Episode 14 : Special Guest Russell Cherrington — Nightbreed Restoration Director

José Leitão and Ryan Danhauser talk with Russell Cherrington, Restoration Director for Nightbreed about the Cabal Cut, and the Occupy Midian movement.

The upcoming “Days of the Dead” Cabal Cut screening will be Sunday, June 10th 2012 (7:30pm in PDT) at the New Beverly Cinema, Los Angeles -with the presence of Mark Miller and Russell Cherrington.

The following Cabal Cut screening will be at “Terror in the Aisles” on Friday, July 13th, at the Portage Theater in Chicago – also with Mark Miller and Russell Cherrington.

Russell at ‘Mad Monster Party’ with Mark Miller (Left), Craig Sheffer (Middle Right), and Anne Bobby (Right).

Here’s a small gallery of images below where you can find the upcoming screening posters and also the “Criterion Collection” fake cover that was made by José Leitão and which is mentioned in the interview:

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Episode Transcript

DANHAUSER (00:00:00):

Hello, this is Ryan Danhauser jumping in here from the future. In the original airing of this episode, we had the song, “Second Chance” from the Nightbreed soundtrack in order to respect the rights holders. We’ve removed it from this episode and I recommend you find the Nightbreed soundtrack by Danny Elfman and give it a listen. Thanks for understanding. Welcome again to the Clive Barker podcast. This is episode 14. I’m Ryan Danhauser and with me is Jose Leitao and we’ve got a special guest; the Restoration Director for Nightbreed, Russell Cherrington.

CHERRINGTON (00:00:41):

hi guys, how are you today?

LEITAO (00:00:45):

We’re just fine. So thank you for the opportunity to answer some questions, which I’m sure are in every fan’s mind right now.

CHERRINGTON (00:00:56):

Yeah, I’m sure they wanted to know lots of things you guys ask away.

DANHAUSER (00:01:00):

Okay. Well I guess our first section here is about a occupied Midian in general and the campaign. First of all, congratulations are in order ’cause we got to 5,000 signatures on June 1st.

CHERRINGTON (00:01:13):

Which was wonderful. Yeah, I was really chuffed that that happened.

DANHAUSER (00:01:21):

So that goal of 5,000 signatures, did that come from Morgan Creek, themselves?

CHERRINGTON (00:01:25):

No, nothing that just came along as we went along, didn’t it? I think we kind of set a target. Morgan Creek at the moment are just really quiet. So I’ve emailed them and asked them if they want to meet while I’m in Los Angeles. — If they want to help out with various things, what their commitment is to the future? And basically me and Mark have heard very little from them in the ensuing weeks, so they’ve been quiet.

DANHAUSER (00:01:58):

So when you get there to LA, do you have to make an appointment?

CHERRINGTON (00:02:05):

well, I’ve tried to make an appointment. I guess the next thing to do is when I got to Los Angeles, I’m going to call them up and speak to them and say look at this. I’ve sent them all the information about how many people had done this, look at the Facebook thing. Are you coming to watch the movie on Sunday? Me and Mark have sent them a copy of the movie so they can see it. So we’ve done everything that we can to engage with them, but right now we’re just waiting basically to hear back from them so that they’re the ones at this stage dragging their feet a little bit. So I just hope that they’re gonna get excited.

DANHAUSER (00:02:50):

And it seems that way. My thinking has always been why else would they allow for these screenings? You know, if they’re not trying to gauge our response and interest level.

CHERRINGTON (00:03:04):

Well obviously they want to know how many people are going to buy a product, and Nightbreed’s a product. It’s not a piece of art. It’s not something that they’re in love with. It’s a product and they need to know that it’s going to sell X amount of copies before they’ll commence any kind of campaign. But me and Mark had been talking with Anchor Bay with lots of other people trying to say ‘could you release this and could we go to Morgan Creek and say Anchor Bay want to release this. And the’ve got to allow us to do this. So we’re exploring every option available to us.

DANHAUSER (00:03:42):

So, for fans, when we write letters, is there a specific person at Morgan Creek that we should be writing to?

CHERRINGTON (00:03:50):

No, the people that run it are, a father and son team by the name of Robinson. So they’re the people to get in touch with. But , if you look at Morgan Creek’s website, there’s actually no way of getting in touch with them is there?

DANHAUSER (00:04:09):

So maybe if it just a letter was headed with Robinsons or something like that?

LEITAO (00:04:15):

Maybe James G. Robinson?

CHERRINGTON (00:04:19):

And his son’s called David Robbinson.

LEITAO (00:04:22):

Okay. Because their website has listed an address, phone number and a fax number, but they don’t have any electronic way of getting in touch. So, when we wrote that ‘Write a Letter to Morgan Creek’ campaign, we wrote a letter model, we put it up on the Occupy Midian Facebook group and I just put that address for the general Morgan Creek production studios that is on their website. So I hope that they’re getting it and it’s making some kind of effect.

DANHAUSER (00:04:53):

So we’ve got a petition, a Facebook group, a Twitter account. We’ve got people taking pictures with sort of mock protest signs and we’ve even had fan testimonial videos. What do you think, Russell, that we as fans could do to have the biggest impact on Morgan Creek’s decision?

CHERRINGTON (00:05:11):

To be honest, the cynic inside may suggest that you tell them how much you are prepared to pay for the Blu-ray. The thing today was really cool where we showed that if it was a Criterion addition, what it would look like. I really liked it. I thought it was really good.

LEITAO (00:05:34):

That was my artistic try at making a Criterion Cover.

DANHAUSER (00:05:39):

That’s really nice. And you’re right, you don’t see Baphomet very often on things.

LEITAO (00:05:45):

No, you don’t. It’s usually just Peloquin or Cabal…

CHERRINGTON (00:05:49):

Yeah. I felt like it looked really good.

LEITAO (00:05:52):

Thanks.

