Line #23 Film/Nightbreed


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6107b177383dff66c1343b515e5d09f8.png]]
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3	->'''Boone:''' Then it's true.
4	->'''Peloquin:''' [[AllMythsAreTrue Everything is true.]] God's an astronaut. Oz is over the rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live.
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6	A 1990 fantasy-horror film directed by Creator/CliveBarker, who adapted his own novel ''Cabal''.
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8	A [[MalevolentMaskedMen masked]] SerialKiller is stalking the families of the city, killing them brutally, and Aaron Boone (Creator/CraigSheffer) has been having nightmares where he sees the crimes through his eyes. In his [[PsychicDreamsForEveryone nightmarish dreams]] he also sees the strange, underground city of Midian and its monstrous inhabitants, feeling a strange pull towards it. The nightmares are so bad that he had been seeing Doctor Philip Decker (Creator/DavidCronenberg), who is worried he's getting worse. After Dr. Decker's "lithium" nearly gets him run over by a truck, he meets Narcisse (Hugh Ross), a touched man who babbles about Midian, and claims to know where it is. Deciding to take the chance, Boone heads there and promptly gets killed for being suspected of being the serial killer.
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10	[[WakingUpAtTheMorgue Then he leaves the morgue]].
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12	With a music score by Music/DannyElfman that's very reminiscent of ''Film/Batman1989'', ''Nightbreed'' is a gorgeous, disgusting movie with a captivating mythical mood. The titular Nightbreed aren't quite monsters, and the humans aren't exactly saints either.
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14	The film production saw quite a bit of ExecutiveMeddling from its distributor Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox, most prominently resulting in a FocusGroupEnding, which deviated quite a bit from the original novel's ending. Clive Barker was vocally unhappy about the studio interference, and for years afterwards, he longed for the recovery of the reels so the film might be re-edited. Russell Cherrington, a film scholar at the University of Derby, was eventually able to get his hands on a couple of different workprint cuts of the film through various sources, recompiling them in 2012 into a 159-minute cut (as opposed to the studio approved version's 102 minutes) that was much closer to Clive Barker's original vision, called ''The Cabal Cut''.
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16	The release of the ''The Cabal Cut'' generated much renewed interest in the film, leading Creator/ShoutFactory to obtain the license to the film in 2013. Shout! Factory was eventually able to recover the original film reels, allowing Clive Barker himself to put together a official ''DirectorsCut'' version (clocking in at 122 minutes), which was released in 2014.
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18	!!This film contains examples of:
19	* AdaptationTitleChange: ''Nightbreed'' is adapted from the novel "Cabal".
20	* AdaptationalVillainy: [[spoiler: Ashberry in the novel ends up crippled and spouting prophetic gibberish. Eigerman intends to decrypt to aid him in his revenge on the Nightbreed. In both versions of the film, he's the one intent on hunting them to extinction. The Boom Comics series even goes so far as to make him secretly a zealot SerialKiller.]]
21	* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: [[spoiler:Villainous variation in the theatrical cut. The hateful serial killer Dr. Decker, who despises everything that isn't him and regarded the Nightbreed as vermin that he wanted to exterminate, becomes a Nightbreed himself in the SequelHook at the end when Ashberry revives him. Now he's an undead, superpowered serial killer more dangerous than ever.]]
22	* AdaptationExpansion: The novel is short and rather laconic, not too heavy on descriptions and such. The movie expands not only the plots, but also gives us lot of details about the world and the creatures that dwell in Midian.
23	* AntiVillain: Inspector Joyce is just concerned that Boone is the one killing people, so he reluctantly cooperates with Decker, and later Eigerman. [[spoiler:He's also visibly horrified when Ohnaka starts burning in the sunlight, and in a deleted scene, he pulls a HeelFaceTurn by returning Babette to Rachel and then leaving.]]
24	* AudibleSharpness: The psychotic Doctor Decker's blade makes a particularly cool and sinister scrape as he draws it on one unsuspecting victim, and the blade gets a close-up as it does so.
