NIGHTBREED: THE CABAL CUT (1990)

Studio:       Morgan Creek
Director:    Clive Barker
Writer:       Clive Barker
Producer:  Mark Miller, Russell Cherrington
Stars:     Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Charles Haid, Hugh Quarshie, Hugh Ross, Doug Bradley, Catherine Chevalier, Bob Sessions, Malcolm Smith

Review Score: 

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Summary:

Manipulated by a serial killer, a troubled man discovers a lair hidden beneath a cemetery that provides refuge for monsters. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

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Aaron Boone dreams of the Nightbreed running loose outside a set of cemetery gates. [Boone wakes in bed with his girlfriend Lori Winston, who suggests that the two of them get out of Calgary for a few days. Boone tells Lori that his therapist, Dr. Philip K. Decker, has been calling again. Lori suggests returning to Decker to see if the doctor can help with Boone’s strange dreams.] (Lori visits Boone at his job as a mechanic. They share a kiss and discuss their relationship.) Meanwhile, a serial killer wearing a mask with button eyes and a zippered mouth murders a family in their home. (Detective Joyce and the police investigate the crime scene.)

Boone visits Decker’s office where the two men discuss Boone’s dreams about monsters and a place called Midian where sins can be forgiven*. Decker shows Boone crime scene photographs given to him by the police, claiming that they asked if one of Decker’s patients could be the killer. Decker convinces Boone that his dreams match details of the murders and that Boone unknowingly killed six families in ten months. Decker gives Boone lithium and offers him 24 hours to turn himself in. Boone pops one of the pills. (Boone experiences hallucinatory visions while photographs burn. He then goes to a club where Lori is singing to watch her perform, but he leaves without speaking to her.) At home, Lori wonders where Boone is.

In a daze, Boone wanders into the street and is hit by a truck. At the hospital, the doctor reveals that the pills Boone took were actually hallucinogens. As he recovers in his hospital bed, Boone hears a man named Narcisse muttering about Midian as a place where monsters go to be accepted if they are worthy*. Narcisse tells Boone where Midian is located. Believing that the Nightbreed have sent Boone to test his worthiness, Narcisse decides to show Boone his true face. Using a pair of ringed thumb blades, Narcisse cuts around his face and pulls the rest of the flesh off his head. Decker arrives with Detective Joyce and the police. Boone flees. Joyce allows Decker to interrogate Narcisse privately.

Boone drives to Midian and falls asleep in the cemetery before his first encounter with the Nightbreed. Moonfaced Kinski takes Boone at knifepoint while Peloquin threatens to eat Boone. Kinski reminds Peloquin that eating Boone is against their laws. Boone protests that he is a monster and that he should be one of them. Peloquin tells Boone that he can smell innocence on him and whoever told Boone that he was a murderer lied. Peloquin bites Boone’s shoulder, but Boone escapes with Kinski’s help.

Boone exits the cemetery only to be confronted by Decker and the police. Decker is allowed to speak to Boone. He shouts that Boone has a gun and ducks as the police shoot Boone to death.

Lori is called to identify Boone’s body and she has a brief discussion with Decker (and Joyce)*. While the coroner takes a break from performing the autopsy, Peloquin’s bite wound resurrects Boone and he escapes*. In frustration, Decker reviews the session tapes where Boone discusses Midian.

Lori stops at a bar as she searches for Midian. While crying in the bathroom, Lori wins the sympathy of barfly Sheryl Ann and the two women become fast friends. (Lori tells Sheryl Ann about Boone as well as Midian. Sheryl Ann offers to accompany Lori on her drive the next day. Lori returns to her room as Sheryl Ann plans to stay at the bar in hopes of meeting a man.)

Underneath the Midian cemetery, Narcisse escorts Boone to an assembly of Nightbreed in front of their leader, Dirk Lylesberg. At the gathering, Boone recognizes Shuna Sassi, the porcupine woman from his dreams. With Kinski as his advocate, Boone is initiated into the Nightbreed and his wounds are healed.