DANHAUSER (00:05:53):

So, the other thing is Fox and Warner brothers seem to have some rights. Well, and of course, you know, me living in Alaska, I don’t really understand how these things work, but is there anything that needs to be done there or should it, the focus will be on Morgan Creek?

CHERRINGTON (00:06:05):

Well, I think Morgan Creek may be a little bit sensitive about all of this. And I think that they are looking at it and saying, ‘Hold on a minute, all these people are making this big noise. There’s lots of things going on the internet.’ My hope is just that they’ll come on Sunday really and see all those people in that room wanting to watch that movie, getting excited by it. Lots of people John Skipp’s comeing. I’ve been talking to other people about attending. There are people that helped with Nightbreed that live in LA that I’m sure want to come. Obviously I’ll talk to Clive when I see him and ask him if he wants to attend. Lots of people could potentially be at that screening and it’s really exciting.

LEITAO (00:07:01):

So if the people out there listening to the podcast, if you guys are living close to LA and you can take the time to go to the screening. Please do so. The event is listed on the Occupy Midian Facebook group.

DANHAUSER (00:07:17):

Yeah, and I can attest too. It’s a really awesome experience. I mean, it’s unbelievable. It was worth it for me. I flew 14 hours each way to see it. So definitely!

CHERRINGTON (00:07:29):

Which is a wonderful thing to do. Anyway, great to meet you there. And it was great. For this thing to grow simple screening in North Calolina in what could be perceived as being a kind of relatively small event… If that event can get 5,000 plus people to be interested in watching that movie and saying, every other screening that we’re going to have this year. I’m looking at my computer now and Dublin want to screen it. Two horror festivals in England here. There’s three screenings, there’s a major event that I can’t talk about at the moment but I’m kind of waiting for this major event to announce in the UK. And then I can announce everything else. And then I’m talking to all the events in America that Clive’s attending. I’ve gotten contacted by people in Texas. There’s a guy wants to have a Nightbreed weekend in Calgary… There’s so much interest. Another Californian screening, someone talking to me about that. So every day there’s a new screening, at least one new screening request every day. There’s a Film festival in Paris. I’ve been offered Finland in the last couple of days. I know there is another fantastic film festival, I want to say. So there’s so many places wanting to screen it. I think I’ve got something like 15 screenings before the end of the year that I’m working, so thanks very much, you guys, for your help.

DANHAUSER (00:09:08):

Oh yeah. Well it’s, it’s been, it’s been an incredible experience.

LEITAO (00:09:12):

I’ve gotten to know so many new people who enjoy Nightbreed and I’ve gotten to know so many cool behind the scenes pictures and movie props that have shown up on the wall of the group and everything. It’s just amazing.

DANHAUSER (00:09:29):

The people all want to help too. And we keep repeatedly getting asked if we should start a Kickstarter. And I kind of wanted to put this out in the open because people keep asking us this repeatedly and Jose and Roger and I — our official answer has always been that this isn’t really about money. It’s been about showing support to the people who own the movie. But we are not the ones doing the restoration. You are, so, I suppose if it ever needed funding that you would let us know.

CHERRINGTON (00:10:05):

Well, right now the point is that some of these festivals need a something called a DCP made, which is basically a digital version of a film that instead of showing it from DVD or Blu-ray goes onto a specialist device that’s screened at film festivals and we don’t have a DCP at the moment and they cost a little bit of money to make. So the one thing that might come out of this weekend and potential trying to talk to Morgan Creek will be: Will they allow us to raise the money to have a DCP made for all these film festivals? That’s one area that we could actually start to look at. I have lots of thoughts, but you get into this ground and when it starts to involve money starts to become interesting and difficult at the same time. So far I’ve stayed away from that because right now I know in my heart of hearts that if I walked into Morgan Creek and they just gave me 20 tins of film and said, ‘Russell, leave with them, do what you want with them. But you’ve got to pay for it”; I know that I could raise the money because everybody would commit $20 -$30 to have that film and that would pay for the restoration. You know, that’s $100,000 right there. And that would allow us to do it, but it still belongs to Morgan Creek. So they’ve got make a decision.

DANHAUSER (00:11:42):

That kind of makes me think of an interesting question too, because you know, up until now it’s been filmed at horror conventions, but now this one coming up in LA, people are buying tickets to see it. Where does that money go?

CHERRINGTON (00:12:02):

Yeah. That money goes to charity, doesn’t it? Scares That Care.

DANHAUSER (00:12:06):

Oh yes. They were a big presence at the mad monster party too.

CHERRINGTON (00:12:15):

What money is made from that event goes to them, which, which gives a kind of justification for the screening. The Chicago event has some charity function as well. So they’re the only leaked screenings at the moment.

DANHAUSER (00:12:33):

And you’ve been traveling a lot too. Is this on your own dime with this movie?

CHERRINGTON (00:12:39):

Yeah. I’m paying for myself to go to support the film. Yeah, absolutely. For me, it’s a passion; getting involved in it, doing it, everything about it is a passion. I wanted to watch the film as it should be seen as much as anybody else did. And that’s why I did it, really. And it’s funny cause editing it was a whole different thing sitting in 29 months working on it to get it right. The best time for me wasn’t the editing. It was the night it was on a DVD and I sat down and watched it on the big TV. It was watching it on a plasma screen and thinking Jeez, that’s what people could have seen back in 1990 that’s Nightbreed. That’s what Clive wanted to do. And the biggest compliment for me, other than Clive getting really excited, was when he turned around one day and said, “Finally we’ve got the film I wanted to make. That was really, really, really cool when he said, “This is it”. And since you saw it Ryan, four different versions have been made since then take on board Clive’s notes. So literally what I’m going to do after I speak to you is burn Clive a copy Mark, a copy, two copies to take to LA fof the full version of it. So that’s finished. They’re not massive changes, but Clive wanted the musical number moved. He wanted something to happen later on. He wanted just little things that happen and they all helped it every single time. It’s great. It’s part of the process. He just makes it better every single time. In all honesty, everything that I know exists, I’ve seen is in that film now, there’s nothing missing. And if I got to get the original stock and make it properly, there would be trims. It probably would end up 10 minutes shorter than it is now, just with little things. But I would never, ever, ever take any of the story out because that’s been my great journey.

LEITAO (00:15:06):

So, this whole process, these upcoming screenings that we’re going to start having like the one at Days of the Dead and the one at Terror in the Aisles. I was wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about the process of setting up a festival screening for the Cabal Cut. Does it require obtaining authorization from Morgan Creek case by case?

CHERRINGTON (00:15:28):

I’m amassing a list of all the people that want to screen it with their contact details and basically I’m going to send that to Morgan Creek. And I’m going to say, “Do we have permission screen all these events? Can we have permission to continue to screen this film in film festivals? What do we have to do and what is Auour stance on working together. My question to them is, “Are we working towards a re-release of Nightbreed with the workprint attached to it. And are we looking at being able to restore the film, work with original cast and crew to actually create this movie.” My dream is a bit like the Blade Runner thing that came out about four or five years ago, where you just have everything in there. Everything that you can get your hands on.

LEITAO (00:16:34):

That would be a dream come true.

CHERRINGTON (00:16:38):

So that’s my goal. Whatever happens here and what everybody should realize that’s supporting Occupy Midian is that, even though right now we’ve got a film that’s a composite of a DVD and two work prints. Whether some of the quality goes towards VHS or not. The story is beautiful now and the film is fantastic and you look through the other bits of lapses in quality, you actually are seeing something that’s wonderful and amazing. I came to the screening in Charlotte. I said that it was ‘Gone With The Wind with monsters. Now, I’ve kind of come around to thinking that it’s like the Touch of Evil of horror movies. You’ve essentially got a great film called Nightbreed, but you’ve got an even better film if you take on boear what Clive wanted. And so that’s why I think we’ve got right now.

LEITAO (00:17:45):

If I could move to another section of the interview, this would be about how the Cabal Cut of Nightbreed was assembled. And my question to you would be, I know you’ve mentioned this a couple of times before in other interviews, but it’s always good to ask again so that people out there who are new to this movement get to know. Could you tell us when exactly did you decide to start working on the Cabal Cut?

CHERRINGTON (00:18:14):

When I regularly go to visit Clive — I’ve basically been going to his house for about 10 years, working on different interests I have in his work. And I ‘ve written quite a lot about Clive and a lot of imagery and I’m very interested in his artwork and basically I went up there and, like everybody (I don’t know if any of you guys went to the Indianapolis Horrorhound screening of the work print), but anyway, I heard about that work print and I didn’t go there. I’m in a privileged position so I just said one day to Mark was recently working up at Clive’s and I said “Could I have a copy of the work print please? I’d like to see it.” So before I left to come home, I was putting in the DVD and I kind of knew at that moment in time that I was going to go away and do something with it. I wasn’t doing it covertly or anything. I kind of thought, “I want to go home and I’m going to look at this. I went over and I looked at it was really, really rough and really hard to watch. I tried to watch it and we couldn’t get through it cause it was in little 10 minute chunks. No, no, that’s all right. So what if I kind of did something with this and try to make it into a real version of Nightbreed? I have an editor that I knew that I think is really good, who’s really into horror films. It’s a guy called Jimmi Johnson. And I said to Jimmi, “How do you fancy getting involved with this?” ‘Cause I’m a director and I like to direct and I don’t see myself as being an editor and I think you’ve got to collaborate with someone. So he said, “Yeah, let’s do it”. So we took Nightbreed, we digitized it, we ccut it up, we got rid of all the stuff that was damaging it. We looked at it, then we digitize the movie and then I re-read the novel and re-read the script, I got Jimmy to do the same and we started work on it sequence by sequence. And look through it and made sure we were getting it right, and he basically just fell into place. And after working on it for two or three months, we had an assemble that I was happy with it. And then I took it. The next time I went out to LA was around that time and I kind of set a target for me and Jimmy to have it finished for my next trip to LA. So three, four months later, we had a version. We took it to Los Angeles. I packaged it and I basically left it for Clive to watch for Robbie and from Mark. Low and behold, Mark watched it relatively quickly and I got this very excited email where they was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe what you’ve done!’ This is Nightbreed. It’s the best thing I’ve ever watched, which was kind of cool, but Clive hadn’t watched it at that point. Mark said to me then, “Oh, you know? We just got another word print and it’s on DVD and it’s got some different stuff in it. I’m going to send it to you.” So you know when I got back to England after that trip he was as good as his word. He sent it over and I basically then looked at that word versus the other one.The original one that I had is the one that when you’re watching the movie and the people that watch it either on Sunday (you’ll see it in Chicago), You’ll see it says “Copyright 1989” That’s the first work print that I got. The picture quality on that is in some places slightly sharper than the other work print. The other work print doesn’t have anything else on it, but the quality is slightly lower. We then added all the unseen bits from the second work print which included the musical number, which was kind of the most exciting discovery from that print. And it was a few tweaks. There was things missing from that one that only appeared in the next one, et cetera. Then we built that into it and then created a version which I then sent over to Mark and Clive watch that version. Now, I’m pretty sure that’s the first time you watch what I’d done. And then he got very, very excited about it. I got some information back. Mark was very excited about it and then all of a sudden when I’d done that version, Mark contacted me and said, do you know what they want to screen the work print in Charlotte. But I’ve told them that we’ve actually got a cut of this. And that’s the first time we decided to screen it. That version that we went out with had 90% work print 3, a little bit of work print 1, and it had what I could use of the original movie in there. So that’s how it came about. Me and Jimmi worked on final cut. We weren’t spending a studio’s money or anybody else’s money and time other than ours. So a month before North Carolina. I work at a university, I teach two and a half days a week. I teach film production and he [Doug Bradley] came to give a lecture. When we finished doing the lecture and screening Hellraiser on that day we went to a voice recording studio and we dubbed Lylesburg’s voice back in and created that little extra that’s knocking around on YouTube called “Dough Dub”.

