Julie Walker

Fox just released the film(1990,Roger Corman) on dvd and I was wondering if anyone knows if it is uncut or not?

The showings on Fox Movie Channel appear to be restored,since the graphic moments cut to avoid an NC-17 are intact.

Two scenes I know were trimmed in the R version were .

There is also a brief 'action' moment of graphic gore,which I don't remember if it was trimmed or not. . This segement is pretty graphic though brief. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was trimmed in the R version. Since by 1990,the MPAA was impossibly strict with gore in horror films,that all the grue had to be trimmed before earning an R rating.

All this material was intact on FMC and I was surprised to see the two moments mentioned above onscreen. Since it was more graphic than I remembered it being.

Nebiroth

In the UK, the body that issues certificates has a website, this indicates the rating certificate that is given for a film for both it's threatrical showing and all subsequent home video releases. The website will also show running times and whether any cuts were needed to achieve said certificate. This is particularly relevent since some studios cut scenes to achieve a given rating - sometimes the cuts apply to theatrical editions, sometimes to video, sometimes both. The ratings are often different, and it is common for video releases to have cuts restored (particularly where said cuts were needed to make it possible to take children to see a film in a cinema). Also, very often films that were cut when they made their first appearance decades ago have cuts restored because the guidelines are less strict now.

Does the USA not have a similar body which does this?

Julie Walker

No the U.S. does not. Films are submitted for a rating,then cut until they get the rating they want. Ie-say it was rated NC-17,you need an R,so the studio cuts and resubmits until it earns the R.

On home video,if the studios decide to release an alternate version of the film. They will either resubmit it for a rating,or release it 'unrated/not rated'. This does not always mean the version is more explicit than the other. It just means it was not rated by the MPAA at all and is different in some way than the theatrical version.

Of course some studios have either unknowingly used an alternate print of a film,or knowingly restored a films MPAA edits and left the original rating intact on the package

The most recent case is Paramounts release of Hellraiser 3. The dvd has an R on the packaging,but is not the real R rated version! Since the real R rated version completely cuts out the graphic gore and trims down severely a sex scene. The dvd contains all the graphic material intact,and appears to be the Canadian theatrical version of the film.

Nebiroth

Whew. Well in the UK everything has to be granted a certificate; but this can be very useful to detect whether a video release will have cuts restored, be the same as the theatrical release, or maybe have even more cuts to get a lower certificate rating.

With your studios able to do "unrated" video releases, you have no way to tell.

How do people manage to decide how suitable a DVD is for different ages of children?

Julie Walker

All based on ratings,reviews and descriptions of why films are rated what they are. Of course the unrated versions don't have either on the package,so their's no way of knowing for sure the content other than mere speculation based on genre.

The funny thing I have noticed though is studios putting warnings on unrated versions of films dealing with sex(American Pie for example). While the same studio releasing an unrated version of a film that's far more gruesome than the R version(Land of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead:2004) have no warnings on the package.

Which pretty much proves my point,it seems many are more offended by sexuality/nudity than they are gore and violence,which is sad and scary.

JOKipper

Well, we watch a DVD and decide if it is suitable or unsuitable for our children to watch, instead of letting someone else make the decision for us. Here, we have a name for that method, it's called "being a responsible parent."