It's a bit difficult to believe that this came from the same director that gave us HELLRAISER. Where's the style, the foreboding, and the charm? I mean, HELLRAISER is not a great horror film, but at least it had something. NIGHTBREED is like a large ball of bad ideas poorly executed. From the opening there is a problem with subtlety: the monsters are shown in the first shot! The opening dream sequence shows too much for too long. Our hero doesn't display professional acting skills (but no one expected that from this bastard genre). There are killings that one wishes were more interesting. Then we have David Cronenberg. The man was never really meant to be an actor. He fills the role of the creepy psychiatrist adequately, but what he should have done was step behind the camera and save this disaster. Then we come to Midian, a creepy fake graveyard with an over-creepy fake gate. This thing is not a huge improvement over the cemetery in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. It gets worse when we meet the creatures in it. There is nothing really wrong with the character design and make-up effects here (well... except for the guy with no scalp, the guy with a pointy chin and forehead, and the fat guy with dark circles around his eyes), the problem is the way they act and the terrible dialogue that is given them. Barker's photography of the subterranean city is tired and this part of the story could have been made much better. Some might call what follows SPOILERS. After our hero dies and becomes "nightbreed" we wait around to see what he'll turn into (there's talk of things that fly and werewolves), but when the time comes for him to change they appearantly thought their hero too pretty to give a decent creature design. With the turn in Cronenberg's "character" the story just gets less interesting until the battle of freaks vs. norms (which is just bad). Barker's mythology failed him here. There is no genius and little originality behind any of NIGHTBREED. The picture could have used a larger budget, a serious script, and character design that doesn't leave you saying "oh...oh, how lame." What a waste. Not scary, not cool, not even very dark, just weak.
Review of Nightbreed