Although hung over, Sheryl Ann prepares to accompany Lori on a road trip to Midian. Sheryl Ann mentions having hooked up with a banker named Curtis the night before. Sheryl Ann listens to music in the car while Lori explores the cemetery. Curtis pulls up outside to greet Sheryl Ann and turns out to be Decker using an alias. Lori finds a small creature dying in the sunlight*. Nightbreed Rachel pleads with Lori to rescue the creature. Once out of the sun, the creature turns into Rachel’s daughter Babette. Lori pleads with Rachel and Lylesberg to take her below to see Boone, but they refuse. Lori tries entering their lair anyway, but Peloquin frightens her away. Lori returns to the car and finds Sheryl Ann’s dead body. Wearing his mask, Decker confronts Lori. She runs back into the cemetery for safety. Restrained by two of the Nightbreed, Boone argues with Lylesberg about helping Lori*. Boone breaks free and rescues her anyway. Narcisse readies to attack Decker for being accosted in the hospital, but Decker escapes. Lylesberg admonishes Boone for bringing Lori into their lair and for letting Decker escape. Lylesberg banishes Boone and Lori to walk amongst the naturals. (Boone plans to meet with Baphomet.)

Decker uses a gas station phone to call Detective Joyce and arranges to meet him at the police station in Shere Neck. Realizing that the gas station owner knows about the Nightbreed, Decker tortures him for information. Decker proclaims that he wants to destroy the Nightbreed and then kills the attendant with a knife.

Lori wakes below the cemetery. Rachel tells her about the various Nightbreed abilities and weaknesses. Babette touches Lori’s hand and shows her terrifying visions of the Nightbreed being persecuted throughout history. (Lori and Babette become psychically bonded.) Rachel tells Lori that Boone is now one of them. Lori learns that Boone is in the chamber of Baphomet, the baptizer who made Midian and called the Nightbreed there to save them from their enemies. Lori encounters many more Nightbreed while searching for Boone.

Decker tells Detective Joyce that Boone is still alive as they meet with Captain Eigerman of the local police. Eigerman insists that Midian is his jurisdiction. Decker insists that there is a danger there that needs to be stopped.

Narcisse warns Lori about how Boone has changed. Lori wanders into a chamber where the Nightbreed imprison Berserkers, who are uncontrollable monsters. Nightbreed Ohnaka rescues Lori from their clutches and takes her to Boone in Baphomet’s chamber. Reunited, Boone tells Lori not to look directly at Baphomet. Lori convinces Boone to leave Midian with her*.

Decker beheads a man and kills the receptionist at the Sweetgrass Inn where Lori is staying. Lori takes Boone to her room and then tells him to investigate the room next door. Boone finds more men killed by Decker as the police descend on the building. Lori witnesses Boone taking the form of a monster before he is finally captured.

Boone is placed in a cell next to a drunken priest named Ashberry. Captain Eigerman and his men beat Boone for being a cannibal. Decker and Joyce convince Eigerman to look for others like Boone in the cemetery. (Eigerman gives a press conference.) A doctor examines Boone and finds that he has no pulse. Eigerman angrily asks Decker what they are dealing with. [Ashberry warns Boone that he is an abomination who needs to die.]

Joyce searches the cemetery with Eigerman’s men*. They pull Ohnaka into the sunlight and watch him decay into dust before exploding*. (Lori experiences the Nightbreed’s suffering remotely through her link with Babette.) Narcisse blows up the police vehicle outside the cemetery, prompting Eigerman to stage a full raid on cemetery. Eigerman brings Ashberry with them as a messenger from God. (Eigerman and the police detail their weaponry to Decker.)

Narcisse and Rachel rescue Boone from the police station. Lori tells Boone that she is not afraid of him as they kiss while he is in monster form*.