25	* AxCrazy: Not initially the case with Decker, but over the course of the movie, he becomes more reckless and violent in his attempts to frame Boone. Played straight with Eigerman.
26	* {{Baphomet}}: He's the deity of the Midianites. At the end of the film, he charges Boone with finding them a new home.
27	* BigBad: Dr. Philip Decker, Boone's PsychoPsychologist who frames him for Decker's own murders and starts a war against the Nightbreed.
28	* BloodKnight: Eigerman and his men seem ... a little too enthusiastic about wiping out the 'Breed.
29	* BodyHorror: Some of the 'Breed look downright bizarre and grotesque.
30	* BookEnds: ''Cabal'' begins and ends with a declaration of "I'll never leave you."
31	* TheCameo: Horror writer duo John Skipp and Craig Spector appear as corpses in a hotel room.
32	* CardCarryingVillain: Dr. Decker is proud to be a SerialKiller, calling himself "death, plain and simple."
33	* CensoredChildDeath: Doctor Decker, a serial killer who targets families, is shown attacking a household of three in the opening. The mother and father are graphically murdered with a butcher's knife, but he's only seen menacingly approaching their young son before the screen fades to black.
34	* ChemicallyInducedInsanity: Doctor Decker convinces his patient Aaron Boone that he is responsible for a horrible series of murders that have plagued the city for the past several months, then he prescribes him some anti-psychotic drugs. It turns out that the drugs were actually intended to ''make'' Boone psychotic: Decker is the real killer who is trying to cover up his own crimes by [[FrameUp framing Boone]].
35	* CreepyMonotone: Decker's voice is extremely unexceptional, and he speaks in a simple, calm manner, which provides a contrast to his murderous crimes and psychopathic appearance in his Button Face mask.
36	* DarkIsNotEvil: The Midianites... though definitely ''not'' harmless. And definitely not all of them, if the ImAHumanitarian tendencies of Peloquin are anything to go by.
37	* DeadpanSnarker: Decker on occasion, with [[CreepyMonotone heavy emphasis]] on the "deadpan".
38	-->'''Decker:''' (to a helpless torture victim) SAY IT! (Decker stabs him in the heart and audibly sighs) Then don't say it.
39	* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler:In the original novel, Eigerman survives the climax and decides to use Ashberry to hunt down the Nightbreed. In both cuts of the film, he dies.]].
40	* DecapitationPresentation: The homicidal Dr. Decker seems to be fond of this. He cuts off a motel clerk's head and places it on the front desk for his wife to find before killing her too. [[spoiler: Later, he decapitates Narcisse and puts the head on a stick before showing it to Boone.]]
41	* TheEndOrIsIt: [[spoiler:The Nightbreed manage to escape the humans' attack and go on a quest to find a new home. Decker and Eigerman are both dead, but Reverend Ashberry was accidentally mutated into a Nightbreed during the chaos, and vows revenge.]]
42	* FamilyExtermination: Dr. Philip Decker is a SerialKiller who is obsessed with exterminating the human race. His EstablishingCharacterMoment shows him breaking into a family's home to kill them all, and later scenes indicate that targeting "breeders" is his ''modus operandi''.
43	* FanDisservice: The character of Shuna Sassi is a walking example of this both in-universe and to those who view the film.
44	* {{Fanservice}}: When Rachel takes her clothes off to mesmerize a cop.
45	* FantasticNatureReserve: Midian is the last city for the eponymous Nightbreed, who have been persecuted for all of human history.
46	* FourEyesZeroSoul:
47	** Decker. He's more of a monster than every being in Midian combined, and he's the only character in the movie with prominent glasses. Unlike many film examples, you can see by the distortion of his face that they're a real, fairly significant prescription.
48	** Eigerman, the fascist police captain of Shereneck County. He loses the glasses at the end, though.
49	* GameFace: Lori and her boyfriend Aaron Boone, now a newly-turned member of the Nightbreed, have escaped Midian and are on the run from the police. When the cops marshal an entire force to arrest him he turns around to show Lori his true face.
