I say this as someone who’s now seen all existing cuts (Theatrical, DC, and Cabal) with virtually zero nostalgia for Nightbreed (and I’ve only recently seen each of these):
Really appreciate this cut and prefer it to the DC. However with all its efforts to fix a messy film comes more flaws of its OWN. Added/extended scenes/audio samples are just too rough and in need of HD restoration. also while the narrative is more well rounded, the runtime is a bit daunting for this sort of horror/fantasy subject matter.
A film like this actually works best under 2hrs long (ie Theatrical Cut). A shame there isnt an edit in process which considers the balance of runtime and story.
Nightbreed isn’t Apocalypse Now, extending it and making its narrative more robust kinda ruins the weird trip rather than enhances it (Redux inversely enhances the experience of Apocalypse Now). I wish for a future edit based on Cabal Cut which enhances narrative minimally while focusing on the additional sfx/creature moments (as well as Decker moments). While character motivations make much more sense in the Cabal Cut they simply aren’t interesting enough themselves to care about. Until then sticking to the theatrical for rewatches. Perhaps the conclusion I’m drawing here is that despite Cabal Cut being a noble effort, Nightbreed feels more appropriately enjoyed as a truncated horror-fantasy sfx mess. It’s at least more coherent than your average Zack Snyder film.
So you wouldn’t be interested in the Ultimate Cabal cut of 3 hours and 19 minutes then…
hah!
In all honesty no. I’m sure that the effort is painstaking and worthy of a watch, but I’d sooner watch a cut that’s less than 90min.