Nightbreed: The Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack review

The director’s cut of Clive Barker’s Nightbreed has been a very, very long time coming, and rare is a film more deserving of a top to bottom reworking than this one. Released theatrically in 1990 in a tragically butchered form by Fox, the film should have been Barker’s leap to the big time. While it didn’t necessarily derail his movie career, it certainly didn’t help it, nor did it likely endear the movie business to Barker himself. With a two-hour running time, including 40 minutes of new footage, this is the version of the movie that should have been released 25 years ago.

Yet this new Nightbreed is such an unusual film that it probably wouldn’t have been any more popular at the box office than the tainted theatrical version. It’s just too strange to ever have appealed to mainstream audiences, regardless of its form. But it surely would have amassed a far greater following over the years, and would now be looked back on as one the great horror fantasy films of its time. Maybe it isn’t too late to attain such a title.

Adapted from Barker’s own novel Cabal, the story tells of disturbed young man Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer), who sees therapist Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg) for help with the visions he suffers – visions of a place called Midian. Meanwhile, a vicious masked psychopath is serial killing, and Decker convinces Boone he’s committing the crimes by slipping him psychedelics. But all is clearly not as it seems, and Midian is a very real place beckoning to Boone. Midian, located in a remote area beneath a forgotten graveyard, is where the monsters live – the freaks and genetic misfits that society has no room to accommodate. There they live in peace, away from mankind. But a war is coming, and the inhabitants of Midian will find their reclusive existence threatened by man, with Boone and his girlfriend Lori (Anne Bobby) at the center of the conflict.

The whole point of Nightbreed is that the monsters are the good guys, and humanity is morally corrupt, indecent, and without conscience or empathy. This is also very much the point that was gutted from the theatrical version all those years ago, leaving viewers wondering what the object of the exercise was. The Director’s Cut restores the crucial character and story arcs so that the film now feels well-rounded and full-bodied. Most importantly, the inhabitants of Midian have been brought to the forefront, and Nightbreed is populated by dozens and dozens of creatures – I do not exaggerate when I say that 50 feels like it might be low balling it – many onscreen for just seconds at a time.

Lylesburg (Doug Bradley, Pinhead of the Hellraiser films) is the leader of the colony. Aged and wizard-like, the old man has perpetually bleeding slits on his cheeks, which open to reveal eyes. Narcisse (Hugh Ross), the wild man with peeled back skin and an exposed skull, is Boone’s first tangible proof that Midian exists. Peloquin (Oliver Parker) is the red-skinned, tentacle-headed alpha male of Midian. Kinski (Nicholas Vince), whose head is shaped like a crescent moon – looking like Jay Leno via a Mighty Men and Monster Maker - is one of the first to show Boone kindness. Shuna Sassi (Christine McCorkindale) is covered in deadly needles, like some sort of sexy, birdlike porcupine. And the list could go on and on.

Much like its banner mission of flipping the good guys and the bad guys, Nightbreed seems to thrive on turning horror conventions on their ear, always in the service of casting its heroes in a positive light. It’s almost as if while writing it, Barker would come to a spot and say to himself, “Now what would every other horror writer do here? I think I’ll do just the opposite.” Its themes of persecution frequently hit home emotionally, and it’s sort of amazing how easy it is to care and root for these ghastly creatures in this “horror movie.” It’s the sort of the stuff that’s often the domain of science fiction and fantasy, but almost never horror. And the humans really are awful, terrible people, chewing into their roles with great relish. Charles Haid, best known for his work in Hill Street Blues, tears into it as a local cop, and Cronenberg is such an ideal choice for Decker that it is practically impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. Here the infamous visionary behind fare such as Scanners and Videodrome embodies evil incarnate, and a more subversively malevolent movie figure you’ll be hard-pressed to find.

