You may not know this, but I’m a pretty big Clive Barker fan. His books, his art, his movies. One of my favorite movies of Clive’s is Nightbreed. This particular movie seemed destined for greatness. It was based on the Barker story Cabal — which was incredible fodder for film. But then the studio got their grubby hands on it and laid waste the publicity and the film.
The story is basically a reversal of the good guy bad guy. In Nightbreed there exists a place called Midian — where the monsters dwell. Only the Midian monsters are mostly peaceful creatures who only want to remain hidden from mankind. A young man named Boone hears the calling and discovers Midian — only he brings a mad therapists (played by David Croenenberg) with him. All hell breaks loose. Muhaha.
Well, the studio decided the story wouldn’t sell (this was back in the ’90s) so their PR machine went to work, retooling all the RP material into a typical slasher movie. The same studio also removed a large portion of the film — much of the heavier gory bits and some of the story. It tanked at the box office because everyone expected yet another Friday the 13th. The tag line to the movie poster said “Lorie thought she knew everything about her boyfriend…Lorie was wrong!”
What the studio did to the film outraged both Clive and his legion of fans. Clive swore he’d piece together a director’s cut and release it, so everyone could see the version of the film true to his vision. It took him twenty-two years!
The problem was the cut footage. The studio continually gave Clive the runaround as to the footage whereabouts. Well, it seems the footage has been found and the three hour director’s cut is going to be previewed at the Mad Monster Party. So to all fans out there, this is a must see!
As an added bonus to the director’s cut, they have remastered the voice of Lylseberg. The character was played by Barker fan-favorite Doug Bradley (Pinhead). But before the film was released, the studio decided to overdub a German actor’s voice to give the character a true German accent. Well, the new cut has actor Doug Bradley’s voice re-re-dubbed. So that amazing, haunting voice that brought to life one of the single most iconic monsters in film is back. Brilliant! And below is a Youtube clip of the Cabal Cut process of getting Mr. Bradley’s voice back into the film.
I hope you are as excited to see Nightbreed, as it should have been seen in the ’90s, as I am!
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