10 Original Cuts Of Horror Movies We'll Sadly Never See
Were these films too harrowing to ever see the light of day?
It's safe to say that no other genre in the history of film has suffered so badly at the hands of both producers and censors than horror.
Producers often chime in on what they think an audience wants to see, and then the censors pipe up about what they think the audience shouldn't see. At worst, this can end up being a 'too many cooks' scenario in which the final cut of the film is not reflective of a director's original intentions.
And let me tell you, horror fans don't take this sort of thing lightly.
Genre enthusiasts go mad for this stuff, often doing their part to help the director's intended vision come to light; be it via fan-edits, tracking down lost footage, or petitioning for an updated home video release, horror fans will never be truly satisfied until they can see their favourite fright flicks in their original uncompromised states.
The films that we are covering here today are some of the most sought-after and coveted amongst those who love all things spooky. So try not to get too sad when you realise that we're likely to never see them in their intended forms...
10. Friday the 13th Parts 2-8 (Uncensored Versions)
The Friday the 13th series had a notoriously tough time with the censors.
The original film managed to get away with most of its bloody murder scenes, but as soon as Friday the 13th: Part 2 came around, the MPAA really began to crack the whip on the scenes of squishy slaughter - much to the chagrin of gore hungry audiences.
From there on, each film found itself at the mercy of the censors, who objected to pretty much every death scene on display, with Parts 5, 7, and 8 suffering the most. Most shots of explicit bloodshed, gore, and nudity were sadly banished to the grimy depths of the cutting room floor and never seen again.
As was the way these things were often done, it's likely that most of the raw footage was destroyed. What little remnants that have survived over the years have only served to tease fans with all manner of head-crushing and over-the-top sleeping bag beatings that really are a testament to the immense talent each film's special-effects team possessed.
Sure, the films as we know them are still pretty gruesome, but knowing what could have been will forever be a sore point for die-hard fans.