50	* {{Gaslighting}}: Decker tries to make Boone think that he's killing families during his blackouts, giving him hallucinogens disguised as lithium to make him question his own sanity.
51	* GollumMadeMeDoIt: In the original novella Decker is driven to kill by his mask 'Button Face' that speaks to him in his mind. This was dropped in the film although a few deleted scenes show the mask talking with Cronenberg's voice.
52	* GothicHorror: A typical aspect considering it's the brainchild of Creator/CliveBarker after all. The Midianites and a masked Dr. Decker all have gothic appearances.
53	%%* GorgeousGorgon
54	* HateSink: Captain Eigerman is a [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racist, fascist, homophobic]], RabidCop. He orders an assault on Midian — [[WouldHurtAChild including the children]] — verbally abuses and threatens Reverend Ashberry for calling him out on his genocide, beats up Boone in his cell, and even starts trying to shoot at the "sons of the free" as they try to flee.
55	* HeroKiller: Decker, who has the highest body count of all the antagonists. Besides the 40+ people he slaughtered as a serial killer, Sheryl, Detective Joyce and Narcisse all die by his hand.
56	* HiddenElfVillage: Midian.
57	* HomeOfMonsters: Midian is an underground city where the monsters live.
58	* HumansAreBastards: What with having made the Nightbreed near extinct.
59	* IJustWantToBeSpecial: A few of humans in the film want to become Nightbreed, some to have their guilt absolved, some because they envy the Nightbreed's power.
60	* ImAHumanitarian: Many of the Midianites. Discouraged since it tends to draw unwanted attention, though.
61	-->'''Kinski:''' If we eat him we break the law.
62	-->'''Peloquin:''' Oh ''fuck'' the law! I want meat!
63	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Boone gets a knife through the back, pinning him to a card table. Being semi-undead, he removes the table and continues fighting with the knife still in place and a card stuck on it. [[spoiler:He finally kills Decker by hugging him, impaling him on the knife as well.]]
64	* IntercontinuityCrossover: The comics, with ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}''. Nightbreed and Cenobites do not get along.
65	* LackOfEmpathy: Decker has this in spades. He seriously cannot fathom why anyone would care about any other person's pain.
66	* LastOfHisKind: Midian is a whole city of this. Strange beings nearly hunted to extinction and one-of-a-kind freaks all find refuge there.
67	* LivingShadow: Lylesburg in the novella.
68	* MachoMasochism: While hitting on Lori, Peloquin steals the butterfly pin off her sweater, and then pins it to his bare chest. ''Yowch.''
69	* MadProphet: In Cabal, Reverend Ashberry is reduced to this.
70	* MalevolentMaskedMen: The serial killer Dr. Decker wears a bondage/scarecrow mask.
71	* MarkedChange: As Boone metamorphoses, various swirling patterns form blackened grooves in his skin.
72	* {{Masquerade}}: Why they live in Midian.
73	* MedicationTampering: [[PsychoPsychologist Dr. Decker]] replaces Aaron Boone's medication with hallucinogenic drugs to make him think that he was responsible for several murders that Decker himself committed.
74	* MisanthropeSupreme: Decker justifies his crimes as being part of his mission to purify the world of humans. He wants to stop 'breeders' from spreading their "filth" and murders entire families, including their children.
75	* MonsterMash: The veritable freak show of Nightbreed.
76	* MonsterTown: Midian, the underground city of the Nightbreed.
77	* MooseAndMapleSyrup: Downplayed, though not to the extent that CanadaDoesNotExist. Characters acknowledge that they live in Alberta (specifically, Calgary, or "within driving distance"; Edmonton is mentioned to be close by, too) and Boone's Canadian passport is visible in an early scene. The cops have maple leaf emblems on their uniforms and there is a Canadian flag in Eigerman's office. The landscape of rolling forests and mountains is also distinctively Canadian.
78	* MotiveRant: During Dr. Decker's torture and questioning of an old shopkeeper, he goes on a whiny rant about his [[SerialKiller serial-killing activities]], explaining that he just [[MisanthropeSupreme hates humanity so utterly]] that he hacks up whole families to stop humans from creating offspring. He concludes that [[FantasticRacism wiping out the Nightbreed race]] is the logical extension of his self-given mission to cleanse everything. This scene was apparently added after initial shooting to explain Decker's motives for being so evil more thoroughly, which wasn't all that clear in the original cut.
79	* NightmareFetishist: The patient that Boone meets in the hospital. He desperately wants to be taken to Midian and believes that Boone is the guide sent to test him and (hopefully) take him there. But first, he needs to show his "true face," so he cuts off most of his scalp and eventually dies [[spoiler:which is heavily implied to be hastened by Dr. Decker. But in a semi-subversion, it turns out that he ''was'' Nightbreed, and death ended up making him dramatically more happy and reasonably more sane.]]
80	* NoShirtLongJacket: At one point in the ''Cabal'' novella, Boone takes off his dirty white shirt to feel his beloved leather jacket on his skin.
81	* OurVampiresAreDifferent: All of the Nighbreed are vampiric to some extent. They crave blood and flesh and the sunlight hurts them. But the variety of their appearances and individual traits are vast. Peloquin is the closest to "your average vampire," having a typical "monstrous" face and biting Boone on his shoulder.
82	* OutcastRefuge: Midian is a hidden city explicitly designed as a place monsters can hide from the hostile world around them.
83	* PhysicalGod: Baphomet, the creator of Midian. What it ''is'' though, seems to be a mystery even to the Breed.
84	* PsychoKnifeNut: Dr. Decker prefers to use huge carving blades to kill his victims, often appearing with [[DualWielding one in each hand]]. He's briefly seen in his apartment with an entire collection of knives and blades laid out in front of him on a conference-style table.
85	* PsychoPsychologist: At first Dr. Decker seems like a concerned psychologist who feels obliged to report Aaron Boone to the authorities for all the apparent murders that Boone committed during his blackouts. He prescribes Boone some medication to keep him from having another episode until he turns himself in. Turns out that [[ChemicallyInducedInsanity the drugs are actually hallucinogens]], Decker is the real killer and has framed Boone for his own crimes.
86	* PsychoStrings: The psychotic serial killer Dr. Decker is accompanied by a creepy string-based theme designed to unsettle the viewer during his first major knife-wielding appearance.
87	* ResurrectedMurderer: The PsychoPsychologist serial killer Dr. Decker is killed by Boone at the end of the film, only to be resurrected as another nightbreed by the corrupted priest Ashberry. [[BecameTheirOwnAntithesis For extra irony points]], Decker hated the nightbreed and had sought to wipe them out.
88	* SackheadSlasher: When Doctor Decker moonlights as a serial killer he wears a drab-looking scarecrow mask that visually clashes with his neat business suit.
89	* TheSacredDarkness: The Baptizer, Baphomet.
90	* SceneryPorn: Especially the abandoned graveyard, which is gorgeously mysterious. Then it's more like Scenery Porn for {{Nightmare Fetishist}}s, with amazingly detailed, imaginative and yet extremely scary and unpleasant Midian.
91	* SealedBadassInACan: Early in Boone's introduction to the Breed, he finds that the hall to Baphomet's chamber is lined on either side by locked cells containing Berserkers: Breed who are mindless and deformed (even for monsters), but whose strength is unparalleled. During the climax of the movie, Midian is falling apart, fires are raging through the cemetery, and the Breed are being slaughtered by gun-toting humans. Lylesburg uses his last moments alive [[GodzillaThreshold to unlock ALL the doors]] and drive away the invading humans.
92	* SerialKiller: Dr. Decker is a [[MisanthropeSupreme misanthropic]] serial killer who murders entire families and anyone else he comes across to 'cleanse' the world. [[spoiler:He becomes an undead one at the end of the theatrical cut. The Boom Comics series also goes so far as to reveal Ashberry has killed A LOT of [[DisposableSexWorker hookers]].]]
