Here’s Why We’ll Never See the Gruesome ‘Event Horizon’ Director’s Cut
Released in 1997, Paul W.S. Anderson’s hellish space horror flick Event Horizon is a favorite of ours here on Bloody Disgusting, and we know we’re not alone on that. We’ve written about the film a handful of times over the years, and each article we write inevitably gets replied to with the same comment…
“WHERE THE HELL IS THE DIRECTOR’S CUT?!”
For those who aren’t all that familiar with the project’s creation, a much longer and more gruesome cut of Event Horizon was initially screened for test audiences, who were downright repulsed by the graphic horrors on display in the film – according to legend, some audience members even fainted during the infamous screening.
Paramount agreed that the so-called “director’s cut” was way too brutal, so they commissioned a new cut that excised some of the carnage. And that’s the version we’ve all seen.
According to Wikipedia, “Known deleted scenes include a meeting scene between Weir and people in charge of the mission in which they discuss Event Horizon, some dialogue of which remained present in the theatrical trailer; more backstory for Cooper and Justin, including a stronger explanation for Justin entering the black hole; a deleted backstory of the relationship between Starck and Miller; additional scenes explaining what the gateway to hell/black hole is; Miller finding a tooth floating in Event Horizon, a longer version of the scene in which Peters hallucinates that her son’s mangled legs are covered in maggots; a scene in which Weir hallucinates that Justin turns into his wife Claire; a bloodier version of Weir’s wife Claire’s suicide; a longer version of the scene where Miller finds D.J’s dead body with his guts on the table; and a longer version of the “Visions From Hell” scene during Miller’s final fight with Weir with more shots of Event Horizon crew being tortured.”
After it became a cult hit on home video, the studio wanted to re-release the film with some of the excised footage put back in, but to date we’ve never seen the full Director’s Cut of Event Horizon. And in a new interview with Crave Online, Paul W.S. Anderson reiterated what we have long feared: it’s just never going to happen.
He explained to the site:
There was a lot more that was shot that isn’t in the movie. But you’ll never see the messed up version because we made Event before the kind of DVD revolution. You know, DVD ushered in this era when you had to have additional footage, deleted scenes, things like that. There was no call for that back when we were just doing VHS cassettes and LaserDiscs. So the material just wasn’t archived very well. And since the movie became a big cult classic, Paramount have asked us to come back in and do different versions; we looked for the material, and it just doesn’t exist.
So that’s that. Sorry folks. We’re as bummed as you are.