LEITAO (00:24:34):

That little video gave goosebumps to a lot of people.

CHERRINGTON (00:24:37):

It was part of my thought process that I want to document everything that we do from now on.

DANHAUSER (00:24:44):

It’s an interesting thing too because people are so used to the theatrical cut of Nightbreed for 20 years that… There was one guy on the Facebook page that just couldn’t accept that Doug didn’t do it originally. And it is so hard to hear it in a different way after watching the movie for 20 years. But it’s great.

CHERRINGTON (00:25:13):

I remember him doing that. I remember what he had to say, I remember the guy. I thought it was kind of funny at the time that, “What? We can’t do this!”, We’ve done it haven’t we. What you actually have is getting closer, because acrtors are getting dubbed back in, I think it’s really important. So for me it’s cool.

DANHAUSER (00:25:47):

Has there been any luck getting ahold of the actress who played Rachel?

CHERRINGTON (00:25:53):

No, ins’t she a bit like getting ahold of the Holy grail?

LEITAO (00:25:59):

We have spotted Catherine Chevalier on Twitter. She says she had a 20 year career as an actress and now she does yoga and stuff like that. So I actually, I’m going to send you the contact of this person because I’m assuming it is Catherine Chevalier She’s in the UK.

CHERRINGTON (00:26:34):

Has she responded to you.

LEITAO (00:26:39):

Not yet. I’ll send you the contact and see if you can have any more luck.

CHERRINGTON (00:26:46):

That would be fantastic. I’d love to try and talk to her.

DANHAUSER (00:26:50):

It seems like she has a much bigger part in the Cabal Cut and from the versions that I saw, two thirds of her part was in her original voice. And then the remaining one-third was from the DVD with the dubbed voice.

CHERRINGTON (00:27:11):

That’s something that obviously we would all like to put right. It’s another thing that’s part of what we’re aiming towards isn’t it? That would be great.

LEITAO (00:27:25):

From my understanding, you mentioned the VHS work prints. I think that the first one that they discovered was 145 minutes long and then the second one was 159 minutes long. And I think this one had the musical number.

CHERRINGTON (00:27:48):

It’s not as long as you would think because there was so many gaps in them, so they weren’t that long. There was a leeder reel, and then you’d have 9, 10 minutes of film and then Ian out reel and then maybe like a minute between and then another leeder reel , so that’s where the length comes from.

LEITAO (00:28:11):

So that adds a lot to the general running time.

CHERRINGTON (00:28:14):

So the two hours, thirty-five minutes that it runs now is pretty much the maximum you could get from all of the material.

LEITAO (00:28:27):

So at an initial stage, did this restoration follow the second draft of the script as a main guideline?

CHERRINGTON (00:28:35):

Yeah, that’s the draft of the script that Clive’s most settled on. I think it’s the one that was worked on on the shoot. That’s the one that I worked on the most.

LEITAO (00:28:54):

Some of our other questions have already been answered. If you are still working on the Cabal Cut at this time and you have mentioned that you are still tweaking. My next question would be, can you give us an idea of how, how many iterations of the Cabal Cut had been created in this ongoing restoration process?

CHERRINGTON (00:29:18):

Well, my cat’s arrived, and she’s called Malingo. Well this is the 4th or 5th version of the movie that exists now. And I’ve kept every single version They’re subtly different rather than radically different. The the first is missing material that is in the version that you actually can watch now. We’ve all seen stills of things that aren’t in the Cabal Cut, or the other cut. And you know, I’ll say I’m as desperate as anybody is to get my hands on what was shot. Then I can work out, is there actually more of this wonderful material there? Is there more Peloquin, is there more Lylesburg? Do we get more Shuna Sassi? As far as I can tell from what I’ve seen, this is everything. So right now I think everything that’s known about is in this version. I don’t think there’s anything from the trailer that’s missing because often trailers are a good indicator of something that might be missing, Well put it this way, when you watch it, you don’t think anything is missing. There’s, there’s a scene that was made for the reshoots, It takes place in the hut and Cronenberg’s character goes through the hut and tortures a guy for information about Midian. Do you remember that? He’s got all the antlers on the walls and things like that. Well I kinda decided to leave that in because I thought that that really worked. And that’s not in the script. So that doesn’t appear in any of the scripts.That’s pure reshoot. But I thought it worked with the story and I didn’t want to lose it. So there was a decision made, and I split it up, made It work around the new material and you know, I think it adds and it doesn’t take away. There’s one thing I’ve always played with in my head and I ‘ll remember to talk to Clive about it when I see him. Decker gives himself away too soon. You know the bit wher he’s out at Midian, with Lori and Lori runs back in and he pulls the mask off and I’ve be even thinking, could I Decker to be on unmasked in Midian Sometimes I think of things like that.

DANHAUSER (00:32:07):

This was a question from Roger, he was asking how you reconstructed the soundtrack from the Cabal Cut to accommodate the new footage and get sound in the work print to match up so well. And this part was my question, ’cause when I saw the movie, the DVD scenes sounded exactly the same to me as the scenes from the work print footage. Like if I had my eyes closed, I wouldn’t know which was which.

CHERRINGTON (00:32:37):

This I’d say is Jimmy’s genius. The work that he did that was outstanding, making it seem seamless. His editor’s eye really came in. He did things to a really high standard. We took the CD, we took all the music that was available and that’s how it ended up being that way. So, you know what, what you’ve got is everything that was available to us, there was nothing new dug out. It’s just what we had. I would always tip my hat to Jimmy and say, he did a wonderful job there. We added bits of music and things and we found things that would work. But you can’t make things that don’t exist, you know what I mean? We’ve only got so much stuff. So we tried just to work with it really. And obviously if you guys were impressed by it, we, we did a reasonably good job, didn’t we?

