Clive Barker's Nightbreed Genesis by Alan Grant

Clive Barker’s hardcore fans attracted to the author by Hellraiserweren’t interested in a horror movie centering on “Lori’s boyfriend,” and casual moviegoers didn’t understand the innate oddness of the project or how it connected to an empty slogan.īut those that did see Nightbreedin 1990, those who ventured to see the film because they were already in love with horror’s newest wunderkind from his many novels and short stories as well as the still budding popularity of Hellraiser, saw a film ripe with potential and a dark, fevered creative energy. This was just the first in a series of wrong minded decisions by 20th Century Fox that doomed Nightbreedfrom the start. The film was a meditation on monsters and fringe dwellers, about what may lie beneath the surface of reality, and the metaphysical meaning of what separates man from monster, not anything expressed on that poster. The theatrical posters for Nightbreedread “Lori thought she knew everything about her boyfriend… Lori was wrong!”Ī tagline couldn’t have missed the point of Nightbreedmore if it tried. The confusing advertisements couldn’t seem to decide whether the film’s killer was a button eyed, masked killer or the film’s lead character Boone, played by Craig Sheffer, leaving fans scratching their collective heads over what this coming horror joint was even about. When the push began for Nightbreed, Clive Barker’s follow up to the cult hit Hellraiser,in 1990, the marketing made the film feel like just another slasher film.

Clive Barker's Nightbreed Genesis by Alan Grant