My memory of that time was: the horror movie magazines (Fangoria and its various imitators) did a lot of articles publicizing the many different monsters in Nightbreed. Because they knew their loyal readers (myself among them! Haha) were into monsters and special makeup effects. So they were appealing to their target audience. I'm not sure how much of that news reached the "outside world" however.
But I do recall, leading up to the release of the film, movie magazines and other media were really pushing the Peloquin character and predicting he would be the next big, Freddy Krueger-style, horror icon. Obviously, that didn't happen.
But how strange after the fact, because, while Peloquin was cool (even if he didn't catch on the way they said he would) - Cronenberg - a real horror celebrity in the minds of 1980s Fango readers - plays an actual serial killer in the movie, and yet his character wasn't given much pre-release coverage at all. I remember seeing Nightbreed the first time and assuming Cronenberg would just make a cameo appearance or play a very minor role to lend the movie some name-value... and then being pleasantly surprised by his killer-character and his major supporting role in the story.
There should be a special place in Hell reserved for the studio jackass who dreamed-up this approach to promoting Clive Barker's Nightbreed.
I mean, what did they think was going to happen when your dyed-in-the-wool slasher fan realised they were not, in fact, watching a slasher? That Decker (AKA Buttonface) was not the next Freddy, Jason or Michael?
Look at all those amazing characters conjured by Barker and realised by Bob Keen and his team, relegated to thumbnails as if they're incidental to the plot, as if they are in fact not the Nightbreed of the movie's title!
As for 'David Cronenberg stars in' and 'The masters of the macabre join forces'? I love Cronenberg, great filmmaker, but it makes it sound like he had a hand in the movie's creation and wasn't simply acting in it, working from Barker's screenplay. It reeks of studio cowardice, attempting to leverage Cronenberg's reputation. Patronising nonsense.
The whole approach seems to be "Oh sh*t we've got something completely original here! Disaster! Unacceptable! But fear not, we can package it all up as if it's a wash-rinse-and-repeat stalk-and-slash. No-one will know the difference! They're only horror fans, after all."
I'd like to end on a positive, so... Cronenberg's hair looks great here.😄