best movie i've ever seen.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Nightbreed is an early nineties horror film by Clive Barker that has developed a decent cult following and has a newly restored director's cut that includes a half hour of previously cut footage and apparently changes the ending. It tells the story of a young man who dreams of a place called Midian where an extremely varied group of monsters hide from humanity that hunts them.The Good: David Cronenberg. Yes, this is a film written and directed by horror auteur Clive Barker but it is David Cronenberg that steals the show. David plays a soft-spoken serial killer wearing a Coraline mask simply slaughtering all that come before him while setting up our protagonist to take the fall. The creature designs are also, on the whole, very well done. It is a delight to see McDonald's moon mascot Mac Tonight in his big screen debut.The Bad: David Cronenberg's character really should have had his own movie. The story of the creatures also really needed their own story. Putting both together seems to cheat each story. The feeling one gets is as if halfway through Jaws Richard Dreyfuss' character started making mashed potato mountains on the Orca and left the boat to hook up with Terri Garr and some aliens. Another thing that does not quite click unfortunately is our leads. Craig Sheffer and Anne Bobby seem to lack a certain chemistry, More damning they clearly were chosen based on their resemblance to the leads of Dirty Dancing which graced screens three years earlier, Anne Bobby, in particular, seems to be channeling her inner (and outer), Jennifer Grey. Somebody really needed to put that baby in the corner. Lastly, the film's direction and tone seem all over the map, particularly in the third act. You have a sheriff and various yahoos who are seeming out of a cartoon, you have the monsters reenacting a particularly sad version of 1932's Freaks, you have David Cronenberg who clearly is in a better movie somewhere, and you have direction that never makes it clear who is where related to everyone else and how many of whom there even are. Overall Nightbreed is more entertaining than I made it sound above. It reminds me of all things the recent Monster Trucks in terms of theme and tone. If Monster Trucks had Michael Myers killing entire families in the first half.

Nightbreed is an adaptation of Barker's novel Cabal from 1988. As I love this book very much, and Barker personally adapted it into screenplay and directed the film, I'm probably not able to observe it objectively. With exception of, from today's perspective, outdated special effects, this movie is perfect fantasy/horror action. Twenty years ago, when I first read the book and saw the movie, I was amazed. Now after watching it again I'm giving it strong eight. Role of main villain is played by David Cronenberg, and some fantasy and horror writers, including Neil Gaiman, also have brief appearances. Unlike the book that is genius, the film does not have a particular depth or characterization, but it has a phenomenal atmosphere and very interesting and original "monsters", as well as great music. I recommend you to watch director's cut and make sure you read the book.8/10

Clive Barker is one of my favorite authors because of how he mixes both horror and fantasy and really creates an elaborate world or mythos to them. Out of a lot of the live action adaptations of his work, this one believe it or not is my favorite one and it's also one of my favorite films of all time.I really like the story which is a wild but cool idea, in a way the story is kinda an "X-Men" tale only instead of mutants endangered by racism and prejudice it's monsters (ok, it's kinda the same difference). I like how these monsters are not portrayed as mindless, two dimensional brutes but actually as living people. We see that these are a species that have always lived amongst us in secret and aren't looking for trouble but unfortunately trouble found them.The music is excellent as it's by one of my favorite composers Danny Elfman whom in the 90's was really on a hot streak at that time, I love the theme which is one of my favorite themes of all time. The make up work is just fantastic, this is probably the finest practical make up work I've ever seen in any movie and a prime example showing that old fashioned is still the best way to go. The Nightbreed are all colorful and unique they all have different features about them. I even like the underground world Midan they've constructed, from all the passages and everything and the culture that exists it really made me wish to know more about it.There is even some action mainly the final battle at the end which is one of my favorite battles of all time. It's not exactly wall to wall but that's because it's kinda realistic as we are betting on the monsters to survive and overcome the supremacists that are trying to destroy them. I like how each of the monsters beat their opponents in unique ways, one favorite kill of mine is a I dare say a sexy female Nightbreed woman (forgot her name sorry) whom is kinda a humanoid porcupine as she produces quills which then stab one of the supremacists in multiple places, I thought that was cool.The characters are really solid if not the deepest. Arron Boone/Cabal (Craig Sheffer) is a decent/solid protagonist, his character is sympathetic because he's on the run from a crime he didn't commit but worst of all has no memory of his origins. Once he discovers them he it makes him struggle all the more as he is finding balance with both his human and monster identity.Dr. Philip K. Decker played surprising well by David Cronenberg whom is one of my favorite movie directors and turns out to be a capable actor; I can't help but wonder what this film could of been if he directed it. Anyway he's a solid antagonist as he is a psycho that is highly intelligent and uses that as his guise for his insanity, which makes sense with most serial killers. He's really creepy he's armed with giant knives and has that really creepy mask almost as creepy as the Michael Myers mask. But also we see he want to hunt and kill the Nightbreed not out of racial prejudice but out of jealousy and envy because this is a human monster that desires to be a monster which I'll admit is something different.It's true there is a lot of them and we don't know them in great depth but each of them have a particular personality which gives you a good feel for them and even makes them all the more sympathetic. Which is part of why I love this film because usually in a horror film we are sympathetic toward the human protagonist that is being hunted and chased by the monster. Here it's the other way around as we see it's the monsters that are being hunted and chased.I really like how this film deals with the issue of racism and prejudice. We see that the real monsters are the supremacists that hunt them which makes sense because Supremisists are the greatest human monsters in history from the Nazis to the Ku Klux Klan whose sole desire is to wipe out any living creature that is different by their false and corrupt standards; pretty much putting up more tombstones for humanity and their own conscious.Overall, this is a great horror film that any fan of Clive Barker and horror should check out. Real monsters aren't always hidden in the dark but are in plan sight where you least see them.Rating: 4 stars

Clive Barker's lost classic "Nightbreed" has had new life breathed into it after finally receiving a proper director's cut some twenty five years later— while the theatrical cut is still a fine film, the director's cut is far more cohesive in terms of content. The plot follows Aaron Boone, a man who has been tormented by dreams of a serial killer, and of a mysterious town called Midian, only to find out that his dreams are becoming reality, and the crimes are being pinned on him. In Midian, he uncovers an underground city beneath the cemetery that houses a plethora of misfit monsters.A potent blend of fantasy and horror (as Clive Barker is oft noted for), "Nightbreed" is a deserved cult classic that has withstood the test of time in spite of its marginal shortcomings. The film is not exceptionally acted or even exceptionally edited (and that goes for both cuts), but the film exceeds in thematic content, sympathetic characters, and astounding special effects. The creatures are appropriately grotesque yet still human enough that they stand relatable, and the painstaking amount of work that went into the prosthetics and effects department in general is impressive to say the least.Thematically, "Nightbreed" is unusual in that it, as Barker proclaims, shows the monsters as sympathetic characters; it refuses to uphold any sense of the status quo. It is a parable for misfits of virtually all minorities (though the film has a very strong undercurrent in regard to the gay community), and as a social parable wrapped in the embellishments of a fantasy horror epic, it is incredible. The cast holds their weight despite some moments of unbelievability, but as a gem of its time, the prospect of Oscar-worthy performances is not expected. Overall, "Nightbreed" is a great film for those who specifically enjoy fantasy horror; it is not a frightening film in any sense of the word, and while it is marginally thrilling at times, the greatest attraction here is the audience's immersion into the film's world it creates. It stands as Barker's greatest directorial achievement second to "Hellraiser" in my opinion. 9/10.