The tyranist's thoughts
On the VHS cassette that I rented to watch this there was a cool little segment that featured Clive Barker talking about Nightbreed and why he had done what he did. I found it very interesting and the idea that he proposed (which gave large portions of the plot away) was very interesting and very filmable. Now, I've never read Cabal so I am not really in position to fully judge the movie, but I will say that he fails a little.
Perhaps the fact that the monster hero is so underdevloped is the reason. Perhaps the fact that the main bad guy gets away with murder until the very end doesn't help. Its this idea of a place where those that appear bad aren't and those that appear good aren't. And the two sides fight each other. Well, there isn't a war until very late in the movie and by then I just didn't care that much.
This film features Clive Barker's usual over-the-top sense of gore and foulness. You will want to cringe at some of the good guys. But there isn't a lot of violent gore. They seem to be very careful to make most deaths bloodless, even the beautiful scene where our hero dies (I'm giving away less than you think) has little blood. If you are into Clive Barker's twisted sense of the world (Neil Gaiman does similar things) you will probably dig this movie, otherwise, it will seem like a strange little fantasy that doesn't really have much draw.