Nightbreed

Nightbreed. Clive Barker. 1990. ⚂

David Cronenberg! I didn’t know that he was in this…

But… perhaps I haven’t seen this before? I thought I had seen all horror movies from this era, but I must have missed this one for some reason or other.

It’s scary!

OK, I’m gonna go ahead and guess that the creepy psychologist is the serial killer, and not the hunky lead.

Oh! I read the comics adaptation of this less than a year ago? Oops. And that was probably why I got this blu ray in the first place.

OK, then I’m not so clever after all for guessing who the killer is. Darn!

This is the worst music ever. Did Barker write it himself?

Perhaps? Perhaps not?

That’s certainly a facial design.

The performances are almost fascinatingly bad. I don’t just mean this guy, whose previous credits are (on Hellraiser and Hallraiser II):

and

but even the professionals — I mean, I’ve never seen Cronenberg this… well, awkward.

So I guess it’s Barker’s fault.

Such shoulder.

So is this all a metaphor for finding a gay bar? Clive!

Is that the guy from Hill Street Blues?

Yes!

I thought his name was Sicking or something, but that’s somebody else.

Right, this was a troubled shoot:

Barker previewed the first cut of Nightbreed 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.

It had a pretty high budget (at the time) of $11M, but only made $16M at the box office, so… it didn’t exactly bomb, but didn’t make back the money.

What does this even mean:

He was given a budget of $11 million, which was a considerable increase from the $2 million he had to work with on Hellraiser. His goal was to make the Star Wars of horror films.

Barker had signed a contract for a followup movie, but that never happened, naturally.