightmarish plot line, it's clear that Barker owes as much toPoe andLovecraft as to classic Hollywood screamers likeIsland of Lost Souls. But Barker's most perverse touch is that he makes these creatures the good guys (no wonder the PR flacks were bamboozled). Despite their grotesque appearance, they're a more colorful and engaging bunch than the emissaries of thenormal world. Barker piles on more subversive subtext than his story can bear — it's a monster movie, after all — but his daft,Grand Guignol vision has real power. The quality that freaked out the studio, Barker's ambition, is precisely what makesNightbreed so impressive".^[49]

In 1990, to tie in with the film's box office release,Epic Comics produced a four-issue adaptation of the film, which included significant differences from the finished movie, more closely related to Clive Barker's original script. The comic book continued to run past the end of the film, ultimately stretching to twenty-five issues before it was cancelled.^[52][53] The comic book was initially written byAlan Grant andJohn Wagner and drawn byJim Baikie.^[54]

A two-partgraphic novel was also produced,Hellraiser vs Nightbreed: Jihad, which merges the two worlds created by Clive Barker and features theCenobites as agents of order against their chaoticnemesis the Nightbreed, and the Jihad (Holy War) of extermination that the first wage on the latter.^[55][56]

Nightbreed returned in 1992, as a short story in the second issue of the four issueEpic anthology series.^[57]

A 12 issue mini-series was published by BOOM! Studios in 2014-2015 following the storyline of the Director's Cut of the film.^[58] It was collected in three volumes.

Twovideo games based on the film were released shortly after the movie. The games were intended to form a trilogy^[59] but due to the poor performance of the first two the third was never made.^[60]Nightbreed, The Action Game was released for theAmiga,Atari ST,Commodore 64,ZX Spectrum,Amstrad CPC, andMS-DOS.^[61][62][63]Clive Barker's Nightbreed: The Interactive Movie was released for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS.^[64][65]

Morgan Creek reportedly began developing atelevision series based on the original film in 2014.^[66][67] In the following year, Morgan Creek announced the sale of the domestic rights to its library of 78 films, but the production company plans to retain the TV rights toNightbreed.^[68] In June 2018,Syfy, Morgan Creek and Barker teamed up to develop the series.^[69] It is being written byJosh Stolberg and directed byMichael Dougherty for SyFy.^[70][71]

In 2009, Mark Miller, co-head of Barker's production company, Seraphim Films, helped track down the missing footage that was cut out of the director's cut ofNightbreed.^[72] Miller discovered, after talking to a production executive at the studio, that the footage was never actually lost but readily accessible. When asked, a studio executive said that there was not a big enough audience to warrant the studio spending money on a new, extended cut of the film.^[73] A VHS copy of Barker's 145-minute version of the film's mid-1989 workprint was discovered. It did not feature any of the re-shoots of Decker's murders.^[74] An extended 159-minute cut version, from another VHS found in July 2009, premiered on March 27, 2010, as part of the HorrorHound Weekend inIndianapolis.^[75] This new version adds almost an hour that was cut from the theatrical release, including a song sung by Lori, and more animation. Barker said that he hopes to bring back Danny Elfman to add more music.^[34]

In early 2012, Russell Cherrington, a senior lecturer in film and video production at theUniversity of Derby, created a composite cut of the film using the footage found on both VHS tapes and a DVD then recently released byWarner Archive Collection, Warner's made-to-order DVD service. This version is the most complete version of Barker's film available and has been dubbedThe Cabal Cut. The cut runs 155 minutes long and was shown at that year's "Mad Monster Party" inNorth Carolina with actorsCraig Sheffer and Anne Bobby attending.^[76]

The "Mad Monster Party" projection of theCabal Cut led to a renewal of interest among fans, especially on the Internet.^[77] A new petition was created and social networks were used to raise awareness for the extended cut and to encourage producers to release it. This would be colloquially known as "Occupy Midian", a term coined by actress Anne Bobby.^[78]

A Blu-Ray release of the "Cabal Cut" was announced on July 13, 2017, via the Clive Barker Podcast.^[79] This release utilized then-restored footage from the Director's Cut and the pre-existing VHS copies, for a total length of 145 minutes. The release features new material and commentary tracks exclusive to that release. Handled by Morgan Creek and Seraphim Films, the Cabal Cut Blu-Ray was released in a limited quantity through Clive Barker's online store.

In 2013,Shout! Factory releasedThe Cabal Cut on DVD.^[80][81] This version was later clarified to be a brand new director's cut that uses the footage and not the fullCabal Cut.^[82]

Shout! Factory releasedThe Director's Cut Blu-ray in 2014. This version, overseen by Clive Barker, runs twenty minutes longer than the theatrical version and contains forty minutes of new and altered footage.^[83] Shout, withMorgan Creek Entertainment, located the original film elements in the Warner archives to newly restore the sequences. Barker said, "when Scream Factory told me that they found theNightbreed film footage, I was gob-smacked! This is the ultimate validation of choices made by myself and Mark Miller all the way back in 2008".^[84] Shout later published a Special Edition Blu-ray / DVD combo pack and a 3-disc limited edition Blu-ray, containing a booklet and the theatrical cut. When the limited edition sold out during pre-orders, Shout! doubled their production run.^[85]

• List of films featuring hallucinogens

• Clive Barker's The Nightbreed Chronicles, Clive Barker, Murray Close, Stephen Jones,ISBN 1852862602.
• Clive Barker's Nightbreed: The Making of the Film, Clive Barker, Mark Salisbury, John Gilbert,ISBN 0006381367.

• Nightbreed atIMDb
• Nightbreed atBox Office Mojo
• Nightbreed atRotten Tomatoes
• Information about Nightbreed Director's Cut., archived fromthe original on May 24, 2011, retrievedDecember 28, 2014
• Extensive interview with Clive Barker aboutCabal andNightbreed.

• 1990 films
• 1990 horror films
• 1990 fantasy films
• 1990s monster movies
• 1990 LGBTQ-related films
• 1990s dark fantasy films
• 1990s serial killer films
• American dark fantasy films
• 1990s English-language films
• Films based on British horror novels
• Films based on works by Clive Barker
• Films directed by Clive Barker
• Films scored by Danny Elfman
• Films shot in Calgary
• Films shot in Berkshire
• Films shot in British Columbia
• Films shot in Buckinghamshire
• Films shot in Los Angeles
• American monster movies
• American serial killer films
• American supernatural horror films
• LGBTQ-related horror films
• Films shot at Pinewood Studios
• Morgan Creek Productions films
• 20th Century Fox films
• Films produced by Joe Roth
• Films adapted into comics
• Films set in Calgary
• 1990 American films
• Baphomet
• LGBTQ-related fantasy films
• Films with screenplays by Clive Barker
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• 1990 science fiction films
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