Nightbreed (1990)

"Everything is true. God's an Astronaut. Oz is Over the Rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live"

Nightbreed is a typically ambitious piece of work from horror maestro Clive Barker. It's full of strange monsters, moments of impressive bloodshed, and a mythos that is quickly set up and invested in, to an impressive degree. I wish I had seen it a long time ago, because it's a new favourite of mine.

Craig Sheffer plays a troubled young man named Aaron Boone. Aaron has been seeing a doctor (David Cronenberg) for some time, due to his dreams about monsters and a place named Midian, but has finally started to feel better. Unfortunately, a bunch of ugly murders have occurred that seem to match Aaron's fantasies. The doctor claims to want to help Aaron, but it soon becomes apparent that he may have another agenda. And then things start to get REALLY interesting after Aaron finds out that he's not as mad as he thought.

Setting things up quickly, and rarely flagging as the plot unfolds, Nightbreed is a film I can't find too many faults with, much to my surprise. Yes, you have to buy into the main premise, but it's never a bad move to trust Barker when he's attempting to provide horror fans with smart, unique, adult entertainment. If you think that monsters are things to be imagined, and feared, by children then you should be thinking again after the first few scenes of this movie. Not only does it present the main monsters as outcasts from society, not necessarily meaning harm to others, yet willing to stand up and fight back when it's called for, but it also takes great pains to show different types of monsters, with a couple being in the more usual human guise.

I know that fans of this movie can recall all of the different names of the monstrous characters, and know who played who, but I'm not going to pretend that I was always able to keep track of such details. Give me one or two repeat viewings, and this is a film I plan to rewatch a number of times, and I'll retain more of the details, but for the time being I'll just admit that a lot of the wonderful creatures all blended together into one impressive group for me. That's not to say that they didn't have individual personalities and characteristics. They really did. I was just overwhelmed by so many wonderful details catching my eye in almost every scene.

Sheffer is fine in the lead role, although he's never been my favourite actor (sorry, I just couldn't ever really get over his fine turn as a major asshole in Some Kind Of Wonderful), and Anne Bobby is cute and sweet as the woman who cares for him. Cronenberg is a bit of a strange casting choice, so you may think, and his early scenes feel slightly frustrating and out of place, but that's all forgotten when he hits his stride after the first 15-20 minutes. Hugh Quarshie is yet another authority figure, a role he seems to have played for the majority of his career, but he's good at it, and Charles Haid is entertainingly over the top as a Police Captain. Catherine Chevalier and Hugh Ross are two main monsters I enjoyed watching onscreen (see, I did manage to keep track of some of them), and pretty much everyone onscreen, whether or not they end up covered in prosthetics, does a great job helping to realise the world and characters envisioned by Barker.

It's not often that work adapted from Barker's material ends up falling flat (who said Rawhead Rex? Hold your tongue) and Nightbreed holds up as a fine reminder that when the man is allowed to translate his vision from mental imagery to page to screen . . . . . . . . . . we horror fans are in for a major treat.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Nightbreed-Directors-Bluray-Combo-Blu-ray/dp/B00LMBUR6S/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1413707229&sr=1-1&keywords=nightbreed

Altered States (1980)

Altered States is a Ken Russell movie and that means it has some entertaining weirdness. If you've ever seen a Ken Russell movie then you should know to expect some entertaining weirdness. If you haven't seen a Ken Russell movie before then you've been warned. Appropriately mourned by film fans when he passed away at the end of 2011, Ken Russell was a man of vision and daring. You might not always like his work but you'll be damned if it's easily forgotten.

The plot of this movie concerns a scientist (William Hurt) conducting experiments on himself with the use of sensory deprivation equipment and a hallucinogenic substance. The results are astounding and unexpected, leading the scientist to believe that he may actually be witnessing lifeforms from way back in time. In fact, he also believes that he is physiologically altered during his sessions. This is something that his colleague/helper (Bob Balaban) doesn't want to believe and neither does the man allowing them to use his lab space (played by Charles Haid). As the experiments continue, everyone becomes more and more worried about the sanity of the scientist. His wife (Blair Brown) can't stop him and fears for his mind but becomes even more worried when she allows herself to be convinced that maybe he's telling the truth.

There's plenty of psychobabble and philosophical musings here, thanks to the script by Paddy Chayefsky (adapting his own novel), and Ken Russell compliments the words with surreal and truly bizarre visuals. The effects throughout are pretty good, often wrapped in a shroud of drug-induced haze.

The onslaught of strange ideas and strange imagery may have been too much to bear if Russell hadn't managed to get himself a great cast to hang everything on. Hurt is, of course, a great actor and someone who possesses the intelligence to convince in a role such as this one. Bob Balaban, Blair Brown and Charles Haid all lend great support and the way they are torn between helping out a brilliant scientist and wanting to keep him safe is fairly well realised, considering the outlandishness of the central premise.

Funnily enough, for those more familiar with the work of Russell, this is actually a more straightforward movie from the man compared to many of his other films. Yet it still has plenty of individuality and personality, certainly enough for you to recognise it as the product of a film-maker who was never less than interesting.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Altered-States-DVD/dp/B000B7KXN6