Clive Barker's 'Nightbreed' is a lavish, senseless horror film underpinned by a half-baked metaphysics. It's "more is less" plot features a psychopathic psychiatrist (unusually played by David Cronenberg, who has never directed a film as bad this one he appears in), a quasi-fascist police force and a bizarre "community" of undead monsters, all apparently living in the Cascade mountains. I say "community" in quotes as the supposed social dynamics of this group are never remotely plausible; instead, the film simply throws something new at us (a new monster, a new idea, a new enemy, a new place) at every turn of the plot, when just a fraction of the ingredients would have sufficed. It's not scary or funny, and having the monsters swear a lot renders them not frightening but banal. The film also has the most intrusive music of any movie I can remember. The result is a film with all the depth of a pop video; though sadly not the brevity.
Review of Nightbreed
