20 Horror Movie Scenes They Were FORCED To Cut
10. Tommy Gets Skinned - Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a PG-13 horror film and deemed a great example of a "gateway horror" movie for younger audiences - hence the decision to trim down its most brutal death scene to avoid an R rating.
In the final film, bully Tommy Milner (Austin Abrams) is attacked by the murderous scarecrow Harold (Mark Steger), who stabs him in the back with a pitchfork, triggering his own grotesque transformation into a scarecrow.
It's already pretty close to the line of what can make it into a PG-13, but in the original cut, Tommy also had his skin torn off for good measure, as is closer to the outcome of the short story in Alvin Schwartz's source novel.
In the least surprising news ever, the MPA didn't take much kindly to this, so with the help of producer Guillermo del Toro, director André Øvredal re-edited the scene to imply most of the body horror that befell Tommy.