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The tiny downside being New World's original VHS falling into a soft obscurity in the wake of piles of re-releases. Much like the mostly forgotten debut Wizard Video Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Thorn EMI Evil Dead, and even New World's Hellbound. Aside from being the first home video of Barker's ingenious tale, there's nothing special about this edition. While the releases afterward arrived unrated, the version presented here is the MPAA's R-rated version.
Many resources indicate that only Julia's first hammer killing for Frank was trimmed. Upon watching it over the weekend; Frank's initial death, the last john being "drained" by Frank's hand tearing into his neck, the rat killings, and several hook shots ripping into Frank at the climax are also missing/trimmed. The brutal quick shot of the giant hook digging up Frank's spine is strangely intact. Despite being truncated, this version shows the hypocrisy of the rating board, their unevenness with judging a film's content, and preoccupation with the "tone" of graphic violence. The resulting Hellraiser is still profoundly disturbing both visually and contextually. It's amazing how the MPAA wasn't vastly harsher on this film considering their strictness forced upon masked killers slashing up horny teens just a few years earlier.
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2 comments:
The VHS copy I had back then included this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbG4NnYtSKQ
Perhaps most disturbing of all.
Wow, hahaha!
I've never seen that before, kinda nuts that it looks to preempt the end credits!
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