Nightbreed: the Cabal Cut

[vforvenator]

I thought I'd get some interest on Warseer for this: there is an online petition and campaign to get a proper release for the directors' cut of Clive Barkers' Nightbreed.
For those who don't know, Nightbreed was a big-budget adaptation of Barkers' novella Cabal, made in 1989 - it was an ambitious horror-fantasy about a community of antiheroic monsters and their dashing messiah-figure, set to be the "Star Wars of horror" films and the first of an intended trilogy. It had approx. 200 elaborately made-up monstrous characters and unprecedented scope for an R-rated horror movie, had director David Cronenberg as one of the main (human) villains and a cameo by Suzi Quatro, and was replete with Barkers' subversive subtext about sexuality and Biblical mythology... Sounds amazing, right?

But thanks to nervous and conservative studio execs at Morgan Creek it was heavily cut, inaccurately marketed and poor sold, so fizzled out and led nowhere.

After some time and effort by Barkers' associates, an extended directors cut has been pieced together, the 'Cabal Cut', with more than an hour of additional footage previously feared lost at Morgan Creek, and has been especially screened a few times since last year, and now, depending on demand, a DVD and possibly Blu-Ray release is an actual possibility...

There is an online petition with this in mind, and an 'Occupy Midian' Facebook page and site, links below. So, if you want to see this happen, the first thing you should do it let them know by signing up.

Info, updates + links: http://www.clivebarker.info/morenightbreed.html

Occupy Midian: http://www.occupymidian.com

[de Selby]

I remember Nightbreed as boring, muddled and generally dreadful. The question is, will an hour of extra footage improve or worsen the situation?

[vforvenator]

Improve, improve!

The muddled sequences and apparent plot-jumps are known to be due to the rubbish editing and enforced cuts. This will have effected the pace too, which may be why you found it boring, although more footage would make it longer... Main improvements would seem to be to explain more, flesh out characters more, and show more monsters and violence (which is obviously a good thing)
The cheesy humour and late 80s-ness might not be to your taste, though. It is both of those things.

[Brother Loki]

Thanks for letting me know about this! Petition signed. I loved the book, and even quite liked the film, although there was so much missing.

[TimLeeson]

I enjoyed the film, it was refreshing to have monsters as protagonists. I find humans so boring as protagonists and is one of the major turnoffs for me for for most fantastical things.

[Hicks]

Really hope this works. The movie I thought was ok, but I knew about all the crap the studio pulled on it and can definitely see how great it could be.

[blackcherry]

The review of the whole film is up on Badass Digest (forgive the title, its a rather intelligent film site) if anyone wants to take a look. http://badassdigest.com/2012/06/12/c...the-cabal-cut/

[vforvenator]

Update: it looks like our interest and support is paying off... http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/563...nd-dvd-release

Wikkid.