Craig Sheffer has all the makings of a standard, B-movie hero of the time period. There’s little that’s remarkable about his work here, and yet he unquestionably gets the job done. Anne Bobby, however, is a little treasure, and Lori’s story arc is far more the backbone of the picture than Boone’s. Midian calls out to Boone; it’s his destiny. Lori has to work for it, and in many ways she goes on far more of a traditional hero’s journey than the picture’s leading man. One of her great scenes, cut from the theatrical version but restored here, is a musical number early in the film. Set in a raucous dive bar, Lori howls “Johnny Get Angry” to an enthusiastic crowd (all while Boone, in the midst of the worst drug trip ever, looks on). The scene shouldn’t work, and yet it’s now impossible to imagine Nightbreed without it. Perhaps the greatest tragedy to come out of this movie’s mishandling is that Bobby didn’t get a bigger career out of it, which she more than deserved.

Blu-ray/DVD Extras: Shout only provided the Morgue with the standard Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, as opposed to the limited collector’s edition Blu-ray set, which has two extra discs, one of which features the original theatrical cut. While I was initially disappointed that I didn’t get the big set, as I really wanted a copy of the original cut, once I viewed the new version I no longer cared. Frankly, it’s been so long since I last viewed the theatrical cut, I couldn’t line list the differences. I only instinctively know that the new version is clearly and vastly superior, and viewing it makes the old version a relic, probably deserving of being lost to posterity.

Extras include an introduction from Clive Barker and Mark Alan Miller, the gentleman largely responsible for making the Director’s Cut a reality. It plays automatically with the film, but is skippable. The pair also has their own commentary track. Beyond that, there’s a 72-minute making of/remembrance called “Tribes of the Moon,” which includes Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, Doug Bradley, Hugh Ross, Simon Bamford, and Christine McCorkidale all waxing light-heartedly nostalgic about their time making the picture. While not definitive (frankly, I’d have killed for some Cronenberg on here), it remains a great deal of fun, and most any fan will be delighted by it. “Making Monsters” is a 42-minute featurette on the makeup and effects, which are stars of the film unto themselves. Here we get thoughts from artists Bob Keen, Martin Mercer, and Paul Jones, who only represent a sliver of Nightbreed’s behind the scenes talent, though they frequently discuss all of the other artists’ contributions. “Fire! Fights! Stunts! 2^nd Unit Shooting” is a 20-minute interview with action director Andy Armstrong. Lastly, there’s the film’s original theatrical trailer. All bonus programming is duplicated on both the Blu-ray and the DVD. 

Pleasure & Pain (Part Two)

(Read Part One of this piece by clicking here.)

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) reared its bloated head a year after the first installment, and it is a direct sequel featuring three of the four members of the Cotton clan. It’s a mildly worthy, even if often misguided continuation of the story. As claustrophobic as the first movie is, Hellbound attempts the opposite by opening the story up with bigger effects and a larger playing field, all in the dimension of the Cenobites - a world that seems to indicate M.C. Escher is behind all of this madness. (Think Jim Henson’s Labyrinth for easily amused adults.)

Hellbound’s opening scenario echoes Frank’s first encounter with the Cenobites, only this time the man attempting to solve the puzzle is Elliott Spenser, a Captain in the British Army circa World War I. We do not know his reasons for doing so or even how he came to be in possession of the box. Upon its opening, tiny knives spring forth and slice a grid across his head, followed by tentacles hammering nails into the symmetrical pattern: The genesis of Pinhead. (More on the big guy later…)

The film’s most stimulating character is Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham of Rome), a psychiatrist obsessed with the Lament Configuration and the Cenobites. His interest is fueled by intellectual fascination and curiosity, as opposed to Frank’s pleasure seeking agenda from the first movie. One of his great lines - uttered after a hellish transformation to both his body and mind - “And to think, I hesitated”.

Frank himself returns in a scene that’s another Hellbound highlight: He’s reduced to spending eternity in a room full of beds on top of which lay naked, writhing female bodies covered in white sheets – only when the sheets are removed, the bodies disappear. When Kirsty begs him to reveal the whereabouts of her father, he offers up the classic “When you’re dead, you’re fuckin’ dead!” - which could be more of a key to understanding this world than the flippancy with which its delivered allows it to reveal.

Speaking of Kirsty’s father, Larry Cotton was to figure prominently in the film. Late in the game Andrew Robinson chose not to reprise the role, which led to some hasty rewrites. I’ve been unable to find precise details of “what might have been”, although one tidbit I found didn’t lead me to believe the film would have been much better if he had featured in the story. The movie eventually falls into a mish-mash of silly chases and popcorn science fiction and in the end fails to make much sense out of a series of promising setups. But even with its problems, nobody can ever accuse it of being boring, which leads me to...

…Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), a movie that’s nothing if not a snoozefest. Its central premise is the idea that Pinhead wants to escape his world and exist on Earth. After seeing his world in Hellbound, I cannot grasp why he’d want to do this – Earth is pretty tedious in comparison. Maybe the grass is always greener, even when you’re a supernatural being. The film’s utter cheeseitude can pretty much be summed up by a new Cenobite with compact discs lodged in his head - an image that confirmed major Hellraiser Shark-Jumpage. There isn’t much more to say about it, except that if you’re a Star Trek fan, Terry Farrell (DS9’s Dax) plays the central heroine (although if you're a Trek fan you probably already know this).

The fourth movie, Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), may have been good or even great at one point; one section of the film details the invention of the Lament Configuration and is set in the 18th Century, with some nice period costumes and so forth. But Miramax/Dimension interfered by reediting and butchering it over concerns that Pinhead didn’t appear until about 40 minutes into the picture. It ended up with an infamous “Directed by Alan Smithee” credit after director Kevin Yagher asked that his name be removed. I’ve always hoped for a Director’s Cut, but over the years it’s seeming less and less likely.

The new millennium saw Hellraiser go direct to video and since the year 2000 there’ve been four more installments. This is a moderately peculiar development as it’s an affliction that hasn’t struck the Freddy, Jason or Michael Myers franchises, no matter how far they’ve fallen.

Are these flicks any good? I must admit I’ve only seen the first two: Inferno (2000) & Hellseeker (2002). The former is like watching Bad Lieutenant on good acid and stars Craig Sheffer. The latter resembles an Elm Street flick in that it’s a blurred “what’s real and what’s not?” type of affair. It’s most noteworthy for featuring the return of Kirsty Cotton, again played by the lovely Ashley Laurence, and the film deserves props for bringing her back in an unexpected fashion that didn't degrade the series or Kirsty as a character.

Neither movie is great and both are needlessly obtuse, but ultimately they’re a few steps up from the schlockfests into which the theatrical films eventually devolved. They at least attempt to go for the gold, even if they can’t see the rainbow through the clouds.

The series, at least for now, is better off on video rather than the big screen where it could suffer far more evil (i.e. commercialized) fates. These low-budget Hellraiser flicks can afford experimentation and risk-taking even if they don’t always pay off. The original remains not only the best, but also the lowest-budgeted film in the entire saga – it was made for only $1,000,000. $20 mill isn’t necessary to tell a good story in the Cenobite universe; a smart script and a twisted imagination will go farther than piles of cash.

What somebody really needs to do is go back to the beginning, dissect the themes that made the first film work so well, and come up with a fresh spin on the material. As iconic as Pinhead is, Frank Cotton is still Hellraiser’s most intriguing character and I’d like to see Frank again in some form or fashion.

And what of our main man…he of all things hammered home? Is Pinhead necessary to Hellraiser or is there room for stories without him? That’s a toughie. He is not integral to the Hellraiser universe in the same way Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers are to theirs. He’s not the only Cenobite - just the most well spoken and best dressed (which actually counts for quite a bit). I’d rather see a good Hellraiser movie without Pinhead than a bad installment that featured him running all over the place.

On the other hand, Pinhead hasn’t suffered the undignified fates of many movie monsters. He’s always possessed immense intelligence and fortunately hasn’t been totally reduced to a wisecracking demonic entity, although there have been occasional derailments (Hell on Earth being the biggest transgressor). There's life [and death] in the old boy yet.

Both Inferno and Hellseeker seem to understand that the less we see of Pinhead, the more effective he is as a boogeyman, which hails back to Barker’s original vision. Go back and check out the credits of the first movie; Doug Bradley doesn’t play Pinhead – he plays “Lead Cenobite”. And Mrs. Voorhees was the killer in Friday the 13th, Freddy mostly lurked in dreamlike shadows in the first Elm Street, and don’t even get me started on Halloween’s Michael Myers, who really just needs to fucking die already.

