I remember it like it was just yesterday.
I was working at a Suncoast Video store in a mall in the suburban hell of my hometown. My main education at that time didn’t come from school. It came from the VHS tapes I pulled from the shelf of that store.
Often it was horror, science fiction or cult cinema that my square little world and universe frowned upon.
One of those films I was intrigued by was Nightbreed.
I was familiar with Hellraiser, it was the bad-boy horror film of the time, so different and original, dark and subversive.
The images and the world created in it disturbed you and titillated you both at the same time. Barker’s magic, the ability to connect the pleasure senses with the fear senses. Giving you a secret feeling, one of excitement, adrenaline and forbidden.
Like opening the box (The Lament Configuration) choosing to watch his films or read his stories was a profound and seemingly forbidden experience.
It was with all those thoughts that I purchased the VHS of Nightbreed.
That night, after my minimum wage shift I went back to my suburban home (my family home) and after mom and everybody went to sleep I retired to the den, with my movie and the night ahead of me.
I watched Nightbreed and even at that young age… it didn’t feel that great. It was okay. Not the tribes of the moon experience I was expecting from the glorious creatures on the box.
My friends and others I knew that were into horror and movies didn’t speak much of it. There wasn’t much raving about the breed. It went away quietly. Other films much more gory and perverse came along, the breed faded away into the era of the video-cassette.
My love of Barker’s work and the worlds he created continued to grow. I was excited to see Lord Of Illusions, I had seen the other Hellraiser films (which steadily got worse and worse, Pinhead going from one of the most beautiful and terrifying concepts in horror I’d seen to another joking Freddy Krueger ready to be made into an action figure).
Time passed, and something interesting happened.
Nightbreed stuck with me. I didn’t know why and I didn’t discuss it but inside it was a film I was very fond of. Because it didn’t have much commercial success, because genre fans never talked about it… Nightbreed was like my little secret.
A film only I understood and appreciated. It was like it was all mine. I re-watched the VHS “theatrical version” many times while at home relaxing, or working on stuff. I was the only one, I thought, who enjoyed it despite its flaws…
And then all these years later something happened. Whispers and murmurs on the Internet, at conventions and between hardcore fans…
Something called The Cabal Cut.
With my knowledge of The Cabal Cut I realized there were others. Not unlike the secret tribes of the moon, not unlike myself there were others like me who enjoyed the film. I wasn’t the only one, all this time that secretly and privately loved this film. There was an army, a counter-culture for the film. And not only that, someone in that group had discovered lost footage.
And with this footage I started hearing revelations that taught me why the film I saw never made that much sense. The studio. Those horrible faceless suit wearing, tie wearing execs that’s who was behind it. Those that like to suffocate and kill dreams. They like to profit off dreams, but they like to suffocate the dreamers.
And Nightbreed and Clive Barker were not immune to this truly frightening entity.
The film I had seen all those years ago wasn’t the film is was supposed to be. It had been tinkered with, the monsters weren’t allowed to be the heroes. Sounded like the little monster I was in those suburbs, forbidden to be who I truly was. And now there is a version cut and pasted together, rough, but true. More scenes, the way the film was meant to be.
Somehow I had to see it!
I was part of Midian after all, I was part of the breed wasn’t I? I had to see this more complete version no matter the quality… and I did.
I had the good fortune to be attending Fantastic Fest in Austin Texas the year The Cabal Cut screened. I was working the event and it was the only film I was able to make time for during my trip. I had to see this true version. And I did. And it wasn’t great.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it made so much more sense than the previous version I had enjoyed. But it was long, and the long patches of rainbow-worm grainy VHS cut in were really hard on your eyes. I was happy it existed and I was hopeful about the rumors of restoration. But it wasn’t as fantastic as I’d hoped for. Boone wasn’t the hero I’d hoped this new cut would make him.
But it was a good shot.
But… the journey of the breed wasn’t over and my journey as a fan wasn’t over either.
I’ve spent the last ten years of my life, influenced by the art of those like Barker, busting my ass in entertainment, trying to make my mark, trying to tell my stories, trying to get more tribes of the moon mentality into this world. It’s been a journey and along the way I have worked with some amazing people. Shout! Factory being one of them. After my time at Shout! I moved on to the TV Network FEARnet. Sense a bit of a theme going here..?
Anyway, after I departed from Shout! they had launched Scream Factory. Being a fan of everyone there I worked with before, and seeing the love and care that the Scream Factory team was putting into its releases… well, it made me feel like that kid at the video store all over again, selecting those video-tapes from the magic art on their covers. These were others like myself. They truly got it… and they were now involved along with Mark Miller, from Clive’s camp, with the restoration of Night Breed.
Through years of hard work, and some luck, they found the missing footage needed to make a “Directors Cut” of the film. (That itself is a fascinating story I recommend you look into. There’s other better coverage out there about their restoration process.) Because of the work I have done and the amazing and like-minded people I have met, a few nights ago I had the great fortune to attend a theatrical screening of Nightbreed. Fully restored, edited the way it should have been all these years.
It wasn’t the long laboring Cabal cut, it wasn’t the butchered theatrical cut, instead it was something right between, something that finally, truly worked.
Mr. Barker was there in person to discuss the film, many of his filmmaking family were there (from both Hellraiser and Nightbreed) to discuss the shooting of the film, the fallout of the studio destroying the film, and the fan movement and love for Barker’s work that gave the film the resurgence these years later.
To be there, to see the results of this team, taking back a piece of art that had been stolen from the artist and tainted, to be there to see them celebrate taking the art back. Well, I’m just a fan, but for me it was an emotional experience. I could relate to that audience like I was Boone and they were the other secret members of Midian. Together we’ve withstood the outside mainstream world, and this was one of those nights we all gathered and celebrated the beautiful monsters we are.
And we owe it all to a man’s imagination, original open-minded thought, willingness to sit down, put it to paper and celluloid and fight the good fight over the course of time.
The Nightbreed Director’s Cut is now available for the first time on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory. I highly recommend you pick it up, if you are a fan of… independent thought, film history, horror and the beauty of that which doesn’t fit in.