The cemetery siege begins*. (Joyce begins to question if what they are doing is right. The button-eyed mask speaks to Decker, urging him to kill. Decker slashes Detective Joyce, but Joyce survives. When Joyce has a change of heart later, Boone charges him with taking Babette to safety.) [Decker murders Detective Joyce outside the gates.] Boone returns to Midian and convinces the Nightbreed to escape and to fight*. Ashberry realizes that the police are killing women and children as explosions begin tearing Midian apart. Ashberry pleads with Eigerman to stop. Boone saves Ashberry before Eigerman can shoot the priest*. The battle between police and Nightbreed rages everywhere*. Boone convinces Lylesberg to release the Berserkers. Ashberry finds Baphomet’s chamber and is burned by a scalding liquid*. Lylesberg is shot in the head before he can release the Berserkers, but Boone sets them free. The Berserkers begin killing the raiders, prompting Eigerman and the others to flee.

Peloquin shows Lori a painted mural that prophesized Boone’s arrival as a savior, but Peloquin laments that Boone turned out to be a destroyer. (Decker beheads Narcisse.) A fight between Decker and Boone results in Boone impaled on a long blade. With the blade protruding from his torso, Boone pulls Decker onto it and kills the doctor. Lori pulls the weapon out of Boone.

Boone goes to Baphomet’s chamber. Baphomet tells Boone that he destroyed Midian, but it was inevitable. Baphomet commands Boone to rebuild a home for the Nightbreed and to find, heal, and save Baphomet from his enemies*. Baphomet renames Boone as Cabal. Midian collapses completely. (While blaming Baphomet and the Nightbreed for his disfigurement, Ashberry kills Eigerman. Lori pleads for Boone to turn her into one of the Nightbreed, but he refuses. Lori intentionally stabs herself, forcing Boone to bite her and to save her life, effectively making her one of the Nightbreed.) Hiding together in a barn, the surviving Nightbreed watch as Boone [says goodbye to Narcisse and] sets off with Lori.

[In the ruins of Midian, Ashberry blames Baphomet for his disfigurement. Ashberry covers his hand in the strange liquid from before and puts it inside the chest of Decker’s corpse. Decker returns to life.]

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Review:

Click here for the review of Nightbreed: The Theatrical Cut. 

For only the eighth time since falling into a toxic shock coma following a visit to the dentist in February 2012, Clive Barker left his Los Angeles home in October 2013 to appear at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre after a screening of “Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut.”  Over the course of the evening’s Q&A, Barker referred to the theatrical cut as “a f*cked up version” and added that it was “doubly embarrassing to deliver a movie to the world that (he) wasn’t proud of.”  Barker even half-joked that during the original press junkets, he wished to sympathize with the interviewing critics and admit, “yeah it sucks, doesn’t it?”

Writer/director Clive Barker wanted “Nightbreed” to be one thing.  Studio Morgan Creek wanted it to be something else.  That is the Reader’s Digest summary of a much longer and more sordid story almost as layered as “Cabal” itself.  Suffice it to say, “Nightbreed” released in 1990 to unmet expectations in a creatively compromised format.

Still, fans refused to let the troubled film choke to death on disappointment and poor box office returns.  Like the secretive creatures dwelling below the Midian cemetery, there was a sense that something darkly magical might be lurking beneath a discarded and forgotten surface.  It was just that no one was quite sure of exactly how to go about finding it.

Enter Mark Miller, who learned through an Internet message board that a fabled workprint of “Nightbreed” existed somewhere that more closely represented Clive’s original vision with some sixty minutes or so of additional footage.  Once established as Barker’s production partner at Seraphim Films, Miller set about on an exhaustive quest to uncover the rumored footage by cold calling executives, studios, filmmakers, and anyone who offered even the remotest chance of sourcing what would become known as “The Cabal Cut.”  In a bit of anticlimactic irony, the director’s cut workprint was eventually found sitting in Clive’s closet all along, supposedly behind a box of porn, if the director’s maybe-not-a-joke is to be believed.

