NIGHTBREED
[minor spoilers]
A film review by Eddie McCreary
Copyright 1990 Eddie McCreary
Well, I saw NIGHTBREED just under twelve hours ago. Finally, a horror movie worth being called a horror movie. *Excellent* special effects. They must have spent most of the budget on the creature shop. A wide variety of creatures, all of them quality work. Good acting, good directing, excellent sets; are you getting the idea that I loved this movie?
A few comments (minor spoilers):
I felt they could have spent a little more time developing Boone's character in the beginning of the movie. If you hadn't read CABAL, you might not understand why he was so willing to believe Decker.
I thought Cronenberg did a good job, though not a great one. He was believable as Decker, but I don't know if I'd like him in another movie. A much better director than actor, but a better actor than some.
I also felt they should have made more use of the "Boone as a savior" theme. The artwork depicting the prophesy is shown all during the opening credits but is barely mentioned in movie.
Also, the ending was a bit obscure if you hadn't read the book. I could barely understand what Baphomet was saying in the end.
I really like the actor who played Narcisse (Hugh something, not Ross but the other one.) His character was much funnier than in the book and he played it very well, even with most of his face missing. I loved the shots with him wearing a cowboy hat and dark glasses. Rachel was also very good. Barker did a good job expanding her character so the audience had a way of understanding a little bit of the history of Midian.
Clive Barker, IMHO, is one of (if not the) best horror directors around. He makes a visually stunning movie *and* characters I really care about. The characters don't do exceptionally stupid things (oh, let's take our clothes off and go have sex in the woods even though three people have been chopped to pieces) and the movie has its own internal logic which it follows faithfully (the sun can kill me only when it suits the plot and so forth.) I think he could use a little improvement in directing 'slow' scenes, but hey, this is only his second movie.
To sum up, an EXCELLENT MOVIE. I'll be seeing this many more times. Any body else feel this way? I'd like to talk more about it with people who have seen it.
BTW, Barker has said that if this one does well, he'll make more. YEAH!
Eddie McCreary U. of Houston honp7@elroy.uh.edu, cosc1028@elroy.uh.edu, honp7.uhnix1.uh.edu
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews