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borninwinter81 · 2 months

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I've been rediscovering my love for Clive Barker this week due to finally managing to see The Ultimate Cabal Cut of Nightbreed (some kind soul has uploaded it to YouTube) and then re-reading Cabal, the book it was based on.

Cabal is amongst my favourite books ever written (though as a bibliophile that list is extremely long!) and one of my favourite movies. I originally saw it in the early 90s when I was probably far too young, and read the book not long after.

I backed the Occupy Midian campaign in 2012 when the lost footage was being searched for and reintegrated into the movie, and I attended a screening of one of the early edits where I met Nicholas Vince and Simon Bamford (Kinski and Ohnaka in Nightbreed, but better known as two of the Cenobites from Hellraiser). This led to the eventual DVD/Blu-ray release of The Directors Cut (which I got a physical copy of) and then The Ultimate Cabal Cut (which I didn’t, and which I haven't seen until now).

It's an oversimplification to call Barker's work horror, especially in Cabal/Nightbreed - this was the mistake the production company made when originally editing and marketing it.

Clive Barker's vision shows us the beauty of the weird, the macabre, the abnormal, and the supernatural, and the true horror in his work comes from the "normal".

In Cabal/Nightbreed his monsters are not evil, they're simply different - undead, mutants and supernatural beings, a metaphor for anyone who has ever felt othered by society. Midian is a place where they can live safely with no fear or judgement. The evil characters are "naturals", humans who hate and fear the monsters for being different even though they pose no threat, and ultimately try to destroy them.

As a member of the LGBT community it's easy to see where Barker's motivation for this metaphor came from, but it could equally apply to just about anyone who feels like they don't fit in. Certainly as a lonely, bullied, weird child when I first read/saw it, who then grew up into a reasonably weird adult, I'd love for the monsters to come and take me away to Midian.

Anyone seeing this who isn't familiar with the book/movie, I'd urge you to look them up, as well as others by Barker. More of my favourites by him are Imajica, Abarat and of course The Hellbound Heart, filmed as Hellraiser. The Forbidden from short story anthology The Books of Blood was also filmed as Candyman.

Below I've linked The Cabal Cut of Nightbreed. Even if you know and love the original theatrical release I'd still urge you to watch this (quick as you can in case its removed due to copyright!).

In addition to doubling the movie length from 1 hour 40 mins to 3 hours 20 mins, a number of the actors voices have been re-recorded as they were overdubbed in the theatrical version for some reason, notably those of Rachel, and Lylesberg, played by Doug Bradley. It was a crime to remove that man's beautiful voice and wonderful to hear it back where its meant to be.

Also, rather than being a standard horror movie heroine who seems to be there only to scream and be rescued, in this version Lori comes across as much stronger and more well-rounded character.

As it says in the opening text, although much of the footage was of good quality there are some sections where all they had available were degraded VHS tapes, some of which were without audio. This means the editing is also a little clunky in places. However the makers of this version wanted to include everything they possibly could in order to bring it in line with the original shooting script and Clive Barker's epic vision for the piece.

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nobodysdaydreams · 1 month

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Any one or more of these that you'd like to answer for any of the characters I'd love to see! Hope you're doing well with finals <3

Doug Eiffel, Daniel Jacobi, Nicholas Benedict, & Dr. Garrison

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Thank you, Sophie! So many fun questions! Let's see... where to begin.

Doug Eiffel

6. What's something you have in common with this character? We both have very bad ADHD. I don't know if there's a character I've related to as strongly as Doug Eiffel for that specific purpose. I'll have to pull together a list of all the ADHD characters I related to someday.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character? He gets to see his daughter Anne again. After all this time he deserve a chance to make things right. His daughter needs her dad to come home and give her a hug.

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire? I love Doug's friendship with Hera and Minkowski. They all care for each other so much despite their differences and they survive because they rely on and care for each other.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like? I love writing about Doug's new life experiences on Earth without his old memories. Reinventing himself, finding himself again. However, I don't like the fact that I haven't had time to write a ton of Wolf359 in a while. Why must my ideas be so ambitious? 😭

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now? First impressions, ngl, I judged Doug a bit for his need to make jokes and be at the center of attention and apparent lack of regard for the feelings and concerns of others, until I realized the reason I didn't like him were because he reminded me of my own flaws. But we learn and we grow, and Doug certainly did. Very proud of him.

Daniel Jacobi (aka Duck Boy 🦆)

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like? This is gonna sound bad, but affectionately bully him a little bit. Even though I really came around to this character, he really needed to get it together. Glad he finally did!

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character? I have several head canons that I really need to start writing more about, one of them being that Jacobi and Maxwell have similar broken relationships with their families (for some similar and dissimilar reasons) and that's part of what drove them to become friends. Also that duck imprinting on Jacobi fic (it will take a while to get there but I have ideas)

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire? Jacobi and Maxwell's friendship. I know people talk a lot about Jacobi and Kepler, but he was a horrible boss and their relationship had a huge toxic power imbalance (though I begrudgingly came around on Kepler too, oh if only Whiskey Boy could have gotten there sooner). But you can tell Jacobi actually cares about Maxwell. She's possibly the only character he not only cares about but believes in. Jacobi knows Kepler is full of it (though his thoughts about Kepler being full of it certainly increase after Maxwell's death, he knows to some extent Kepler's kind of a jerk), but you can tell he believes in Maxwell. He justifies all the horrible things he does because he says they allow people like her to do her job. He sees her potential to do good and wonderful things and realizes just how much is lost when she dies (and later on, how much was really lost by having her work at Goddard when her work could have gone to so many better things). He sees his own goodness as only being an extension of protecting and helping her. When she dies, Jacobi just becomes the guy who explodes things and kills people. You see the toll that takes on him. It's also nice to see Maxwell caring for Jacobi before she died. You can tell she sees the potential he has for goodness despite the fact that Jacobi can't see it in himself.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now? Y'all already know I had some negative words to say about this man (he deserved it), but I went from bullying Duck Boy to affectionately bullying him, and I loved his arc! We love to see redemption.

Nicholas Benedict

6. What's something you have in common with this character? Being neurodivergent, relying on friends and family, and especially the show version and the way he reacts to situations. Oh my brother is the evil guy who wants to kidnap me? Let me hop into a row boat I'll give him something to kidnap! He's very distractable and the inattentive ADHD is easy to see but those big emotions and impulsivity slip out every now and again and that's something I very much relate to.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like? I love that we all recognize and agree that he is an amazing mentor figure and cares so much about his family. I know that sounds cliched but its so wholesome.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character? SO MANY and in the interest of not spoiling my own fic, I'm just gonna say that he's been through so much, but has chosen, in spite of it all, to chose to be good and be better, and I greatly admire that.

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire? His relationship with his daughters (Number Two, Rhonda, and Constance). You can tell he loves these girls and they are his family, blood related or not. It's delightfully wholesome.

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to this character? Something you don't like? I'll do the fic reading question for Nicholas, because I love when fics understand Nicholas. He might not be super athletic and might rely on his friends a lot, but that does not mean he's incapable or blind to who his brother is. Nicholas knows Nathaniel, he knows how controlling, manipulative, and slimy he is, heck, that's the whole reason he left when he was a kid. Nicholas knows Nathaniel has all sorts of traps for him, he's not stupid. He just loves his brother and believes in him and is willing to take risks to get him back (and it paid off 🥹🥰). Something I don't like is when Nicholas is portrayed as dumb or incompetent for believing in Nathaniel or forgiving him (not that Nathaniel wouldn't have consequences- that's part of the redemption process- but I don't like it when people try to say that Nicholas was wrong to want to get his brother back or somehow betrayed his friends by doing so even though Nicholas was firm in condemning Nathaniel for his treatment of the children and others).

Dr. Garrison

6. What's something you have in common with this character? Women in STEM. Mental health issues. Science. Psychology. Neuroscience. That about sums it up. I really wish we could have learned more about her backstory, what she wants, and what led her to work for Curtain.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like? Explore her backstory and complex relationship with Curtain and other characters. If the show wouldn't do it, then we can! I mean, they teased it a bit in season 2, but like...give us more!

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character? You already know. Here, let me just...there we go. But to summarize, she's an orphan, cares about others but has trauma and her own goals that frequently get in the way of that, she once had a better relationship with Curtain and several other characters, and she struggled with alcoholism and depression at several points in her life.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like? Give her angst and complexity. She's a villain, don't get me wrong, but there's so much to her, and I just want to give her a hug. I have no idea if this was where they were going with her in the show, but I love writing it. I'm glad I was able to do that in SOS because I don't like the idea of writing her off as a side character when I think she has a lot more to offer.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now? At first, being a books fan, I wondered why the show had so much of her, and at first thought it was to better characterize Curtain and his complex and weird relationship with his employees and pathological need to be liked and have the appearance of friends. But then, season 2, when they revealed she built the inventions and was working with Curtain for the money...and is apparently aware of the existence of psychics (as was Curtain at one point)...like girl, WHAT HAPPENED? I didn't go this direction in SOS, but I would not be surprised if had the show continued, the research Curtain, SQ's birth parents, Garrison, and Milligan were doing together had something to do with psychics, which would have tied nicely into the whole "where are Constance's birth parents?" plotline. Will I incorporate any of that into my fic? Haha...no spoilers. 😉

Thanks for the ask Sophie! 🥰

#Bods answers #ask game #wolf 359 #w359 #doug eiffel #daniel jacobi #tmbs #the mysterious benedict society #mysterious benedict society #tmbs disney #mbs disney #nicholas benedict #mr benedict #dr. garrison #dr garrison #long post

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