Tag: Unrated

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (86 min.)
• Unrated Cut (86 min.)

The eerie The Strangers is considered by many horror aficionados to be one of the best horror films of the last ten years. It’s fitting that ten years later that the sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night sees the light of day. Like the original The Strangers: Prey at Night was released on DVD and Blu-ray where it included both the theatrical and unrated cuts. Both cuts are exactly the same length as the only difference is the added blood.

Birth. Movies. Death interviewed director Johannes Roberts where he talks about the difference between the two cuts:

Birth. Movies. Death: Speaking of testing the film, the Blu-ray is unrated, but it’s not always the director making that call – do you know what these differences are? I didn’t really spot any major changes…
Johannes Roberts: Yeah, there’s more intense blood when [the first notable victim] gets stabbed, and I think possibly when [the second notable victim] gets stabbed and definitely when the [the final victim] is killed.
Birth. Movies. Death: So it actually is gory stuff! A lot of times these unrated things are just more dialogue or other excised bits they randomly throw back in just to say it’s unrated.
Johannes Roberts: No no it’s gore stuff… They asked me if I wanted to put in the actual alternate ending into the cut, and I really fought against it. I got the unrated version of the first Strangers, and I watched it for the first time not too long ago, and I was so disappointed because it kind of ruins the movie. The normal cut is the cut you should be watching! When you have an unrated cut people always watch that because they think that’s what the filmmakers wanted or intended, and it’s not true. Adding back the more intense gore is fine, but the cut you saw is the cut I intend people to watch.

Source: Collins’ Crypt: Johannes Roberts Talks STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT, Birth. Movies. Death.

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (108 min., 21 sec.)
• Unrated (108 min., 26 sec.)

The cult favorite The Boondock Saints has a large following since its initial release in 1999. In 2006 writer-director Troy Duffy returned to his debut to include 5 seconds that were cut out of the original release to ensure R-rating for the film in the US. Originally it received NC-17 rating, and with that rating Blockbuster Video wouldn’t stock it. The unrated cut was originally released as a stand alone release in 2006. The Blu-ray release includes both the theatrical and unrated cuts.

IGN interviewed Duffy in 2006 when the unrated cut of The Boondock Saints was originally released. Although Duffy talks about the difference between the theatrical cut and the unrated being minutes, the time difference is only 5 seconds.

IGN DVD: Maybe just to start off you can talk about the differences between this ‘Unrated’ version of the film and the original cut.

Troy Duffy: What it is was my first cut of the film. It got rated NC-17, and there’s only a few minutes difference, but it’s going to be very noticeable to Boondock fans and it’s only differences in scenes where people die. There’s a lot more blood work, and a lot more sort of slow-motion gun ballet violence in it. I think it’s only about two and a half minutes longer than the regular version. But cutting those scenes, when we got the NC-17 I challenged it with the MPAA. You go before this arbitration board called CARA and you plead your case and MPAA sends a representative over to plead their case and you plead your case and they screen the movie beforehand in front of, you know, nine 60-year old housewives that are just going to basically support whatever the MPAA wants to do. Anyway, I had to cut it to an R to get distribution; we had a deal with Blockbuster and they only release R [-rated movies]. So cutting it was like slicing up your baby; all of those shots, especially the slow-motion violence and the blood and all that, those were hard-earned shots – well-orchestrated, everybody on set had to contribute to getting those correct, and it was real hard to cut those out. I’m glad Fox is releasing this version because it’s the one I originally intended. So the difference though only minute-wise is slight, it’s going to be very impactful for the fans.

Source: Interview: Troy Duffy, IGN

The director’s preferred edition: Unrated

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (128 min.)
• Unrated (128 min.)

Live Free or Die Hard or Die Hard 4.0 or simply Die Hard 4 is as the titles vaguely indicate is the fourth Die Hard movie. The relentlessly bloody and profanity filled adventures of John McClane have been the popular franchise trademarks. But in 2007 the franchise strayed from its trademarks and even managed to skip the ever classic line “yippee ki-yay, motherfucker” due to the simple fact that Die Hard 4 was rated PG-13. There are two cuts of Die Hard 4 available: the PG-13 rated theatrical cut and an unrated cut. The difference in length is minimal (unrated is only 8 seconds longer than the theatrical cut) but the unrated cut adds computer generated blood and a different dialog that has strong language.

Film Ireland interviewed director Len Wiseman where he talked about the PG-13 rating and how he lost the ratings fight with the studio:

“The director also admitted his disappointment at how the studio censored that film. ‘I shot a rated R movie,’ he insisted, and referenced the ‘Harder’ cut available on DVD. ‘I had no idea it was going to be PG-13; that came in halfway through the process. And I gotta tell you as a fan I felt like ‘I’m gonna walk.’ If they it PG-13! You know Bruce was really up in arms about it and everything. But in the end it was the most expensive Die Hard. It was also my first studio film, so I lost that battle over the rating. I’m not big on doing the cartoon gore. But McClane is McClane, so that’s really why I was glad to get that (the extended cut) out.’”

Source: Interview: Len Wiseman, director of ‘Total Recall’, Film Ireland

The director’s preferred edition: Unrated Cut

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (100 min.)
• Unrated (108 min.)

The Hangover was one of the biggest surprises of 2009 and since then it has spawned two sequels. The Hangover is the only one of the trilogy that was released in an longer cut on home video. That’s due to the fact that the director Todd Phillip was quite unhappy with Warner Bros releasing the unrated cut, and he even involved the Director’s Guild of America. Phillips talked about it at South by Southwest in 2011:

“Warner Bros., they’ll make your movie; your movie does well, and they want to create an unrated version, which is entirely against DGA rules because it’s not your cut. And they can’t call it the ‘Director’s Cut’ — they’ll call it ‘Unrated’ or some ridiculous term. Really all it is, is about seven minutes of footage that you cut out of the movie for a reason.”

Source: SXSW: Todd Phillips Lambastes Warner Bros. Over Hangover Uncut Edits: ‘That Won’t Happen Again’, Movieline

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (86 min.)
• Unrated (86 min.)

The long lost ’80s slasher flick The Mutilator was finally restored to it’s former glory on Blu-ray and DVD by Arrow Video. Previously The Mutilator was only available on bootleg DVDs. Directors Buddy Cooper and John Douglass had to cut out a scene so the MPAA wouldn’t slap the notorious X-rating on the film:

Edmund Ferrell: “We think, having combed through all the released prints and the cuts we made to make a MPAA approved release, that we finally restored this the way that Buddy Cooper intended it and the way you want to see it.”
Buddy Cooper: “We hope you like it.”

Source: Introduction with writer/director Buddy Cooper and assistant special make-up effects artist/assistant editor Edmund Ferrell on the Arrow Video’s Blu-ray release

The director’s preferred edition: Unrated

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (99 min.)
• Unrated (104 min.)

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (121 min.)
• Unrated (131 min.)

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (107 min.)
• Unrated (116 min.)