DANHAUSER (00:34:11):

Yeah. Oh definitely. Going on to the website and Occupy Midian, is there a specific time or date when the website is going to have all of the features out?

CHERRINGTON (00:34:28):

Christian did lots of work on the website and my goal was to open it kind of slowly, bit by bit by bit and keep adding to it. And you know, I’ve just done him a testdisc of imagery that I’d like him to use for things, which is due to go off in the post in the morning. Behind that website is tons of stuff, but me at the moment it feels like it’s too much because I want people to concentrate on the screenings, the film, the petition, Occupy Midian web site and Morgan Creek at the moment. I don’t want them to delve into the film’s history too much because Phil and Sarah’s website does that. All the scans and all the photographs and the books and things like that, but you know it’s new things like there’s going to be a huge six page article in the biggest film magazine in the world in their August issue and I’ve given them 16 unseen photographs, which I think I showed you guys. We did a little viral thing with them. We haven’t used it yet. But the reason I haven’t used all 16 images yet is because anything unseen, if it can appear in magazines like Fangoria or Rue Morgue or the one that we’ve got this article in, which is not a horror magazine, it’s just a film magazine that’s huge, and they want to do a six page feature. That’s great for us because they’re talking about Occupy Midian, they’re talking about Nightbreed, its history and the Cabal Cut, right? That to me is the time to give those 16 images up because they’re going to look wonderful in that article. This has a readership of a quarter of a million, so that’s gonna help our causes tons, isn’t it?

LEITAO (00:36:31):

It’s probably going to be the first actual print magazine that’s going to cover Occupy Midian. ‘Cause I think so far most of our coverage, although it has been extensive, It’s been pretty much online.

CHERRINGTON (00:36:44):

It’s been online, you’re absolutely right. It’s wonderful isn’t it? It’s going beyond that, like magazines, film festivals, everything. All the work all you wonderful people have done at Occupy Midian. Collectively you guys, Christian, everybody else that’s helped, I just think it’s fantastic. Roger, Crystal, everybody that’s been pumping this up has done a wonderful job. Even Clive, Phil and Sarah helped a little bit on their website and put milestones up.It’s wonderful. It’s happening now.

LEITAO (00:37:36):

Well, it’s a Testament to the effect that the film had on so many people, even though it’s been like 20 years. We’re still here and we’ve incorporated it into our own private imagination, our own fantasy world. And that’s the genius of Clive right there.

CHERRINGTON (00:37:54):

That’s the one thing we should never forget here is, this is Clive Barker’s film. It’s Clive Barker making a movie like Jean Cocteau made a movie. It’s a thing of beauty. It’s like Todd Browning’s Freaks. It’s just something that isn’t quite like everything else everybody else has made within the genre. Clive’s films are like that. Hellraiser is not like any other film in the genre. They might have a whole heap of diminishing sequels, but if you left them out of it, it’s a bit like Alien, isn’t it? Alien is a wonderful movie, and if it stands alone it’s even better. People want to say, “Well, I really like Aliens” and you might really like Aliens, but Alien is in a class of its own and the Hellraiser is. So Nightbreed is and Lord of IIlusions is great. And I love Salome and The Forbidden. Clive had this uniqueness about his films. Nightbreed is 22, 23 years old now and other than a few hair styles and a bit of clothing, it still could look wonderful today. That’s what Craig [Sheffer] said to me when we were in Charlotte watching Nightbreed. (Craig who played Cabal, Boon) said, “This isn’t a horror movie, it’s an art film.” I liked it when he said that.

LEITAO (00:39:23):

In regards to the whole Occupy Midian movement and not just Occupy Midian, fandom in general; I was just wondering, if we could speculate a little bit on what this longterm campaign might achieve. Some realistic goals that we might expect from a longterm support campaign from the fans in general. I understand now we’re going to go through a stage of screenings and then depending on what Morgan Creek responds then what kind of goals can we expect?

CHERRINGTON (00:40:03):

I think that we should not lose heart over numbers. Everybody should realize that every single person that joins Occupy Midian or signs the petition is one person closer to this being released. We’ve all got to see it that way, one person closer. The screenings are hugely important because North Carolina has led to where we are today, right? Los Angeles and Chicago and the other events will all escalate the amount of people and the amount of interest in what we’re doing. Having a major film magazine write a huge article, publish it, and then the event that we can announce at the end of June are going to take it up another level. I think our goal will always remain the same. Our goal will be that Morgan Creek allow myself and Mark to complete a full restoration of this movie that’s released on Blu-ray and DVD… That we can see the work print, we can see the restored film and we can see the original cinema release on two or three discs, whatever. Today seeing that Criterion cover made me think, “What if there was a Citerion edition? ” And he deserves a Criterion edition. All these things are goals, and that’s what we’re going for. Now that I’m not teaching anymore and I’m off for the summer months. I spend 50% of every day on Nightbreed, trying to get people interested. All these screenings and everything else is testament now to where it’s going. And we shouldn’t give up heart because we’re far closer to seeing Nightbreed re-released in this Cabal Cut version than we were when we were in Charlotte, North Carolina. So everyone’s got to realize that there is an achievable goal here, and there are an awful lot of people behind this movie.

LEITAO (00:42:31):

And also that there’s a lot of people, not just in the U S but in Europe, because this movie never had a proper, region 2 release. It’s, it’s amazing that there is no regions 2 release in the UK of Nightbreed, right?

CHERRINGTON (00:42:48):

No, you can’t get it in the UK. You know, you’ve got to import it. But somebody told me recently that Nightbreed now is ‘buy on demand’ DVD. So if you order it, it’s actually manufactured and posted to you on demand. You know, there aren’t actually copies in existence. That’s how it’s done.

LEITAO (00:43:07):

It’s a service from Warner home video, I think. But you can get that from amazon.com.

DANHAUSER (00:43:13):

Do we know if that version is any different from the one that was on the shelf?

CHERRINGTON (00:43:19):

I think he’s just going to be the one that I’m looking at over in the corner right now., which is just Nightbreed. You’re just going to get the box-stsandard movie. 1:85, that’s what’s going to be sent to you. Doesn’t everybody really want to see a restored film, The Cabal Cut (2 hours, 35 minutes in it with another hour of Midian more or less)?

LEITAO (00:43:48):

Exactly. That’s just a rhetorical question right there. I don’t think there is a Nightbreed fan anywhere that would not give his soul for a copy of that on Blu-ray.

DANHAUSER (00:44:04):

At the two screenings, L.A. and Chicago, are you going to lock the door until everyone signs the petition?

CHERRINGTON (00:44:13):

You know that I’m going to [laughs] say you got to sign this,you’ve got to support this. You’ve got to help us make it happen. The only thing that makes me sometimes feel a little bit sad is when you get the odd detractor who says, “Well, you know, the picture quality wasn’t that fantastic.” And you explained to them that that’s all we’ve got. And without that we don’t have a movie. We just have Nightbreed where kind of it doesn’t end like it should. The onus towards the Nightbreed is completely wrong. It’s actually trying to be a slasher movie and not being a slasher movie. And the wrong people are alive at the end and it’s a much confused movie. And you don’t get Boon and Lori’s love story in Nightbreed. It’s Really, really, really sad.

DANHAUSER (00:45:08):

Lori is a much better character in the Cabal Cut than she was in the theatrical cut. I mean, the theatrical version, she’s mostly just chasing Boon around and he’s ignoring her.

CHERRINGTON (00:45:20):

Yeah, that’s it, and you just don’t get a relationship in the movie. It’s like, ‘What’s going on between these two guys? Are they in love, or they’re not in love, what’s going on?’ Now you do get that. Ryan, you’ve seen it. Their last minutes of screen-time are wonderful, aren’t they? You actually see them and what happens in the book happens, and then how we leave the Nightbreed is much more optimistic.

DANHAUSER (00:45:54):

And it hints at them having a future instead of just living in a barn.

CHERRINGTON (00:46:03):

Yeah,, not just the barn. That’s funny.

LEITAO (00:46:11):

I’m just the one guy here that hasn’t seen it yet, but you know, I’m pretty sure that pretty soon I’ll be able to catch a screening as they come along.

CHERRINGTON (00:46:18):

I know it is so horrible that you’re actually in America and you can’t come and watch it. I’m trying my best to get you to see it. We’ll find a way of watching it. Obviously if you are in Europe when the European screenings are on, I really want you to come and watch it. It’s funny cause I’ve had people come to my home and sit down and demand that they watch it, including Nick Vince. You’re most welcome to come, you could get flights from Portugal, you can visit the world’s largest collection of Clive Barker stuff you’ve probably ever seen, other than at his house.

LEITAO (00:47:10):

Let me just announce here what the upcoming screenings are. We’re going to have Days of the Dead, the Cabal Cut screening, which is going to be Sunday, June 10th at 7:30 PM at the New Beverly cinema, which is in Los Angeles.

CHERRINGTON (00:47:30):

Yup. Mark Miller and myself will both be there to introduce and take questions and hopefully there’ll be other guests on the night.

LEITAO (00:47:39):

And the second one will be Terror In The Aisles. The Nightbreed Cabal Cut will be screened on Friday, July 13th at the Portage Theater in Chicago.

CHERRINGTON (00:47:52):

Yes, absolutely. The’re both going ahead. There’s also another screening in Chicago in November, which is Chicago Days of the Dead horror convention. Bill has told me that Morgan Creek have given him permission to screen that ther too.

DANHAUSER (00:48:13):

Wow. Well there we go, We have a third.

CHERRINGTON (00:48:16):

But there’s so many others that I’m just waiting on A) Morgan Creek to commit to and B) announcements to be made. There’s a huge one that’s looking at me on the computer where they want to close a major horror festival with the Cabal Cut of Nightbreed.

DANHAUSER (00:48:36):

Woah, that would be neat.

CHERRINGTON (00:48:36):

So it’s going to be their big film closing a big film festival and the guy is saying it’s a done deal. He wants it, So now Morgan Creek have just got to say yes or no.

LEITAO (00:48:52):

Occupy Midian has, with the Twitter campaign, it’s amazing. I was doing the math the other day and I realized that we at this point have managed to reach out and touch over 1 million people because, for example, Clive Barker has been tweeting and retweeting our posts. So he has 300,000 followers right there. And then even Adam Savage from MythBusters, he retweeted our, our petition link. He has 675,000 followers. So, so just imagine and including, of course other people on Twitter that have 12,000 followers…

CHERRINGTON (00:49:29):

Neil Gaiman as well. He’s done it a couple of times now.

LEITAO (00:49:33):

And Steve Niles… All these people have been involved in the Twitter campaign and helped out and we’ve now reached over 1 million people just on the petition links and Fangoria, Rue Morgue magazine, Shock ’till You Drop, All these websites, they’re helping out tremendously. So we thank them.

DANHAUSER (00:49:58):

We do have some listener questions too. Some of these have been answered,

CHERRINGTON (00:50:04):

Let’s go for them. That’d be good.

DANHAUSER (00:50:06):

So Claudia Glazzard says, “I’d like to know what Nightbreed means to him (to you, Russell), what your first experience of it is and who is your favorite character?”

