As gorefests go, Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" a few years ago was one of the more imaginative — but when it comes to gory horror, you either go for it or you don't.
In general I don't, but it's always interesting to see a filmmaker trying for something just a little bit different.
Barker's latest, "Nightbreed," is one of those — at least on the surface. He has some wonderful ideas about a monster ghetto where his creatures are sympathetic, misunderstood and forced to the violence they commit. And his special effects are very interesting, though often quite gruesome. But in the end the film becomes little more than a gussied-up "slasher" picture filled with gratuitous gore, nudity and profanity (for an earned R rating), not to mention a lot of very bad jokes.
The story has a mysterious killer running around the city slicing and dicing whole families, while an innocent commune of monsters — known as "Nightbreed" — are being blamed.
Well, they aren't entirely innocent — the first one we meet takes a bite out of the hero's shoulder. And it's actually the hero himself who is being blamed for the killings, but he soon becomes a member of the "Nightbreed" creatures.
The story focuses on Craig Sheffer as a young fellow with a history of mental problems whose psychiatrist (veteran horror filmmaker David Cronenberg) isn't helping him much.
Meanwhile, Sheffer has bad dreams about Midian, a strange place where the "Nightbreed" creatures live. Eventually he discovers they are real and finds himself among them.
How that happens should be the fun here, but there's really not much fun to be had.
While Barker is visually inventive, his dialogue for "Nightbreed" is stilted, his characters cut from cardboard and his plotting not nearly as interesting as ideas that are presented but underdeveloped.
And Cronenberg, though an interesting presence at first, proves to be so low-key and understated that you're not sure whether he's asleep or just trying to put the audience to sleep.
Some of the other players fare better, but the special effects overwhelm them, for better or worse.
And in the end, "Nightbreed" is shallow and disappointing.