Release the Craven Cut: We’re Still Waiting on the Director’s Cuts of These 9 Horror Movies

For the last few years, the most sought after superhero movie has been one that technically didn’t exist: Zack Snyder’s Justice League. During the post-production on DC’s answer to The Avengers, Snyder stepped down from directorial duties due to a personal tragedy, and Joss Whedon took over to complete the film. Ever since the film’s 2017 theatrical release, fans have relentlessly clamored hard for the Snyder Cut. With the new launch of HBO Max, Snyder and the subscription service teamed up to announce that the Snyder Cut will be arriving in 2021. Now, what exactly that entails and means is a whole other story. It did, however, get us thinking about the various horror films throughout the decades that were drastically reshaped before seeing release.

Granted, most films change dramatically from conception through the editing process and post-production, but for the sake of this article we’re specifically referring to the films with studio interference that irrevocably and drastically altered the entire project. We’re not talking a mere ending change, but rather a massively restructured feature that often left the director unhappy with the result. These nine horror movies began as something else entirely, and horror fans are still hoping their director’s cuts will someday see release…

Hellraiser: Bloodline

It’s likely no surprise that the last Hellraiser film to release theatrically came rife with problems during its production. Writer Peter Atkins and director Kevin Yagher originally envisioned a sprawling story that took place in three separate timelines, with the past, present, and future tied to a single man. He’s reincarnated in each period to design a box that destroys the demons unwittingly summoned by his ancestor. It was a linear, special effects-laden sequel with Pinhead taking a backseat to new characters. Budgetary limitations caused the trimming of scenes and characters during production, however. Then, when Yagher turned in his 110-minute initial cut, Miramax balked. That Pinhead didn’t even appear on screen until roughly 40 minutes in exacerbated their frustration. They demanded rewrites and an expanded role for Pinhead. Yagher left, and the studio brought in Joe Chapelle to helm extensive rewrites that dramatically altered Angelique, Pinhead, and Lemarchand’s storylines. The final cut was reduced to 85-minutes. Understandably, Yagher had his name removed from the project.

While the theatrical version of Bloodline that we got isn’t without merit, especially in hindsight with the sequels that followed, it’s hard not to mourn what could’ve been. A sprawling tale that Clive Barker approved of, this had the potential to change the franchise for the better.

Knights of Badassdom

A horror comedy about LARPers accidentally conjuring up demons from hell, unleashing heavy metal mayhem and directed by Joe Lynch sounds like the making of a surefire piece of entertainment, right? It would have been, at least, according to Kurt Russell and the crowd that went wild for footage shown at ComicCon in 2011. But production company IndieVest went belly up, reportedly handed the film off to a new company, Media Society, and producer Wayne Bradley removed Lynch from the project. Meaning the film’s director had no voice in the matter while his movie was edited, chopped to bits, and rearranged during its custody battle among execs, producers, and investors.

The final cut removed all of the horror, leaving an unrecognizable shell of the film Lynch created. His vision went heavy on the decapitations, bloody battles, chaos, and gore by KNB EFX Group. He cited influences like An American Werewolf in London and used Army of Darkness as a descriptor of tone and scale. When can we get Lynch’s cut?

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

Fans and critics were not kind to this sequel upon release; its massive departure from its predecessor proved polarizing. Using the first film’s ingenious marketing strategy as a launch point, Book of Shadows saw its characters venture into Burkittsville, Maryland after seeing The Blair Witch Project, only to encounter the witch herself. In other words, director/co-writer Joe Berlinger took a more meta, untraditional sequel approach to craft a psychological horror story. His vision leaned far more into ambiguity to dial up the psychological unraveling of his characters. Artisan, however, wanted something more commercially horror. They forced Berlinger to re-cut and reshoot scenes, including the main characters murdering tourists, to create a much more obvious horror movie. The interrogation bits were then intercut throughout, versus the more linear narrative Berlinger wanted.

While Book of Shadows has since developed a cult following, we still wonder about Berlinger’s version.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Disney’s take on Ray Bradbury’s classic novel is relatively dark, for Disney standards at least. It’s a spooky tale for kids, but adults won’t be phased by it. That might have been a very different case, though, if director Jack Clayton’s initial cut saw release. Clayton adhered closely to Bradbury’s novel, and it proved far too dark for Disney’s taste. So too was the haunting score by George Delerue. Disney took it out of Clayton’s hands, then spent a ton of time and money re-editing, reshooting, and re-scoring the film to make it more commercially accessible. Animation sequences, disembodied hands, and multiple other special effects were cut, along with the more menacing tone.

While Disney’s version became a beloved childhood staple for many, Clayton’s version sounds much more appealing for the adult horror fan.

