Barker’s Original NIGHTBREED Cut Coming To DVD/Blu-ray

Nightbreed

There are few films that bare more scars from studio interference the way that Nightbreed does. Thanks to enormous pressure from execs on horror writer-turned-first time film director Clive Barker, his adaptation of his own novella Cabal made its way to theaters with the elements he thought made an interesting and subverse story ripped out, replaced with a story that was more safe and presumably more accessible to ticket buyers. The plan backfired on the studio, though, with the film doing poorly at the box office and leaving Barker’s fans scratching their heads at what went wrong.

For years, both Barker and fans have hoped to see the writer/director’s original vision released, and that wish will be coming true next year when Shout! Factory will releasing a fully restored, re-edited version of the movie digitally and on DVD and Blu-ray.

In a press release, Barker explained exactly what we’ll be getting with this new version of the film-

When I made the movie, the studio was not comfortable with [my] inversion of the classic structure. They wanted the monsters to be simple-minded scare machines, while I wanted them to be the dark side of all of us, mysterious and misunderstood. Finally, with this new version of Nightbreed, which contains more than 45 minutes of previously unseen material, my original vision has been realized.

To put it in perspective, 45 new minutes of footage equals approximately 45 percent of the current version of Nightbreed‘s runtime. The cuts made to Barker’s original edit were so extensive that one character was entirely excised from the film, tthough not from all of the marketing materials.

Recently, two different rough edits of the film have turned up – one running 145 minutes and the other 159 minutes. Both those versions were edited into one 155 minutes titled “The Cabal Cut” which has screened at a few horror conventions in 2012. Shout! Factory hinted at July’s San Diego Comic Con that they would be bringing the Cabal Cut to a legitimate release and this news makes it official.

Via Hollywood Reporter.

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About Rich Drees 7296 Articles
A film fan since he first saw that Rebel Blockade Runner fleeing the massive Imperial Star Destroyer at the tender age of 8 and a veteran freelance journalist with twenty-five years experience writing about film and pop culture. He is a member of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle.
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August 20, 2013 9:00 pm