Compromises are made whenever art and industry collide. This is especially true for movies, as it takes an insane amount of resources to produce even the cheapest feature. That’s why producers often feel the need to protect their investment by wrestling control of a project away from “rogue” directors. Quality-wise, this almost invariably spells out […]
Compromises are made whenever art and industry collide. This is especially true for movies, as it takes an insane amount of resources to produce even the cheapest feature. That’s why producers often feel the need to protect their investment by wrestling control of a project away from “rogue” directors. Quality-wise, this almost invariably spells out doom for the film in question. However, the rise of home video has led to some filmmakers getting a second chance at sharing their vision with the world.
And while we’re all aware of famously superior director’s cuts of movies like Blade Runner and Little Shop of Horrors, not all filmmakers have been fortunate enough to revisit their forlorn projects. With that in mind, we’ve decided to compile a list highlighting six director’s cuts that horror fans are still waiting for. After all, it’s never too late for studios to give fans what they want while also profiting off of existing material.
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own most-desired director’s cuts if you think we missed a particularly promising one.
With that out of the way, onto the list…
6. Sylvain White’s Slender Man (2018)
Frequently cited as one of the worst movies of the 2010s, Sylvain White’s actually had a lot going for it before studio-mandated reshoots and a botched re-edit turned a thrilling retelling of the internet’s favorite legend into an incomprehensible mess of predictable scares and nonsensical mythology. If you need proof that the movie wasn’t always destined for failure, just compare the incredible trailer with the disappointing final product, as the finished film features almost none of the haunting imagery present in the marketing.
Slender Man
However, now that enough time has passed for Slenderverse fans to look back fondly on the good old days of creepypasta-inspired ARGs, I think Sony has plenty of motivation to allow White a chance at her very own director’s cut.
5. Wes Craven’s Cursed (2005)
You’d think that Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson teaming up for a monster movie would mean another guaranteed hit for Miramax, but much like what happened during the production of Scream 3, the duo soon found themselves being pushed around by the Weinsteins. This time, however, the forced reshoots and re-edits completely reimagined the original story as a PG-13 cash-grab that borrowed way too many elements from Scream.
And while the existing version of Cursed still has its fans (especially the marginally better unrated cut), we’re still waiting for a chance to witness the 78 minutes of footage that were discarded in favor of rushed reshoots.
4. Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Stephen King’s only foray into filmmaking may be remembered as an infamous flop, but I’ve always felt that the movie makes for a remarkably funny horror-comedy when viewed through the right lens. Of course, King has explained that his original cut of the film was much darker, featuring copious amounts of gore that the MPAA demanded be removed in order to settle on an R rating.
In fact, King even claims that the original version of the film was so bloody that it made his fellow Master of Horror George Romero physically sick. And while I don’t believe the added violence would fix the film’s two-dimensional characters and nonsensical story, I know I’d love to see a version of the flick with over-the-top violence matching the absurd premise.
3. Kevin Yagher’s Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)
In theory, the third Hellraiser sequel should have been one of the best entries in the franchise. Inspired by a pitch from Clive Barker himself, the film was envisioned as a three-part epic following the creation of the Lament Configuration in the 18th century all the way up to the Cenobite’s eventual defeat in the distant future. Unfortunately, budgetary concerns and conflicting studio opinions soon sabotaged the project and turned it into an ambitious mess, with director Kevin Yagher infamously requesting that the feature be credited as an ‘Alan Smithee’ feature.
A bootleg workprint of the film has been available online for a while now (and an improved version was later released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video), but this workprint was sourced from low-quality VHS tapes and would still need to be edited down further by the filmmaker in order to provide us with a proper cinematic experience. And while a complete director’s cut of Bloodline is impossible due to the fact that Miramax never even allowed Yagher to film the entirety of the original script, we’re still holding out hope that someone at the studio will unearth the flick’s original negatives.
2. Michael Mann’s The Keep (1983)
Inspiring everything from Wolfenstein to Hellboy, Michael Mann’s The Keep is an incredibly influential thriller despite having been butchered in post-production. Based on F. Paul Wilson’s seminal novel, it’s rumored that the original cut of the film was over three hours long before the studio stepped in and reshaped the story into a more conventional -not to mention much shorter- action-horror flick.
While a complete restoration of Mann’s original vision is impossible due to budgetary issues that prevented the team from shooting the entire script, there is a two-hour version of the movie out there that features more coherent editing, sound and story than the hastily re-edited theatrical cut. Now it’s just a matter of convincing Paramount to let us see it.
1. Joe Berlinger’s Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)
An award-winning documentarian that never shied away from horrific true stories, Joe Berlinger seemed like the perfect choice to helm a sequel to The Blair Witch Project. What Artisan didn’t expect was that Berlinger was more interested in dissecting the mass hysteria caused by fiction masquerading as reality than in creating another Found Footage spook-fest. While the studio initially accepted the filmmaker’s unconventional pitch for a follow-up, they later changed their mind and rejected his cut of the finished film, re-editing it into a more “consumer-friendly” experience complete with added gore, jump scares and a hip soundtrack.
While a revised fan-edit of the movie is widely circulated online as a makeshift director’s cut, that copy is still missing plenty of footage, while also having to incorporate reshoots due to continuity issues. That’s why horror fans are still waiting for Artisan to release Berlinger’s anti-found-footage experiment a quarter of a century later.
