Home Is Where the Monsters Are: The Strange Sanctuary of ‘Little Monsters’ and ‘Nightbreed’
The Scoop features personal essays on movie-centric topics.
By Natalie Bauer
The world around us can be frightening. Being alive can be difficult and burdensome in ways we don’t anticipate. The last few years are active evidence that we don’t always understand how to handle the adversity of unforeseen circumstances in our world.
But what if there were a refuge? A place to hide, to drift beyond the bounds of each perceived worry in our lives and discover how to overcome our trials? Now imagine this sanctuary was populated only by monsters. Would that be more unnerving than how things already are in the natural world? Could it even be something better?
Little Monsters and Nightbreed, individually introduced within the horror universe in 1989 and 1990, both illustrate the benefits of discovering asylum outside of personal calamity in a realm occupied by monsters. It’s a powerful idea, and one that horror has come to represent for the solace it creates for us during grim times.
A Monsters Mash
In Little Monsters, we accompany Brian Stevenson (Fred Savage), a newcomer who has just relocated to the outskirts of Boston. Amidst few friends, Brian seems aimless and needs a sense of security. Following a harsh disagreement with his father (Daniel Stern) in addition to an altercation at school with a bully, he happens upon Maurice (Howie Mandel), a monster who resides in an unseen dimension underneath his bed. This domain poses as a ‘90s kid’s dream with all the Nintendo, candy, and wrought havoc you could ever need.
In the midst of this realization, Brian is submerged in the monsters’ universe every night. When Brian’s parents announce they’re contemplating getting a divorce, he is unclear on how to correctly handle the situation and his mental state over it, so he seeks out Maurice and his obscure monster pursuits for protection and consolation.
Sooner or later, Brian’s everyday reality and his monster haven collide when the ruler of the monster underworld, Boy (Frank Whaley), abducts Brian’s younger brother Eric (Ben Savage). Alongside this dilemma, Brian is compelled to face his problems with both friendship and family by enlisting the help of his acquaintances from school as well as Maurice to creep into the monster sphere and rescue his brother. By being strong, Brian quickly understands that his own life isn’t as impossible as he once believed, and he says a tearful farewell to Maurice, who advises Brian that he is always a bed away.
Little Monsters presents the perspective of children and how they contend with such vast survival techniques. A parental split can have a huge effect on a kid’s world, so in a way it is not unexpected that Brian wanted to hide from his troubles in a mysterious land full of monsters. Ultimately, however, he uncovers the very important message that every now and then you have to welcome life’s twists and turns and confront the obstacles in your course regardless of how tough they may appear.
In spite of its occasionally-serious subject matter, Little Monsters never neglects its carefree attitude, permanently securing it as a quintessential family horror movie that resonates with many kids and adults alike to this day.
Dark is the Nightbreed
On the other side of the fence we have Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. Here we meet Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer), who is grappling with his mental health and being exploited by his psychotherapist Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg, clearly having the time of his life). With an anonymous serial killer at large downtown victimizing entire households, Decker manages to persuade Boone that he is the murderer by using outrageous tactics. Seeking shelter in a graveyard, Boone unearths a secret underground city called Midian, which is inhabited by a sect of strange, surreal monsters called the Nightbreed. At first denying him entry inside on account of his being a common mortal, Boone dies and is reawakened as one of them.
With the assistance of the Nightbreed, Boone is prepared to go up against Decker and in the course of all of the action Midian is demolished. Assuming the name Cabal, he and the remaining Breed return to the human world to secure a new home. Boone eventually being capable of coming back to the human world underlines the theory that one day we are required to confront our demons and carry on with our lives regardless of the plight we find ourselves in.
Nightbreed considers the notion of monsters as an escape and escalates it by designating them as the heroes and the humans as the baddies. Anyone could argue that some of the horrifying and depraved scenes in the movie are labeled as such by people in the real world, supporting the premise I will echo repeatedly: the here and now can be a terrifying and ugly place.
“One day we are required to confront our demons and carry on with our lives regardless of the plight we find ourselves in.”
Despite being suffused with blood and carnage, Nightbreed deals with mature subjects like mental illness, the death of someone you love, social exile and, to a certain degree, discrimination based on one’s appearance. Boone settled into his escape away from the complications of the real world, but then applied it as constructive reinforcement to deal with those issues while carving out a different course for himself and his own fate, which is a completely credible approach.
A Strange Sanctuary
Little Monsters and Nightbreed present like two sides of the same coin, employing literal monster worlds as a harbor from the troubles of the real world while also emphasizing the belief that someday we can reclaim our own original worlds back.
To me, this reflects the predicament of countless horror fans, who frequently resort to horror movies as a shelter and source of comfort during chaotic times. We may not have fantastical, exaggerated realms to the same degree as these, but we’ll always have the movies. We can visit them as sanctuary from the revulsions of the real world or use them to serve as catharsis for tangible concerns we may be coping with. The decision is ours.
Whatever the conclusion, these movies will always be around, to soothe us and guide us through our own horror stories. In some strange way, maybe every now and then it makes sense to feel right at home with the monsters.