The recent release of Trimark’s “Dead Alive” has spawned some interesting e-mail here at “DVD Review”, mostly regarding the issue of different versions and cuts of certain films. I would like to take today’s edition of this column to talk a little about these issues, their origins, the results and implications.

“Dead Alive”, as I pointed out in my review, is a very extreme film and as a result there are many different versions of the film available all around the globe. Another film that easily matches this category is George A. Romero’s “Dawn Of The Dead” - of which I personally own six different versions and cuts - and I don’t even want to know how many more incarnations of this great film are out there. Why do they exist in the first place, though? Ratings systems are different in every country, as you are certainly aware. If you watch an U.S. version of an rated film, all explicit and frontal nudity will most likely be removed, while the film contains graphic close-ups of a gunshot to the head and gore (as long as it is not moving). Take the same film to a German rating board, for example, and you will end up with a total different result. Most of the gore and certainly the head shot will be removed while you will be able to watch all the nudity in their unedited form. Different cultures have different ethics and they are most obviously mirrored in the way they rate their film releases. While none of those versions might be what the director originally wanted to show the viewers, this is the way they usually find their ways into theatres and are then somewhere down the line further mutilated for TV broadcasts, sometimes beyond the point of recognition.

With home video’s advent the need for an MPAA rating wasn’t so imminent any longer, because the viewer could directly decide what he wanted to see, and wasn’t going through the frantic ethics of theater owners who were afraid or unwilling to show certain content in their theaters. The “unrated” versions became more popular and those were in most cases the versions the director and editor originally intended to create. (Most of the times that is, but not always.) At the same time, some films got actually cut back from their original theatrical versions even more. Blockbuster surfaced as one of the biggest video rental chains and with their family values they only carry films with certain “family friendly” ratings. Since they could not afford to miss out on the cash flow certain “adult oriented” blockbuster films generate, the decision was made to create new, family friendly cuts of even the most gruesome films. Why these ratings are not called “Rated-B(lockbuster)” escapes me however. The final result is that here in the US we have a number of different versions of one and the same film floating around already for certain movies. Add to that the varying ethics throughout the world and you get the picture.

Many film lovers however want to see the most explicit, the completely unrated and uncut version of their favorite films, no matter what. On Laserdisc the way to go was through import. Many films have seen completely uncut releases in Japan and the Laserdiscs were readily available, especially with the advent of the Internet. Oftentimes these Japanese version were even different cuts than the U.S. releases, sometimes adding even the most gratuitous gore scene to a horror film, making these films collectibles for movie buffs. So, why don’t the studios release those Japanese uncut versions on DVD? Why didn’t Trimark release the complete uncut 104 minute version of “Dead Alive” or the original version called “Braindead” from New Zealand? The reason is quite simple - because they did not have the rights to those versions.

Movie licensing is almost a whole business all of its own. Hollywood employs a vast number of attorney’s who’s job it is only to negotiate foreign licensing deals, and those agreements usually factor in a great number of aspects. Language and time being the most obvious ones. But apart from these obvious factors, there are contract clauses explicitly defining exactly what a licensor can and cannot do or use. The rights for the Japanese cut of “Dead Alive”, for example, probably lie within the distributor or publisher of the film in Japan. The fact that a publisher acquires the rights to releasing a film on a home video format for a certain amount of time does not mean he has the right to use any version. These things are tied down in hefty contracts, and if someone else holds the rights to the Japanese version of “Dead Alive” in the U.S. already, there is no way for Trimark to acquire those rights. Or, if in a different scenario the Japanese rights holder doesn’t want to license the title outside of Japan, there is nothing Trimark can do either. Maybe ultimately it was financially simply not interesting for Trimark to spend the additional money it takes to acquire the rights to the Japanese cut. Either way, whatever the reason is, you can be assured that there is a reason behind every decision made regarding home video releases. Studios do not release titles for the sole purpose to frustrate or annoy their customers. They usually do whatever they feel is appropriate for the market at any given time, and certainly always, what is within their legal limits.

This whole licensing scenario by the way is also one of the reasons why some films never made it to any home video format. Sometimes the production company that owns the rights to those films goes out of business, and the rights are in legal limbo so that no-one can actually use the material.

I hope I have been able to shed some light on why the seemingly most anticipated versions of certain films have not been released on DVD yet. But then again, sometimes those extended, uncut versions are simply not worth being released. And although it might be the “director’s approved” version, in some cases, these cuts simply don’t work for a number of reasons. Since director’s are only human, too, there are of course cases, were these versions are worse than the orginal rated ones. One of the reason can be the film’s pacing. When a film is edited for an MPAA rating, usually the result is tighter than the uncut film and in a number of cases, it is simply better, because the plot is advancing at a faster speed. Sometimes the additional content is simply gratuitous and does not add to the story or film at all. Wes Craven’s “Scream” is a good example here. The 5 or 10 seconds of additional gore in the “Director’s Cut” of the film, are in my point of view, not adding anything to the film, the characters or the story. The reason why this version is so popular is simply because Craven himself stated publicly how much he despises the MPAA rating system and the way it interferes with his work. As a result people want to see the uncut version, of course. To me this feels more like a clever publicity stunt somehow, especially when directly comparing both versions of the film and seeing that the differences are truly marginal.

Yet, another good example, or maybe even the best of them all, down these lines is, when director John Badham literally mutilated his own 1979 film “Dracula”. Badham tried to achieve a sad and somewhat bleak look for his film, somewhat reminiscent to the stylish black and white classics. Badham decided to desaturate the film’s colors alltogether and the result is, well, let’s call it, very bleak. It get’s to the point where the film loses all its charm and atmosphere whereas the untouched film was rich in colors with fantastic atmospheric lightings. All these attributes were sadly lost in Badham’s director approved version, mostly because the cinematography was designed with rich colors in mind and doesnt’ work too well in this undersaturated version. This version of the film is available on DVD from Image Entertainment if you’re interested to see how a really good film has been single-handedly devalued by its own creator.

Okay folks, that’s it for this time. I hope you enjoyed the read.

 September 27, 1998

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