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  • #39014
    Monsterhead
    Participant

    Has anyone else checked out the new NIGHTBREED Director’s Cut from Shout! Factory yet? As you probably know, many new scenes that were never officially scored are re-instated (for better or worse) and rather than have a new score, they just re-use Elfman’s music from other scenes. Maybe its the years that I’ve spent listening to this album, or just being so used to seeing them in the original scenes. The patch work if pretty obvious and without any real consideration.

    The discs over zealously use Elfman’s music across the supplements and menu screens too. Stranger still, is that Elfman is not interviewed for the release, but does appear on Shout! Factory’s Pee Wee’s Playhouse box set.

    Elfman scored a much better, theatrically released feature than what we have here. Fans of the film are rejoicing about Clive Barker’s original vision finally being restored, but I think its safe to say that its more of an interesting re-mix than anything else.

    I’m curious to know what others thought of the new version.

    #68055
    Thor
    Participant

    Haven’t yet sought it out, but then again I was never a big fan of the film in the first place.

    Strange that there is no Elfman interviews on the extra material. A missed opportunity!

    Thanks for the mini-review, though.

    #68059
    Lambegue
    Participant

    I suppose it would have been hard (and maybe not very interesting) for Elfman to write new music for the new scenes, as it would have been necessary for him to reproduce exactly the style of the original, in order to have a real musical unity…I doubt a composer is found of imitating exactly what he did twenty years ago, trying to forget what he learned since then.

    #68060
    Monsterhead
    Participant

    The whole thing is just weird. I wonder if the nostalgia for this movie is even being perpetuated by those who saw it the first time around?

    #59160
    ddddeeee
    Participant

    I’m a huge Clive Barker fan and a big fan of Cabal. The problem with the movie (which I love almost by default I guess) is that Barker really lacks the technical skills to match his imagination. Even Hellraiser is kind of let-down by this, it makes them easier to love in way? The director’s cut is kind of clumsily pieced together although no better job could likely have been done. Barker’s wonderful ideas still come through and I just love the Decker character, such a wonderful and creepy image with a performance to match.

    I’ve always loved the score. But my love for it almost ruins watching the director’s cut because some of the music choices are just brutal. How many times is ‘Then Don’t Say It’ used in the movie? I’d guess it’s in the double figures.

    If anything the DC just reminded me how much I want an expanded score release. The opening murders, the hotel murders, Boone getting hit by the truck, the shaved headed Nightbreed getting destroyed in the sun, the Decker/Boone confrontation on the bridge, the Shirley Walker beserker cue…. So much music I’d love to have.

    Funnily enough it took me until now to realize that Cabal/Nightbreed is Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. They’re not just similar they’re beat-for-beat the same.

    #59161
    Ryan Keaveney
    Keymaster

    I watched the DC some months ago. I hadn’t seen the film since buying the new release DVD in 2004, so we’re talking a decade-long absence.

    The DC does take considerably longer to get moving, but doesn’t really solve issues with the theatrical release. I always assumed something was missing when we cut to Dekker staggering through traffic on a highway — the transition from the previous scene always seemed clunky. Sure enough the DC cut unfolds almost the same way.

    The reuse of music is troubling as well, as is a missed opportunity. I suppose it was a budgetary decision not to go back and locate the original stems of the score, giving the filmmakers the opportunity to peel back orchestral layers to give them more to work with.

    Considering the financial failure of the pic and it’s overall just being a “fine” movie, the DC is more than anyone could ask for.

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