Here we are, kids. We have come to the final “Motor City Nightmares” edition of Spook Show Cinema for the year. I’ve written about a handful of lesser known or under-appreciated films starring some of the guests of this year’s convention, and we’ve now come to Doug Bradley. Most horror fans think of Clive Barker and Hellraiser when Mr. Bradley’s name is mentioned. Today, however, we’re talking about a different Clive Barker film starring Doug Bradley. This week is all about Nightbreed.
Nightbreed is a fantasy/horror film from 1990 about a community of monsters, mutants and social outcasts that live in an underground city beneath a cemetery, Midian, and the man trying to kill them. This movie was a bomb all the way around. It didn’t make any money at the box office and critics hated it. I, however, think it’s a pretty decent and under-appreciated movie. The plot isn’t anything to write home about. It’s a pretty basic “us vs. them” story. It’s not bad by any means, but it doesn’t really break any new ground.
The awesomeness of this movie comes from the set and character design. There is some really, really cool stuff going on in this movie. The cemetery Midian is under looks cool and the city itself is pretty sweet. The characters are awesome and unique. Naturally, there are highs and lows when it comes to some of the concepts, but for the most part I dug the cast of monsters. This movie is kind of hard to talk about considering I try not to give too much away in case one of you guys wants to see it, and all of the cool stuff is visual. That’s the reason for there not being a poster to accompany this post. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good idea to pick a movie where all of the awesome is in how it looks. It leaves me without much of anything to talk about.
I guess we’ll keep this one brief. If you have run the course on the Hellraiser series and need something else from Clive Barker and Doug Bradley that is pretty to look at, look no further than Nightbreed.
Keep it creepy,
Mike