CHERRINGTON (00:50:18):

Well, I’ll go in reverse order. My favorite character is Peloquin because I think he gets the best lines. I think he’s super cool. And if we ever get to make a sequel to Nightbreed, I’m going to write his character. That’s my promise to myself. I want to make a little mini movie of him some time. I love him. What does Nightbreed mean to me? Nightbreed is 1988, reading Cabal and then reading about the movie being made and watching it for the first time and looking at all those pictures, buying the Nightbreed Chronicles, buying the ‘making of’ book, reading them from cover to cover, thinking that Clive Barker was a genius and then reading those comics. I was 20 years old in 1988 and those three-four years was Nightbreed mania for me. it really was for me at that age, like Star Wars but with monsters. It was so cool. They were the coolest thing ever. That’s where George Lucas could have taken Star Wars instead of going cuddly. It was brilliant and I was in love with it and my life-long relationship with Clive’s work, it just shows where you can go to. When I was aty film school, I wrote to Clive’s company and asked if I could have an internship and then, Hey, what do you do? You find yourself some years later restoring one of his movies. So that’s what can happen in life.

DANHAUSER (00:52:06):

Henrick Anderson asked, “Is The Cabal Cut still VHS sourced?” Two thirds… Probably.

CHERRINGTON (00:52:17):

The only thing about there is elements of VHS. Like one element is slightly weaker than the other, but it’s all been color graded by a professional film color grader. So we’ve actually worked that material to its highest possible quality. So it hasn’t just banged off VHS. And as I like to jokingly remark isn’t porno quality. We’ve done everything we can with that VHS footage. So at the end of the day it’s as good as VHS is ever gonna look. But yeah, some of it comes from VHS. There’s nothing we can do about it right now and there’s nobody on this earth that wants to see it on 35 millimeter film more than I do.

LEITAO (00:53:07):

There’s just one question I’d like to ask about that, which is, Did you get to meet with Robin Vigeon, the original director of photography of Nightbreed?

CHERRINGTON (00:53:22):

No, no. I have his contact and he is supportive of the film, but he wants to see the original film stock and his expertise would come into play. As soon as we get the original film stock back. He would help us grade it to the way that it was shot, the way that he set out. And that’s a really important thing about a director of photography at the time is that they knew what color pallet they were shooting from. So Robin will get involved with this movie as soon as we get the stock from Morgan Creek.

LEITAO (00:54:03):

Wonderful.

DANHAUSER (00:54:05):

Sean Francis said, how long will it take to get to DVD and Blu-ray?

CHERRINGTON (00:54:15):

Let’s look at this realistically. Nothing happened in 20 years and since last summer to it screening in Charlotte was like top secret and I kind of just did it, and then it’s taken off now. I reckon if Morgan Creek gave me all the film stock tomorrow, it would take six months to get to DVD and Blu-ray. So the day they give it to us, we’re talking six months from there and an allowance and a budget, and a will to make this happen, it will take six months. I think.

DANHAUSER (00:54:59):

That reminds me. When I first signed up to go see it in Charlotte, I thought, and I think probably everybody thought it was the horror around version and it wasn’t until later and I had already had my tickets that we find out, ‘No, this is an actual put-together version of the movie and the dub Doug video came out and kind of was viral, at least amongst the fans. And that was incredible. It’s like, ‘wow, this is a lot more than I really expected.’

CHERRINGTON (00:55:28):

And that little screening led to so much more. But, I don’t think Clive would have let anybody watch that version of it again. It just didn’t play out that good and it didn’t work. And it really isn’t a movie and it was just a rough thing. And even me, with all my patients and love, I just thought to myself, “I can make this look great.” Ultimately, (I’m not, I’m not making this up) I created the Cabal Cut of Nightbreed so I could see what the movie should look like. I am that kind of serious about it. I am incredibly proud of it. I’m proud of all four versions of it. I’m proud that we’re talking about it tonight. I’m proud that Clive Barker gave me restoration director credit. It’s his movie, but he says the movie belongs to me and Mark, he wants us to do this stuff for it. He gives us these credits, which I think is wonderful and kind. I’ll never, ever claim that It’s my movie. It’s Clive’s movie. I’ve just repaid him for all his kindnesses to me over the years.

LEITAO (00:56:59):

About the Horror Hound screening; I do remember (I was not there of course), but I understand that it was so rough that from what I’ve heard, like every 30 seconds someone would just get up and walk out of the room. At one point they were moving stuff for a music concert they were going to have from the room as the movie was going on, and one of the speakers actually got disconnected as they were doing that. So it was an experience that only hardcore fans really enjoyed.

CHERRINGTON (00:57:35):

Yeah, well the Charlotte screening wasn’t helped by a crap projector….

DANHAUSER (00:57:44):

Oh my god, yes!

CHERRINGTON (00:57:44):

…That basically kept flaking out.

DANHAUSER (00:57:47):

Every time there was an explosion or a loud noise, then we would see the desktop of the computer that was playing the DVD.

CHERRINGTON (00:57:53):

And then the guy says to me afterwards, “It’s just a flaw with it.” And I’m like, “what?…”

DANHAUSER (00:57:57):

With the DVD?

CHERRINGTON (00:57:57):

No, not the DVD. Their setup. The hotel provided it. I’m like, “I’m a filmmaker and how you present a film is really impoprtant. And how excited do you think I am that it’s going to be at the New Beverly Cinema on a proper screen, proper seats. It’s not going to be in some silly hall with people walking in and out to get beer and popcorn. The next two screenings are going to be a serious viewing experience.

DANHAUSER (00:58:33):

That was really disappointing, just that every time there was a loud noise, I guess it rattled the computer and made it exit out or made the movie end up going into the background or something like that.

CHERRINGTON (00:58:50):

I don’t know what happened, but I just thought ‘It’s spoiling it for everybody else. I know it made everyone have a goofy laugh, but for me, that’s the difference maybe between showing at a convention and showing it at a cinema. And I’m more excited about the film festival screenings than anything else. I think that the convention should take a little bit of caring and attention if they’re going to screen movies.