The Thing (2011)

This one stings. In terms of plotting, this prequel took great care in the staging to ensure everything lined up exactly to what MacReady and Dr. Copper found when they explored the Norwegian base in Carpenter’s film. While it’s ultimately a remake story-wise, the new batch of characters led by Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Kate Lloyd are relatively compelling. What undid this prequel were the awful CG-effects, making this remake/prequel seem pointless. The frustrating part is that The Thing was shot practically, with Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. providing all of the great creature effects. In post-production, though, Universal demanded reshoots. That meant laying CG over the practical creature work and creating a whole new ending. The original conclusion saw Kate discovering the pilot of the alien ship, revealing that it belonged to a species killed by the Thing- an escaped specimen collected by the pilot. A Reddit thread explained that this ship had a pod room full of various alien species, including a Xenomorph. Between the original ending and the practical effects-heavy focus, this is the version of the film fans would love to see.

In the meantime, at least we have some idea of what those practical effects looked like.

Freaks

Based on Tod Robbins’ short story “Spurs,” Freaks was a box office bomb that ultimately ended director Tod Browning’s career, at least in terms of directing studio features. His original vision for the adaptation was much darker than expected, and the climax in which Cleo and Hercules receive comeuppance ran much longer and grimmer. Test screenings didn’t just walk out, they ran. One attendee even threatened to sue the studio, blaming the film for a miscarriage. As a result, MGM trimmed the film from 90-minutes to just over an hour. A new prologue and epilogue were added to pad out the new runtime.

Sadly, all of the trimmed footage is now lost, so this is one director’s cut we’ll never see. Freaks wouldn’t get the reappraisal it deserved until 30 years later, beginning with its 1962 screening at the Venice Film Festival.

The Keep

Michael Mann’s adaptation bears little resemblance to F. Paul Wilson’s source novel. The book tells the story of a Nazi platoon that seeks refuge in an abandoned fortress in the Romanian mountains, where they unleash and contend with an ancient evil. It featured a slew of interesting characters, but none as strange as the evil entity Molasar and the immortal yet reluctant hero of life, Glaeken. Mann didn’t care for the novel at all; he was more interested in using it to create an expressionistic, grown-up fairy tale. From the outset, production was troubled. Over the eventual 22-week shoot, Mann couldn’t settle on a look for Molasar, and it kept changing. During post-production, visual effects supervisor Wally Veevers passed away, prompting new endings to be shot- different versions of the final battle between Molasar and Glaeken. Ultimately, Mann’s original cut of the film wound up at 210-minutes long, much longer than the 120-minute runtime the studio permitted. Throw in poor test screenings, and Paramount went to town trimming the feature down to 96-minutes. It created a plot-hole ridden, confusing narrative sans the happy ending Mann intended.

Mann disowned the film, and music clearance issues make it tricky for The Keep’s theatrical release to even receive the Blu-ray and DVD treatment. We’d love to see both versions of the movie get a proper release someday.

Event Horizon

Test screenings can often produce helpful feedback to a studio, but the parameters of those test screenings and how you apply that feedback can be instrumental in the final cut’s success. All of which to say, that the test screening for Paul W.S. Anderson’s rough cut of Event Horizon resulted in the loss of what the test screening attendees called “excessive gore.” Anderson’s initial 130-minute version contained more fleshed out backstories for the characters and explanations of the Hell dimension. It leaned heavier into the religious themes. More importantly, the gore was dialed up to eleven. Death scenes were more graphic, and the visions of the Hell the Event Horizon’s original crew endured were shown in far greater detail. It featured graphic torture and rape, with the cut being fittingly dubbed the “Blood Orgy.” The test screening also resulted in a new, jump scare ending for the theatrical cut.

Per Anderson, much of the footage for his cut has been lost forever, though he revealed in a 2012 ComicCon interview that producer Lloyd Levin found a VHS tape that included the original rough cut. As of 2017, Anderson mentioned in an interview that neither he nor Levin had checked the tape, yet. So here’s to hoping some semblance of that cut still remains. 

Cursed

Director Wes Craven made it almost entirely through the production of this film, written by Kevin Williamson, when Bob Weinstein decided he didn’t like it and ordered Williamson to pen a whole new script. It put production on hold for a year and caused Craven to toss out nearly 70% of the footage. The original plot centered around a trio of characters brought together by a car accident-turned-werewolf attack. Those leads were Ellie Hudson (Christina Ricci), Vince Winston (Skeet Ulrich), and Jimmy Myers (Jesse Eisenberg), and several notable cast members eventually were cut or dropped due to the lengthy hiatus. Perhaps most disheartening of all was that Rick Baker’s practical werewolf effects were then replaced with all CG-ones. Multiple endings later, and watered-down gore that bumped the R-rating down to PG-13, and we have a very different vision than what Craven set out to bring to the screen.

The arduous process of getting this film made, and the turmoil behind it, could likely fill a book. The good news, though, is that it’s been confirmed that the original footage still exists. Who owns it and the red tape that likely needs to be navigated to recover it is a whole other story, but it deserves to be seen, especially in Craven’s memory.

So let’s #ReleasetheCravenCut, shall we?