93	* SequelHook: [[spoiler:Dr. Decker is revived as a Nightbreed by Ashberry, and Boone and the survivors have to find a new home]].
94	* ShoutOut: Dr. Philip K. Decker is named after the science fiction author Creator/PhilipKDick.
95	* SinisterMinister: Reverend Ashberry after being "burned" by Baphomet in both versions of the film wants revenge on both the Nightbreed and their God.
96	* SmiteMeOhMightySmiter: Shown with an aftermath in the film -- A badly fallen priest is dragged along for the ride when the rednecks go after the Nightbreed, and when he manages to splash the Shattered God's transformative baptism over himself, he winds up in the ruins of the Breed's old home and vowing revenge: "Their God burned me. I want to burn him back!"
97	* TheSociopath: Decker kills families because he despises humanity, gaslights Boone into thinking he did them, and declares war on the Nightbreed for no apparent reason. Throughout all this, he remains deathly calm, seemingly feeling nothing but hatred.
98	* SoftspokenSadist: A major contributing factor to how creepy the psychotic Dr. Decker is is how calm and collected he always remains even during his hands-on murders.
99	* SparedByTheAdaptation:
100	** [[spoiler: Decker is resurrected in the theatrical cut of the film by Ashberry. However in ''Cabal'', the Epic Comics adaptation, and the Director's Cut, he stays dead.]]
101	** [[spoiler: Lylesburg survives in the Novella.]]
102	** [[spoiler: Narcisse lives in the theatrical cut of the film, but dies in both the Novella and the Director's Cut.]]
103	* TearOffYourFace: One character starts to cut his own face off as part of his passage into Midian. Later inverted, in that [[spoiler: as a Nighbreed he peels off all of his skin ''but'' his face in the film and comics. The novella plays this straight.]]
104	* {{Utopia}}: To naturals, Midian probably looks like the stuff of twisted nightmares. But to the Nightbreed it's "Shangri La on dope".
105	* VanHelsingHateCrimes: Humanity has hunted the tribes of the moon, the Nightbreed, to near extinction for ''millennia.''
106	-->'''Rachel:''' You call us monsters, but when you dream, it's of flying and changing, and living without death. You envy us. And what you envy...
107	-->'''Lori:''' ...we destroy.
108	* VillainousBreakdown:
109	** Decker undergoes a subtle one as Boone continues to slip from his grasp. He goes from "simply" murdering families to killing any strangers he comes across without much intention beyond framing Boone. [[spoiler:This comes to a head when he kills Inspector Joyce after he discovers the [[SarcasmMode good doctor's]] secret.]]
110	** Eigerman, furious at the the Sons of the Free fleeing when it becomes clear they're outmatched by the Nightbreed, starts shooting at them as they run by him.
111	* ViralTransformation: After Peloquin bites Boone and he's gunned down, it's this that turns him into a Nightbreed.
112	* VomitingCop: After the police drag Ohnaka into the sunlight and he subsequently explodes into ash, one of the cops stumbles off to puke on the ground.
113	* VoiceOfTheLegion: How Baphomet talks.
114	* WainscotSociety: In a dark form - the Nightbreed and Midian.
115	* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: Aaron Boone is shot to death by the police after his PsychoPsychologist frames him for his crimes. He awakens at the morgue as a new member of the supernatural Nightbreed and escapes to go live with them.
116	* WeakenedByTheLight: Some Nightbreed burn in sunlight. In the Novella this somehow applies to all of them [[spoiler: except Cabal.]]
117	* WhiteMaskOfDoom: The serial killer wears a full head white mask with [[EyelessFace button eyes]], made even more chilling by his calm and banal voice.
118	* YoureInsane: When the psychotic Dr. Decker explains to an old man whom he's torturing for information that he believes it is his mission to wipe out the Nightbreed, the man calls him crazy. Decker's retort: "No, [[CardCarryingVillain I'm Death, plain and simple]]".

Context Film / Nightbreed