Russell Cherrington then cobbled together the unearthed footage with the theatrical cut to create what Mark Miller dubbed as a “kitchen sink” version of “Nightbreed.”  The resulting question on the minds of diehard devotees then became, does this finally make “Nightbreed” into the movie I always hoped/believed it could be?

The answer is yes and no.  “Kitchen sink” is truly the most appropriate way to describe “The Cabal Cut” as the real interest lies in putting every available minute of “Nightbreed” onto the screen, whether it makes for a better movie or not.  Actually paring down “The Cabal Cut” into a true director’s cut is a task reserved for a later endeavor.  So while “Nightbreed” is definitely a more cohesive and sensible narrative in its “Cabal” incarnation, it more or less trades one set of pacing issues for another.  What was originally a problem of not enough plot and character development is now the reverse problem of having too much extraneous fat to keep the movie from an unbridled sprint.

Those plentiful “huh?” moments when it felt like “Nightbreed” had completely skipped a scene?  That feeling was likely justified as a number of reinstated backstory embellishments finally add real meaning to various interpersonal relationships.  Boone and Lori now have more than just a single paltry scene together before Boone retires to Midian.  They are depicted as a passionate and playful couple, and their romance blooms even more during an extended jail breakout where Lori proves how comfortable she really is with Boone’s monstrous transformation.  A completely different ending, and we are talking several scenes here, not just one, satisfyingly resolves Boone and Lori’s arc as the love story that Barker wanted to be at the film’s core.

Boone spends more time with Decker, as well.  And Decker spends more time with his mask.  Not wearing it, but talking to it.  “The Cabal Cut” injects a touch more motivation into the murderous doctor with additional snippets of psychotic behavior, and his blade also takes on an elevated role during the third act’s climax.  Meanwhile, dive bar mistress Sheryl Ann has a scene that makes her occupation of Lori’s passenger seat on the drive to Midian less of a jarring jump in sequencing.

The greatest benefit that “Nightbreed” sees with “The Cabal Cut” is in its handful of complete character changes.  Captain Eigerman and Detective Joyce are less redundant as prejudiced lawmen now that Detective Joyce survives Decker’s attack in order to have a change of heart over committing genocide.  Also gone is Ashberry’s jailhouse dialogue condemning Boone as an abomination and the reverend is granted a more purposeful arc as the story’s conflicted spiritual center.

Strangely, some scenes seem like they are still missing.  Boone’s guided tour of Midian still ends with Lylesberg initiating Boone into the Nightbreed.  When Kinski actually found the time to tutor his apprentice in Midian’s laws is anyone’s guess.  In another instance, Boone makes his first appearance attempting to save Lori from Decker in the cemetery while already being restrained by two Nightbreed as he argues with Lylesberg.  Maybe there is a second box of porn in another closet hiding a tape that fills in the remainder of these gaps.

What was good about “Nightbreed” before is still good, and in most cases, at least marginally improved.  The final battle is impressively explosive to the point of overindulgence.  The heartless extermination of Nightbreed carries more emotional impact, but the themes of prejudice, acceptance of altered natures, and the need to belong wade deeply in the extended action of shotgun blasts and crumbling rock.  It is this kind of excess that prevents “The Cabal Cut” from making “Nightbreed” much better instead of just better.

“Nightbreed” is very much a product of its times with the jittering halo rings of old school matte paintings and the production value expected of a modestly budgeted movie filmed in the twilight of the 1980’s.  “The Cabal Cut” is not the definitive version of the material, although it is evidence that fans were right in suspecting that “Nightbreed” had more to offer than it originally appeared.  Somewhere between “The Cabal Cut” and the theatrical version exists an edition of the film that excels even further.  The filmmakers just need their Narcisse to provide final directions on how to get there.

Review Score:  65

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