Clive Barker’s ‘Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut’….coming to a screen near you?

Back in 1990, prolific writer/director Clive Barker’s Nightbreed was released in cinemas to little critical or commercial success.  Some blamed the bizarre tone of the movie; Barker, a noted horror writer, had created in Nightbreed – an adaptation of his novel Cabal – a fantastical romance, with the emphasis firmly on action and adventure rather than gore and terror.  What horror there is in the film is largely relegated to a slasher sub-plot that runs parallel to the film’s main story, that of a colony of sympathetic monsters who live beneath the necropolis of Midian, inexplicably located in the Canadian midwest.  Others (including Barker himself), placed at least some of the blame for the movie’s failure at the feet of the studio, Morgan Creek, whose decision to brutally re-edit Barker’s original cut and add a tacked-on twist ending resulted in a film that feels weirdly truncated and lacking in direction.  While it’s still possible to see the ghost of a great ensemble movie in Nightbreed, the theatrical version’s butchered edit, with its misplaced emphasis on the slasher storyline, relegates the eponymous Nightbreed to bit-players in their own film.

Despite its flaws, though, there’s still much to love about the movie.  The main storyline is intriguing (featuring as it does a group of horrifying monsters who are actually supposed to be the good guys), the make-up effects are terrific and there’s a nicely creepy turn from none other than cult director David Cronenberg, appearing in a rare acting role as the sinister Dr Decker.  These qualities have ensured that Nightbreed still has its devotees more than twenty years after its initial release, and their number has now grown to the point that they’re a cult following to be reckoned with.  Among them happens to be Russell Cherrington, a senior lecturer in film and video production at the University of Derby, whose recent efforts – along with those of Mark Miller, co-head of Clive Barker’s production company, Seraphim Films – have resulted in a version of Nightbreed which approaches Barker’s original, unedited vision finally seeing the light of day.

Early last year, Cherrington succeeded in assembling a new, extended cut of Nightbreed using footage which was excised from Barker’s original cut by Morgan Creek.  Much of this footage had been salvaged by Miller in 2009, when he discovered that it remained readily accessible but was of little value to the studio, who didn’t believe there to be a big enough audience to justify the commercial release of an extended version of Nightbreed.  Dubbed “The Cabal Cut” and running at 144 minutes, Cherrington’s new version of the movie is the closest edit yet compiled to Barker’s original director’s cut.  The efforts of Cherrington, Miller and various others have been supported by the so-called ‘Occupy Midian‘ movement, an online community committed to raising awareness of the work that has been done to bring Barker’s true vision of Nightbreed to the silver screen, or at the very least to secure an official DVD/Blu-Ray release.  A petition hosted on the movement’s website aims to demonstrate to Morgan Creek that there is a big enough audience to justify an official release of this extended version of the movie, and has thus far attracted over 12,000 signatures.

What the tipping point for such a campaign might be is uncertain, but in the meantime Cherrington has taken ‘The Cabal Cut’ of Nightbreed on the road, and in the last twelve months the movie has been shown at twelve film festivals in eleven different countries.  Whilst the campaign to secure an official release rumbles on, more and more screenings of the ‘The Cabal Cut’ are taking place, including several right here in the  UK.  Next month, the movie will be shown at the Keswick Film Festival in Cumbria, and after that who knows?  As word begins to spread, there is every chance that the larger international film festivals may begin to request screenings of the ‘The Cabal Cut’, and if those of us who wish to see Clive Barker’s Nightbreed restored to its former glory make our desires known to our local festivals and film societies, as well as signing Occupy Midian‘s petition, then Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut could soon be coming to a screen near you.