Didn't know if anyone caught this but it should be known that the uncut version is not the version originally intended. It's as close as possible but not exactly. The scenes that were found had to be re-edited into the film but much was changed with music and editing during this process. Also, the scene with the couple getting drilled together in the mine was never found. The director states that it's about 85% the way it was originally intended.
We're lucky to have this so stop bitching. It's a shame that some scenes are lost but I never thought we would get an extended version. Be thankful that some of the cut footage still exists. There always has to be someone out there that states the glass is half empty. I've been waiting close to 30 years to see this gore footage and I'm happy as hell!!! The film looks great on blu-ray!
Did they clean up the restored cut footage in the Blu-Ray? In the regular DVD there's a lot of scratches, faded colors and blurring left in the reinserted scenes because obviously they were in a hurry to release it for the same time as the remake. However I'm hoping they took the time to fix them before releasing the Blu-Ray, certainly things like scratches should be possible to remove, one could even do it on a home computer with the right software.
Maybe it will be like the guy who found a copy of game seven of the 1960 World Series in Bing Crosby's basement fifty years after it happened and everybody thought there wasn't one.
Does anybody know if the shower scene was completely restored. I felt like I've seen body shot stills of the girl being impaled by the shower head with the water coming out of her mouth.
Does anybody know if the shower scene was completely restored. I felt like I've seen body shot stills of the girl being impaled by the shower head with the water coming out of her mouth.
You do see the water coming out of her mouth - when John discovers her body. According to George Mihalka, that shot was longer when it was originally submitted (which should be obvious just by looking at it), with the latter portion of it depicting the water turning to blood. They tried to get an "R" rating by just shaving off the frames with the bloody water. CARA gave them an "X" again and the entire shot was then dropped. Unfortunately, the late John Dunning didn't salvage the remaining frames, so, no, it wasn't able to be completely restored.
Yeah, my hopes were higher when I thought this was a fully-restored version of MY BLOODY VALENTINE as I had the Fangoria issue which showed scenes that were not in the original and sadly aren't even in this Special Edition that I bought on BluRay. Now, don't get me wrong. I am happy they restored as much of it as they did but I really hate that there is no completely uncut version of this film available and I would assume if it was released in Japan or somewhere that it would just be the completely uncut version as they aren't nearly as uptight about onscreen violence. The quality of the added scenes doesn't bother me much. I mean, these clips were sitting unused for a long time and it was probably cost prohibitive to have them cleaned up. I do like that they cut them back into the film or gave you the option to see them separately. I guess Paramount went ahead and cut more than the MPAA demanded just to make sure they got their R rating and didn't care. Once they got a butchered version that met the R-rating criteria (although based on what was left, it could easily have been a PG), they made all the release prints from that. Paramount claims that they do not have any of the trims in their vaults but they hate this movie and the Friday the 13th series so I bet they do and just don't want to be bothered looking for them, Thanks to the director and Lionsgate for making even this much of a special edition happen. Glad they interviewed Tom Burman and Ken Diaz for it as well. I sincerely hope that somehow a completely uncut version finally surfaces but I'm not holding my breath. Those shots in Fangoria give away the fact that there is plenty of gore effects footage still missing. I will say this however, based on what has been restored, I can definitely see why there was concern on the part of the MPAA. I have a high tolerance for gory special effects but even some of this stuff made me cringe a little. That's a pretty high compliment to Burman and his make-up effects crew. I think this is probably the best of the 1980s slasher films. Good story, pretty good score, great atmosphere and sets and even decent acting. If only it could be seen in it's completely uncut form. Maybe someday. I never thought we'd have even this much of it restored.
Don't forget that the pictures you're talking about in that old Fangoria could be onset stills. They took pictures while the film was being shot. This does not mean that these scenes were intended to be in the film. This happens all the time. We had to deal with the cut version for close to 30 years. I'm still surprised that we got this extended cut and this is all thanks to John Dunning who was smart enough to keep this footage.
Also, I don't know what you mean about the Fangoria mag showing so much more stuff that isn't in the extended cut. We see the murder of old Hap, we see the shower murder or at least 99% of it and we see most of the aftermath of Mabel's death. What else is there in that old Fango # 11 which I own?
This is ALL the footage that exists. Paramount wouldn't have held onto any of it. The producer kept it and this is why we have this extended cut and this is all we will ever have which is great in my opinion. Maybe one day the extra footage will be cleaned up and we'll have a better SE release with maybe a director and cast commentary but that's all I can see happening.
I never thought about the fact those might be stills shot during the making of the film and not from the film itself. However, I read that there is about another 7 minutes of footage that was never recovered. I heard that when the woman falls out of the dryer, they remove a paper heart from her chest cavity and that part was cut out. I know that Fangoria showed a shot of someone having their eye pulled out with a pick ax that I thought was not in the finished film. You are probably right though. I have not seen that issue of Fangoria in awhile so my memory of it might be tainted. Thanks for the reply. Very informative.
What was in Fangoria back in '81 were photos shot simultaneously while the cameras were rolling. You don't think they would have frame grabs in there from the negative, do you?
George Mihalka acknowledged there were fragments he wanted in his director's cut which were removed for their rating and which the late John Dunning did not save. There's nothing that can be done about that. We have everything he had. The paper heart is shown being removed in the theatrical cut. 9 seconds were restored in the extended cut to the murder of Happy. Mihalka never specifically singled out that scene as having footage that he wanted to put back in which they were unable to find (there's actually more footage than there should be, as there is an editorial mistake in the extended cut which causes a shot to repeat in the wrong place), although it is obvious from watching any version of the picture that a trim was made to the shot of the killer starting to drag the body with the pickaxe; it cuts to the next shot right before the face comes into view. The Fangoria still you refer to would have occurred there. No way in Valentine's Bluff does that or anything else add up to 7 minutes. Regardless of whether it was digitally cleaned up (it wasn't) and regardless of whether the audio rerecording was done well (it wasn't) and regardless of whether all the footage is there (it isn't), we're lucky to have what we have. If it were up to Paramount alone, we would have none of it. Thanks to John and thanks to Lionsgate, we got 3 minutes restored. Hopefully, in the future, someone will take the initiative to do a proper restoration.
Mihalka's memory tends to be fuzzy, so there's always the possibility he "remembers" including trims that the editors never included. Which could explain why Dunning never had them.