CatinmyBrain’s review published on Letterboxd:
"You must find me. Heal me. Save me from my enemies."
Clive Barker's Cabal is a book that would regularly disappear from my library and find a new forever home with my friends and acquaintances. This happens to great books and movies. You lend them out, they get adopted and you never see them again. I think sometimes the books and movies realise that other people need them more than you.
This happens a lot to Clive Barker's works. They come into my life and disappear. Imajica. Great and Secret Show. Everville. Thief of Always. Weaveworld. Hellraiser. Lord of Illusions. I've bought all of them in multiple. But I don't think I really owned any of these stories. I'm like a temporary stop for them. A fling. I think I serve a function similar to the guy who hands curious people the puzzle box in Hellraiser. "What's your pleasure?"
I've had to replace all of my Clive Barker books and films. But Cabal? I've had to replace Cabal five times.
FIVE TIMES.
That story just doesn't want sit and relax in my library. It wants to roam. It wants to seek out the people who need it and lead them to Midian and the monsters and miracles within.
Nightbreed is Clive Barker's adaptation of his novel Cabal and like all of Clive Barker's films, it is one of the most influential and interesting pieces of genre work of the last 50 years. Of all the cinematic masters of horror Barker is one of the most praised and one of the most criminally underrated. It's an oddity.
Nightbreed is flawed (aren't we all), it is at times very silly (again: yes), but there is an undeniable sense of purpose and vision to this film that transcends the conventions of modern horror (and cinema in general). No other director at that time could have created a film like Nightbreed. There is a creativity and design in Nightbreed that feels immense, immersive and totally personal to Clive Barker. It is like nothing else in the genre. Especially for its era. The whole film feels unique. Influential. It is 20 years ahead of the curve. So much of this story paved the way for writers and directors like Neil Gaiman and Guillermo del Toro. Whether it directly influenced them, I don't know. But it undeniably laid the foundation for their work. It's the kind of fantasy realism that feels genuine. Where the creator brings so much personal identity and myth to the more iconic scenes that in your memory the film feels like a living and breathing place. The visual FX and make-up FX, the laundry list of iconic creatures and designs like Peloquin and Shuna Sassi, Baphomhet the Baptiser, Dr. Decker and the monstrous Berserkers are instantly memorable and still celebrated 30 years later. Also the gorgeous music by Danny Elfman is one of the most underrated and dream-like scores for any horror film. It goes from tribal and powerful to gossamer thin, a membrane of webs connecting the action in a way that feels like a fever dream. And the performances by the actors are unique and fantastic. Despite this movie under-performing with both the box office and with critics its ideas and visuals thrive and survive. It has remained in the public consciousness. It has grown stronger and more important to its audience without praise or acknowledgement. A powerful feat for any work.
Nightbreed deals with a young man named Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) who is haunted by dreams of monsters and magic and a place called Midian. An underground city where the monsters live. Boone seeks help from a therapist Dr. Decker (played menacingly by David Cronenberg) who convinces him that he's a serial killer. Boone, terrified of what he believes he has done, seeks to escape the normal world and find refuge in the city in his dreams: Midian. Only to learn that Midian is all too real. And full of actual monsters, called the breed. The tribes of the moon. Soon Aaron is baptised into the ranks of Midian and must face down the terrifying threat of Dr. Decker (the actual killer) who is on a crusade to wipe out the breed and Boone, forever.
The thing about Nightbreed that gets to me every single time, is how effortlessly Clive Barker captures the identity of trauma. In Hellraiser Clive Barker criticised our dehumanisation of sexual desires. He turned middle-class 80s phobias over alternative sexuality into beautiful, idealised monarchs of forbidden pleasure. The Cenobites. In Nightbreed he criticises our dehumanisation of each other. He transforms isolated, excluded, lost and lonely people into a legion of fierce, strange and beautiful monsters. Magical creatures hiding from the cruelty of man. The Nightbreed.
If you know anything about trauma, you know that people who have endured it, whether it's from war or from abuse or even bullying often form tightly knit groups with people of similar shared experiences. And they will protect those groups religiously. In the case of war veterans and PTSD, many times the vets will induct the therapists they trust into their 'unit' with honorary medals, uniforms or watches. To acknowledge them as a part of their team. The people they share their problems with are baptised into the in-group. These kinds of dynamics happen in every single group of people who have faced trauma. From therapy circles to street gangs, cults, even what the media would call "nerd culture". Where people identify with characters in shows and movies to the point they see them as 'allies', or 'friends'. This includes monsters. A sort of para-social relationship. Often actors who portray these characters can receive gifts. These gifts can be like the therapist receiving the uniform or honorary medal of service. A baptism into a private circle. Identifying them as being an important part of the lives of these survivors.
Nightbreed is a film about how the lost and the abused can form these kinds of connections with each other and grow stronger. How it can be extremely dangerous and extremely exhilarating. How it can introduce a person to a level of intimacy with others that is almost religious. It is about how the abandoned, the broken and the lost can connect to monsters and creatures that upset the established order. These connections aren't because the monsters are violent or cruel (because all things are violent and cruel to some extent), but because they are different and yet the same. Monsters are eternal outsiders but they are also majestic, beautiful, empowered. Nightbreed shows that there is strength in being different. And that strength is not about 'winning' or 'losing'. It is not about societal values. It is about self-realisation and finding acceptance. And a home. Nightbreed takes the audience through a sort of baptism into an underground world.
I think the story of Cabal or Nightbreed roams. I think it searches for the people who belong to it. And for those who discover it and find a place in the secret labyrinths of Midian?
The tribes of the moon will embrace you.