Monday, August 19, 2013

Barker at the Moon

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The fine folks at Shout Factory has gone and done the devil's work (in this case the devil's the good guy, ya see) and put together at last the "so lost we never thought it really existed" director's cut of Clive Barker's Nightbreed, based on his book Cabal, starring Craig Sheffer as that most typical of Barkerian leads - a hot guy who finds his body being taken over from the inside out by evil. Only evil's not really evil, just... misunderstood. Sexily misunderstood.

Honestly my memory of Nightbreed is vague - it's been years since I tried to watch it, and when I did watch it I wasn't that enamored with it. (David Cronenberg in button mask aside.) I knew going in that the studio basically took it away from Barker and it wasn't the movie he wanted to make at all, so I chalked my less-than enthusiasm up towards that. but now here's the chance to see the movie Clive wanted us to see, and see it I shall. The Playlist has a quote from him - he is a very happy fellow about this news.

"I had a dream about the tribes of the moon. They would live in a city called Midian and, though they were monsters of every shape and size, they would be the heroes of a movie called “Nightbreed.” However, when I made the movie, the studio was not comfortable with this inversion of the classic structure. They wanted the monsters to be simple-minded scare machines, while I wanted them to be the dark side of all of us, mysterious and misunderstood. Finally, with this new version of “Nightbreed,” which contains over forty five minutes of previously unseen material, my original vision has been realized. Come with me to Midian, the city of monsters. The tribes of the moon await us.”"
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1 comment:

adam said...

hmmm ... thought this flick was a missed opportunity; made need to give the directors cut a shot