It's Where The Monsters Go

 Nightbreed: The Director's Cut
1990

Okay, I'm a little annoyed. I just bought this digital edition only to discover it's literally the same movie Prime Video offers free. It's been a long time since I watched this flick so I can't really tell if they've misslabelled the film. I'm not motivated enough to dig into it any further so...

As you know, this is based on Clive Barker's "Cabal" - a novella in the Books of Blood series. Cabal is hands down my favorite story. I read it long after seeing the movie and now seeing the film again just makes me love the novella more. I read a rumor that they were going to remake Nightbreed and I was apprehensive. Now I wish they would because the movie (or at least the version I just watched) leaves out some things that were important to certain aspects of Boone's transformation.

For instance, it's true that Boone seeks Decker's help because he has night terrors - intense nightmares where he's chased by monstrous creatures - but also because he can't be physically intimate with his girlfriend Lori. In the novella, Lori is one of the few people - if not the only person - that Boone has in his life. Her devotion to him is palpable and it aggrieves him that he can't consummate their relationship. When he dies and is reborn, he laments that he can't give her the life they deserved together (read: a family). All of this is glossed over in this cut, including the fact that they end up making love for the first time in the jail cell after she accepts him.

Anywho, I had like two pages of notes on this but now I'm pissed that I paid to watch the same movie i just saw free. Instead, I include some random observations:

Peloquin - the Midianite whose bite is the catalyst for Boone's transforation - was always sexy to me. However, I never noticed before that he's dressed kind of like a pirate.

I'm still trying to figure out what made the dog-carrying dude a Midianite. He looked hella normal to me.

There's a point in the film, while she is going Trespasser Karen in Midian, where Lori touches a wall and it bounces. Gotta love rubber sets.

Decker was very soft spoken. That right there should have been a dead give away that he was the killer.

I need Rachel's gray hooded lace cloak.