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. 

Scanners: The Criterion Blu-ray / DVD Combo review

It’s difficult to calculate the exact influence the work of David Cronenberg has had on sci-fi film and what the genre might be like without him. His work, or at least the first half of his career, so squarely belongs to Cronenberg that it’s entirely possible his absence wouldn’t make a big difference at all, as nobody can do Cronenberg like Cronenberg. Even Cronenberg arguably had a tough time of conveying his specific brand of sci-fi by the time he got to eXistenZ in 1999, which to date remains his last completely original screenplay.

But a new Criterion release demands that we travel all the way back to 1981, when American audiences were considerably less familiar with the Canadian filmmaker. Despite having made a half a dozen features prior to it, Scanners was the movie that put Cronenberg on everyone’s radar, and it blew their minds…

Read the rest of this review by clicking here and visiting STARLOG.

Cosmopolis: Blu-ray review

On paper, the marriage of cult film director David Cronenberg and cult novelist Don DeLillo is no doubt an ideal one, but movies require bringing dozens or even hundreds of other random factors into the mix, and it’s the director’s job to bring all of it together into one cohesive vision. Cosmopolis should have been a masterpiece, and bubbling away beneath its immensely flawed surface, one can see that masterpiece lurking. Unfortunately, the film is painted wall to wall with an uninspired, thoughtless and flat performance from Robert Pattinson that drags the entire affair down to nearly unwatchable. He is in every scene and the entire picture revolves around him. Understand, I’ve nothing against Pattinson. Being largely unfamiliar with his work, I went into Cosmopolis assuming that Cronenberg would work cinematic legerdemain with the actor, as he has done countless times before with dozens of players. He did not.

Read the rest of this review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

A Dangerous Method Blu-ray review

There’s only one thing I can guarantee you’ll take away from A Dangerous Method, and that’s, for better or worse, a whole new opinion of Keira Knightley. Years from now, when people dissect her career, I believe this movie will be recognized as the one where it all changed and she proved she was more than just a pretty face. Mind you, the “years from now” part is key, because she’s received virtually zero critical recognition for this work, which should perhaps not be all that surprising. When an artist we think we know unexpectedly delivers this kind of fearless, ferocious work, it can be easy to dismiss as “ridiculous” or “overacting.” She rants and raves and stutters and does something with her jaw that could only be found in a David Cronenberg film. It’s polarizing, like great performances can be, and unfortunately many viewers won’t move past what she does here to see the bigger picture.

Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein, who in 1904 is admitted by her mother to the Burgholzli Clinic in Zurich for bouts of hysteria. She finds herself in the care of Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), who, unusually for the time, uses the “talking method” of treatment. These days we call it psychoanalysis. Slowly, Jung helps Sabina to realize the roots of her problems and the pair forms a friendship. Enter Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel), a free-thinking, cocaine-sniffing psychoanalyst who encourages Jung to explore a sexual relationship with Sabina, which Jung does, complicating his own psyche, as well as his marriage to Emma (Sarah Gadon). Perhaps the only person that can help him is his mentor and father figure, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), whose views only make the situation that much more complex, as does Sabina’s own interest in psychoanalysis, at which she herself is becoming more and more adept.

Read the rest of this Blu-ray review by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

A History of Ultraviolence

Ultraviolence – the word, not the idea – was invented in 1962 when Anthony Burgess published his novel, A Clockwork Orange. While the book may have raised some eyebrows, reading about the atrocities perpetrated by teen thug Alex and his droogies was one thing; seeing them committed to the big screen by master cinema stylist Stanley Kubrick was quite another. Allegations of copycat crimes followed and the controversy eventually grew so frightening that the film was withdrawn from circulation in England for 27 years, apparently at Mr. Kubrick's request. Meanwhile in the U.S., it was one of only two productions to receive both an X rating and a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Today, we have another word for "ultraviolence" – just another Saturday night at the movies.

Now that a new 40th Anniversary Blu-ray edition of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange is upon us, it seems like a good time to take a look back at what was once considered extreme film violence and what still is considered the outer limits of what you can, or should want to, show on a motion picture or television screen. Yes, graphic violence in major productions had been exploding since the moment Alfred Hitchcock blindsided audiences with the Psycho shower scene in 1960. It would take some time before the kind of extreme shocks once sought out only by the hardiest of grindhouse horror fans could be seen by anyone with a subscription to basic cable.

Stay with us now, as somewhat squeamish but ever-fascinated cinema chicken Bob Westal and hardened connoisseur of the horrific Ross Ruediger take you on a journey through movies that were once called "ultraviolent," movies that are still pretty ultraviolent, and movies that are something well past that. We'll move from a time when the death of a couple of pretty and sympathetic gangsters shocked the sensibilities of many, to the present moment when truly shocking an audience seems to require an ultra-twisted imagination. Viddy this.

Read the rest of this article by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.