DANHAUSER (00:59:19):

And actually, during this interview, we just got one more question, which you’ve pretty much answered, but he says, (this is Steven Haines) “Any chance of a screening in the UK?”

CHERRINGTON (00:59:33):

Yeah, Steven’s going to be spoiled rotten by screenings in the UK. So, there’s a clue in this, but I can’t announce till the 29th of June, when they annouce the big London Screening one the 29th of June, which is a really big deal for the Cabal Cut of Nightbreed. After that, I can then basically announce six or seven other screenings between September and November this year in the UK. I think every single weekend from September until November I’ll be screening it somewhere in the UK or America and therre’s two or three European screenings lined up as well.

LEITAO (01:00:27):

Okay. That sounds good. I need to send you some contacts because there are people in Spain that also want to make a screening and there was also that festival in Portugal that I have the entry form that I can send you.

CHERRINGTON (01:00:42):

Right now, this is how we get attention for the film — by screening it. This is how we get people to want to watch ,Nightbreed on a big screen. So anything that we can do is wonderful and you know, I, myself and Mark will be at as many screenings as we can. We’re not in a position right now where we can screen the film without one of us being there. That’s one of the things that needs to happen because Morgan Creek won’t let us pass out DVDs to people, et cetera.

LEITAO (01:01:18):

Hopefully one day we will even have a cast panel to discuss the movie.

CHERRINGTON (01:01:27):

You know there’s going to be this Hellraiser reunion in Philadelphia and New Jersey, Cherry Hill. Well right now that’s one of the places that we’re trying to show the movie because if you think about it, if Craig [Sheffer] and Anne [Bobby] turn up, there’s an awful lot of Nightbreed people there, and Clive’s there. I’d be there, Mark would be there. So that would be the ultimate Screening of the Cabal Cut of Nightbreed.

DANHAUSER (01:01:53):

Somebody had asked me in our last podcast episode if there would be a screening there and I said, you know, it’s not official yet, but you can bet that if you thought of it that they’ve already thought of that and are trying to get it to happen.

CHERRINGTON (01:02:08):

We are. I emailed the guy yesterday and said, “Are we any nearer to making a decision on this? We’d really like to do it. It seems incredible that you’ve got all these people there at the same time.” And it would be a fantastic opportunity. So let’s hope it happens.

DANHAUSER (01:02:31):

Well I think that’s all the questions that we have.

CHERRINGTON (01:02:36):

Great. I can go and pack. I leave early tomorrow, when do you leave for your trip?

LEITAO (01:02:43):

I’m leaving Friday at 8:35. So I need to pack, I need to pack today too and tomorrow will be my last day here. And then I’m going to San Francisco. I would love to be able to be in Los Angeles, but it’s not gonna be possible cause there’s other engagements that I need to attend.

CHERRINGTON (01:03:03):

That’s understandable. So while you’re off for a month so you’re back in Europe after that.

LEITAO (01:03:10):

Yes. I will be back in Europe after that and hopefully there’ll be screenings coming up to my eyeballs in the UK and I’ll definitely go there.

CHERRINGTON (01:03:20):

Okay, good. Well you definitely got an invite and just let me know and we’ll meet up and you can catch up with us, it will be wqonderful. And Ryan, when will we see you again?

DANHAUSER (01:03:33):

Oh my gosh. Anywhere that I want to go. Is this really long flight. I know it’s the same for you, but.

CHERRINGTON (01:03:45):

It’s quite a long flight. Yeah, I think it’s a 14 hour flight tomorrow to LA,

DANHAUSER (01:03:55):

That’s what it was from Fairbanks to Charlotte also. Ah, man, I would really love to go to this New Jersey one, but I don’t, I don’t know if I can make it happen.

CHERRINGTON (01:04:07):

Well, that one’s a good one for you because there’s so many people you could interview that you could probably fill six weeks.

LEITAO (01:04:15):

Yeah, we’d have the episodes covered for at least a couple of months.

CHERRINGTON (01:04:19):

If only this pay money you could justify it as a business expense. Well, it was really good speaking to you both. You both take care and me and Mark and Clive and everybody involved are really buzzing on everything we’re doing together. It’s you, it’s everybody that contributes this, I mean, everybody that signed that petition is a superstar in my opinion because this 5,200 and odd people signed it in just over two months. So it’s just wonderful work.

LEITAO (01:04:55):

I know. I know. Okay. Well thank you for taking the time to be a guest of the Clive Barker Podcast and have a great trip.

CHERRINGTON (01:05:03):

Thank You guys, you guys take care and I’ll speak to you both soon. All the best.

DANHAUSER (01:05:07):

Thanks Russell.

CHERRINGTON (01:05:08):

Bye then. Bye guys. Bye.

LEITAO (01:05:10):

Well, Ryan, do you want to say anything else with the episode or,

DANHAUSER (01:05:16):

No, we’ll just go into, you can find us on the web at www.CliveBarkercast.com. We’re on iTunes. Leave a review there. We have a Facebook page and you can find us more often on the Occupy Midian group on Facebook. On Twitter, we’re @BarkerCast or @ OccupyMidian. The forum where we talk about a lot of Clive Barker stuff is www.timewinds.com/clive/forum and the official website for Occupy Midian is www.occupymidian.com. Crystal didn’t do a report for this time because it was so close to our last episode. But you can find more from Crystal Raen at www.BringBackNightbreed.blogspot.com hello, this is Ryan again. In the original airing of this episode, we had Country Skin from the Nightbreed soundtrack by Danny Elfman, and again, in order to respect the rights holders, we’ve removed it from this episode and I recommend you give the Nightbreed soundtrackm a listen. Thanks for understanding. And this podcast, having no beginning will have no end.