Like most fans, I live with a hope that someday a Hellraiser flick is created that lives up to the inspired beauty of Barker's original vision. Unlike the other franchises mentioned here, Hellraiser rarely repeats itself nor has it been forced to fall back on hip gimmickry (New Nightmare anyone?) as a means of reinvention. My hope is likely rooted in one of "Lead Cenobite's" most infamous bits of dialogue:

We have such sights to show you!

Pleasure & Pain (Part One)

It’s been my experience that people either really like Hellraiser or they find the entire concept to be just this side of ridiculous.

Which is fine - it is a fantastic premise and one that pretty much discounts most spiritual and secular beliefs in lieu of creating its own explanations for the realms outside of human experience. It may be easier to view the Hellraiser concept as elaborate fantasy rather than to think of it as horror. No other series of films can prepare a viewer for Hellraiser because there isn’t another series anything like it…although I suspect writer/director Clive Barker used A Nightmare on Elm Street in his pitch.

Of the four films that played theatrically - Hellraiser, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Hellraiser III: I Fling the CD Electric & Hellraiser: Muppets in Space - really only the first two merit serious attention.

The original remains the gold standard and in one sense it does rely on the tried and true: The most horrific concepts are often the most intimately staged. The bulk of Hellraiser takes place within the confines of an old house and revolves around four members of the Cotton family:

1. Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman, and later in the movie Oliver Smith), a hedonistic pleasure seeker with no conscience and even fewer morals.
2. Larry (Andrew Robinson, Dirty Harry’s Scorpio Killer), Frank’s square of an older brother.
3. Julia (Clare Higgins), Larry’s ice-cold wife and Frank’s ex-lover.
4. Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), the college-age daughter of Larry, niece of Frank and stepdaughter of Julia, who inadvertently gets caught up in and nearly pays for the sins of the adults – although the concept of sin in the world of Hellraiser is a dubious prospect at best.

When Frank Cotton discovers the puzzle box (or the Lament Configuration, as it later came to be known), he believes it to be the key to ultimate pleasure. Upon solving it, he discovers it’s more of a key to dimensions outside the earthly realm: Areas inhabited by beings known as Cenobites. Cenobites, in the words of their leader Pinhead (Doug Bradley), are “Explorers in the further regions of experience. Demons to some. Angels to others”. They subject Frank to all manner of gruesomeness, resulting in his eventual death…or so it would seem.

Some time later, Larry and Julia move into the house he owns with brother Frank – the same house in which Frank solved the puzzle and died in. A minor accident leads to Larry spilling some blood in the attic – blood that Frank absorbs and uses to somehow bring himself back from the dead, although it’s unclear exactly how this works. Was Frank ever really dead or was he existing in a dimension between life and death? Frank’s words “I escaped them [the Cenobites]!” give little explanation. In writer/director Clive Barker’s imagination, it seems the point of the goings-on is the exploration of the unknown and answers aren’t always given. Again, in order to accept this world you must play by its frequently bizarre and inconsistent rules.

It doesn’t take long for Frank to reintroduce Julia to his sadomasochism, and in order to become fully human again (at least in appearance) he needs the blood - and eventually the skin - of more people. She begrudgingly agrees to pick up strangers on the street and lure them back to the attic with promises of sex. Needless to say the promises aren’t kept and the men end up fueling the rebirth of Frank Cotton, an act which may have fatal consequences for Larry, Kirsty and even Julia herself.

It's interesting to note that the differences between the film and Barker's novella on which it's based, The Hellbound Heart, are fairly minor. Probably the most noteworthy is that Kirsty is not Larry Cotton's daughter, but rather a female friend who's carried the torch for him for many years. The text is also able to more clearly explore the pleasure/pain angle through detailed descriptions of Frank's experiences with the Cenobites. If the film wasn't such a spot-on adaptation in other respects, it might be an ideal candidate for remaking at some point in the future.

The film is squarely rooted in the human concept of the blurred lines between pleasure and pain - something that's perhaps also symbolized through the family - but with each sequel the series got further and further away from the idea. This is noteworthy, as I don’t believe the first movie said all there was to be said on what’s Frankly - sorry…couldn’t resist - a fascinating idea.

(To be continued...)