Nightbreed, 1990

Let’s be real. Clive Barker has several stories that, although not screaming queerness from the rooftop, have a queer sensibility to them. Barker himself has been openly gay since the 90s. His film Nightbreed that he both wrote and directed has been viewed through the queer lens by many critics. Even surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky called the film "the first truly gay horror fantasy epic." Viewers didn’t seem like the film much. Upon its release in North America, it only made about $8 million, which was far below its $11 million dollar budget. In later years, Nightbreed would go on to become a bit of a cult classic, and for many, it is a queer classic as well.

Trace Thurman (2019) of Bloody Disgusting writes that there is an “inherent queerness” to the film with the most queer aspect being the Nightbreed themselves (which for those that haven’t yet seen the movie are a race a monsters that live underground and are sometimes hunted for being different). The Nightbreed can easily represent queerness or any “other” that people fear. Leigh Monson of Birth. Movies. Death., also writes about the parallels between the Nightbreed and queer folks:

“The Nightbreed themselves have done nothing to deserve this treatment, but are instead ostracized and mythologized by the simple virtue of being different, and thus have evolved a culture that is insular to their interests and dependent on isolation from the hostile machinations of humankind. It's interesting, then, that Midian resembles nothing so much as a nightclub, with low lighting and neon glows highlighting the eccentricities of its inhabitants. Clubs are the prototypical venue for queer congregation, providing a safe space for mingling and flirting without fear of being outed or subject to socially condoned correctional violence. The way in which the society of Nightbreed has created its refuge is not dissimilar to communities like San Francisco’s Castro District, which operate under the idea of safety in numbers and freedom from persecution through the establishment of borders and insular culture”(2019).

Barker’s film is a lot of fun, but it is also a deeply-flawed mess. Some critics have been put off by the mixture of tones in the film, complaining that most of it registers as silly (Furzan, 2019). The script has been called “clumsy and uneven” (Trunik, 2014). Many have complained about the film’s run-time being too long to support its weak premise (Beck, 2014). Despite all of its flaws, Nightbreed is highly entertaining, and if you’re in the mood for a goofy-fantasy-monster-movie, this is the one for you.