Horror Patch’s HALLOWEEN MONSTER MASH – Day 6: Nightbreed!

In this holiday feature, we will showcase the best monster movies ever made during each day of the month, leading up to Halloween.

DAY 6

NIGHTBREED (1990)

Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) is haunted by terrifying nightmares of a city of monsters. He goes to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg), for help. But what Boone doesn’t know is that Decker is really a serial killer. Decker frames Boone to take the fall for his murders, and Boone is killed by the police. But Boone is brought back to life by the monsters of his dreams, the Nightbreed, who in turn join Boone in his quest to stop Decker from killing again.

There’s so much to love about this misunderstood film. The film suffered horribly at the hands of the MPAA censors, as well as the studio. It also suffered from production troubles. When the film was released it was sloppily handled by the studio and their marketing department, who never really understood what type of film it was. It was marketed as a slasher film, which couldn’t be further from the truth. At the time of its release in 1990, it was a box office failure.

Luckily, the years have been very kind to Clive Barker’s film. It is now known as a cult film as was reintroduced a few years ago with a different cut of the film that Barker himself approved of. Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut as it was called, edited back in so much that had to be excised from the film due to studio restraints. It is a much different film in the Cabal cut and it really is a masterpiece of horror filmmaking.