What was cut and what was the original idea?

What was cut?

Lots of character development and most of the backstory on Midian and the monsters.

Panicked by its unconventional nature, studio Morgan Creek forced reshoots and re-edits in an attempt to spin Barker's epic dark fantasy tale into a more marketable horror film. This resulted in a wildly unbalanced movie that contained a lot of great monsters and set-pieces, but an underdeveloped story and characters. And in the end, none of their tinkering helped the box office.

In several interviews, Barker protested that the film company tried to sell it as a standard slasher film, and that the powers-that-be had no real working knowledge of Nightbreed's story.

“I had a dream about the tribes of the moon. They would live in a city called Midian and, though they were monsters of every shape and size, they would be the heroes of a movie called “Nightbreed.” However, when I made the movie, the studio was not comfortable with this 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 over forty five minutes of previously unseen material, my original vision has been realized. Come with me to Midian, the city of monsters. The tribes of the moon await us.”

- Clive Barker

Well, it’s certainly a stronger film. The theatrical cut raced from one event to the next, with major plot points occurring almost out of nowhere – Boone getting hit by a truck during his “bad trip” early on, for example, always baffled me as it seemed like he walked out of Decker’s office and into a semi. Now we see him taking the pills, having an instant reaction, wandering around the city for a bit, and finally ending up in the middle of the road. There were issues like this throughout the theatrical cut that have been remedied here, not to mention certain character motivations that were just plain confusing in the theatrical cut. For example, Lori makes a new friend in the ladies room of a bar, and then suddenly they’re taking a road trip to Midian together the next morning. In the “Cabal Cut”, we see Lori and her friend bonding inside the bar, and when Lori mentions having to travel to Midian alone the friend agrees to join her, but first she wants to have a little fun with a potential male suitor (which explains her hangover as well as sets up her relationship with Decker). Basically, if you thought something didn’t make sense before, it probably does now.

It also fleshes out most of the characters. Boone and Lori’s relationship in particular was mostly left on the cutting room floor, so it’s great to see them having a few scenes of happiness together before he takes off for Midian (we also see what they do for a living – she’s a club singer and we see her perform a song about cavemen!), and a few other scattered bits throughout. There’s also more with her toward the end that was entirely nixed from the theatrical version, including a life-saving measure that completely changes the climax. At times, Lori (played by Anne Bobby, whom I always quite liked here but haven’t seen in much else) seems like the main character of the film, particularly in the second act, when she first enters Midian. In fact, she meets and has a stronger relationship with more of its residents than Boone does, and the long cut really makes her into a character along the lines of Geena Davis in The Fly, instead of just “the girlfriend."

We get to see much, much more of the Breed through the eyes of Lori as she explores the world of Midian and dive even further into its history through operatic flashbacks of monster holocausts.

Right from the offset, The Cabal Cut does a much better job at establishing Boone, his relationship with girlfriend Lori, and his rampant psychosis and drug use (which accounts for many of confusing moments in the theatrical cut). Likewise, the relationship between Boone & Dr. Decker plays far more intimately (one scene even has Sheffer crying in Cronenberg's arms) which adds a lot more weight to both characters and their impending showdown. Many sub-characters are also given larger roles and in some cases, their fates are changed entirely.

- various sources

It's also worth noting that the film had reshoots after a poor test screening. Viewers liked Decker, so more scary scenes were added with him. Narcisse (the guy who tears his face off) was popular and had a bit extra added as well. Here are scenes that were added later on to the final theatrical cut that did not exist the first time around...

* The initiation scene at Midian was new, the scene where Boone is accepted into the Tribes of the Moon. Audiences were initially confused on how Boone is suddenly in Midian, so this helps smooth it over while also giving some more funny moments to Narcisse.

* Decker encountering John Agar out in the middle of nowhere after escaping from Boone is new. The scene was designed to offer up an explanation as to why Decker kills people and has a vendetta against the breed, something that didn't make much sense in the original cut and left audiences confused.

* The scene where the receptionist at the Sweetgrass Inn gets killed after seeing the guy's decapitated head sitting on the counter was a new scene. Again, test audiences were confused over what had happened at the Sweetgrass Inn when Boone and Lori discover the slaughter, so a scene was added to make it more clear, as well as deliver more Dr. Decker in action.

* Narcisse dancing with the corpse (Shangri-La on dope) as Loris searches for Boone was new footage, just to give this fan favorite a bit more screen time.

* Inspector Joyce does not die originally, so I assume that the scene where Dr. Decker pulls out a scalpel after showing him the mask and then kills him was a new scene. Since most all of Joyce's sympathetic role was cut from the finale, they just killed him off instead.

* The scene of Narcisse telling Boone and Lori goodbye ("You'll fine me, and you'll need me") is new. Originally, Narcisse is decapitated by Decker and his head can be seen stuck on the end of one of Decker's swords.

* The very last scene of the film is new, the scene where Ashbury revives Decker's dead body with Baphomet's blood. Decker was not meant to be a central character in the Nightbreed series, so this scene was yet again born of the desire to make him a larger character and to use him again in sequels.

For the Cabal Cut of the film, I am sure they will utilize some of this footage, but it can't all be used without being contradictory to the narrative. Will Narcisse remain alive or be killed in the Cabal Cut? He should be killed, as that was the original idea. Boone and Lori are never at the barn at the end as implied by the theatrical cut and instead have a deeply personal scene which is the real payoff of their entire relationship, so no room for Narcisse to be there telling them goodbye. Inspector Joyce's death scene cannot be used since he plays a larger role in the finale and is sympathetic to the Nightbreed, nor can Decker's revival at the end be used due to the original scene where Eigerman is going through the wreckage of Midian and comes across a mad Ashbury, who kills him in a blind rage while threatening to hunt down the Breed to close the film out. Ashbury was set to be the villain in sequels, not Decker. The original cut of the film stays far more true to the book's narrative than the theatrical film did.

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Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?