Hammer Horror Blu-ray Releases

[babybreese]

All material re instated for home video release in all Hammer Films originally appeared in a print somewhere and people saw it. The cuts you mention for SCARS were never in a projected print. No publisher would ever stick the lapping scene in to the print...maybe stick it in the extras. It's not part of the film so no one goes hunting for it.
The Blu ray is uncut.....period. Sorry, you cannot re write history.


Newsflash to Gorgon...every film ever made is cut down, trimmed adjusted before passing the censor / MPAA.
Your comment about moving on if a film has been cut is comically ludicrous. By your reasoning you have never seen a single film in your life.

[Gorgon]

Originally Posted by babybreese

All material re instated for home video release in all Hammer Films originally appeared in a print somewhere and people saw it. The cuts you mention for SCARS were never in a projected print. No publisher would ever stick the lapping scene in to the print...maybe stick it in the extras. It's not part of the film so no one goes hunting for it.
The Blu ray is uncut.....period. Sorry, you cannot re write history.


Newsflash to Gorgon...every film ever made is cut down, trimmed adjusted before passing the censor / MPAA.
Your comment about moving on if a film has been cut is comically ludicrous. By your reasoning you have never seen a single film in your life.

I think if you re-read my post, you will find I said exactly the same thing you have repeated here.

[Markgway]

Originally Posted by babybreese

All material re instated for home video release in all Hammer Films originally appeared in a print somewhere and people saw it. The cuts you mention for SCARS were never in a projected print. No publisher would ever stick the lapping scene in to the print...maybe stick it in the extras. It's not part of the film so no one goes hunting for it.
The Blu ray is uncut.....period. Sorry, you cannot re write history.

The Blu-ray is NOT uncut. It's simply the most complete version currently available. Stop rewriting history.

[Si Parallel Universe]

Can anyone that has the UK Blu of Scars vouch for the quality please ?

[oddbox83]

It’s excellent basically.

[RICKBONDOO7]

Scars of Dracula looks Excellent !! I Love it ! I hope Horror of F, and Sister Hyde look just as Good. Now for Lust for a Vampire. The dvd looked very nice so the Blu ray should look Amazing in 2018 ! Thanks Studio Canal

[Terry Dactyl]

Originally Posted by babybreese

All material re instated for home video release in all Hammer Films originally appeared in a print somewhere and people saw it. The cuts you mention for SCARS were never in a projected print. No publisher would ever stick the lapping scene in to the print...maybe stick it in the extras. It's not part of the film so no one goes hunting for it.
The Blu ray is uncut.....period. Sorry, you cannot re write history.


.

You can continue to delude yourself but the fact is that Scars of Dracula was signed off by the director in a complete version.
This was then censored by the BBFC and the cuts were lost. This is similar to some of the Bond films and the Carry On films and those too are in a situation where some of the cuts were reinstated but others were lost forever.

To say a film is uncut just because the censored version is the only one ever released is nonsense of the highest order.

There are many films from many categories where cuts have been made and not always for censorship purposes and the restored version never appears but nobody is dumb enough to pretend its uncut.

Home video is filled with movies where shortened versions became the de facto one but that doesn't stop studios from reconstructing them if the lost footage ever appears. The original version would never be referred to as uncut.
As Oddbox correctly points out these are not cut in the usual sense but when they are edited from the version approved for release by the director they are cut. I'll leave rewriting of history to you

As Gorgon points out, this type of thing is unavoidable and we just move on because there's nothing to be done but it doesn't change the fact the film is not uncut. Just because a truly uncut version looks to be gone forever changes nothing

There are Hammer films where cuts have been restored , often because in the US they were marketed to a non adult audience and cut accordingly but in the UK they were always 18's (99% of the time) and some studios retained cuts which were restored later on, Curse of the Werewolf being a prime example - cut to ribbons by the BBFC but put back together in the 90s' and that's one film that really would have been dreadful to see if the cut version prevailed.
But the Studio Canal titles have chopped and changed owners over the decades so its not surprise that bits of censor cuts are not trackable like they are for movies where ownership has been constant since the film was made.

The Damned is one that was classified after production, cut 2 years later for UK release , cut again by the US studio for US release and then 30+ years later the studio decide to put it all back together.
Until it was released on dvd The Damned had only ever been seen with 10-15 minutes missing. Was it uncut for 30 years? Of course not

[jacksparrow900]

Scars Of Dracula cutting copy was submitted to the BBFC on July 31.Audrey Field reported that same day Reel 4 reduce the killing of Tanya by Dracula and remove the shot of him putting down his head and sucking blood from the wound afterwards. By August 20 cuts that were requested by the BBFC had been completed. What was cut was never in a final version of the film. The theatrical release was never cut and that is the version on blu ray.

[SolidStateSociety]

Originally Posted by Terry Dactyl

This is similar to some of the Bond films and the Carry On films and those too are in a situation where some of the cuts were reinstated but others were lost forever.

Is there a list somewhere of what's been cut from the Bond films and what's been restored and what is still missing?

[robsinden]

Originally Posted by SolidStateSociety

Is there a list somewhere of what's been cut from the Bond films and what's been restored and what is still missing?

http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/bbfc_c...mmer_films.htm

http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/hitscr.htm

[Markgway]

Originally Posted by jacksparrow900

Scars Of Dracula cutting copy was submitted to the BBFC on July 31.Audrey Field reported that same day Reel 4 reduce the killing of Tanya by Dracula and remove the shot of him putting down his head and sucking blood from the wound afterwards. By August 20 cuts that were requested by the BBFC had been completed. What was cut was never in a final version of the film. The theatrical release was never cut and that is the version on blu ray.

The final version is the cut submitted to the BBFC (i.e. the version Hammer would have released if they could). The BBFC cuts are censorship. Plain and simple. You cannot call a censored version 'uncut' simply because that's all we've seen. Look at the 1958 Dracula for fifty years people swore blind that the BBFC approved version was 'uncut' and then reels from the uncut version showed up in Japan. Not saying that'll happen with Scars, or any other Hammer film, just making the point that it could.

[Terry Dactyl]

Originally Posted by jacksparrow900

Scars Of Dracula cutting copy was submitted to the BBFC on July 31.Audrey Field reported that same day Reel 4 reduce the killing of Tanya by Dracula and remove the shot of him putting down his head and sucking blood from the wound afterwards. By August 20 cuts that were requested by the BBFC had been completed. What was cut was never in a final version of the film. The theatrical release was never cut and that is the version on blu ray.

I think we already established that , doesn't mean it's not cut though.
There are scores of films from that era that the BBFC cut and thankfully for a good deal of them the cuts were not lost. For the films that were cut where the cuts are not restored the film is cut plain and simple.
Cuts to the standards of the 60's and 70's just makes things worse.

Being cut is a point of fact not opinion but the Bluray is the best version so far of the only version commercially released so it's a positive. It was just a hope that like some of the Columbia films being released by Indicator that the long established cuts might get restored

[dallywhitty]

Originally Posted by Terry Dactyl

I think we already established that , doesn't mean it's not cut though.
There are scores of films from that era that the BBFC cut and thankfully for a good deal of them the cuts were not lost. For the films that were cut where the cuts are not restored the film is cut plain and simple.
Cuts to the standards of the 60's and 70's just makes things worse.

Being cut is a point of fact not opinion but the Bluray is the best version so far of the only version commercially released so it's a positive. It was just a hope that like some of the Columbia films being released by Indicator that the long established cuts might get restored

You're back.

[drterror666]

Terry Dactyl joined the forum very, very recently...

[Terry Dactyl]

Originally Posted by drterror666

Terry Dactyl joined the forum very, very recently...

Yes I did.
Your point is.....?

[Partyslammer]

Originally Posted by Markgway

The final version is the cut submitted to the BBFC (i.e. the version Hammer would have released if they could). The BBFC cuts are censorship. Plain and simple. You cannot call a censored version 'uncut' simply because that's all we've seen. Look at the 1958 Dracula for fifty years people swore blind that the BBFC approved version was 'uncut' and then reels from the uncut version showed up in Japan. Not saying that'll happen with Scars, or any other Hammer film, just making the point that it could.

(Horror of) Dracula is actually a poor example of what you're talking about....

The Japanese version of Horror Of Dracula is a *different* cut of the film then than the UK and the US version as originally released. In the Japanese version of HoD, there's an alternate take from a different angle of Dracula seducing Mina that's arguably more sexually charged and of course, the additional footage of Dracula's death at the end of the film. This footage was *never* in the UK or US version of Dracula.

It's well known that in the early days of Hammer's gothic horror run, they would both purposely film and include more violence, gore and sex than what they knew would make it into the final cuts of the films especially in the UK. It was a "game" they played with the British censor to get what they ultimately wanted in the theatrical release. Hammer would capitulate with the censor's request to delete objectionable footage knowing full well this would ultimately result in getting exactly the level of racy and violent footage they wanted in the films left intact for release in theaters.

They also included extended or "harder" takes of this sort of footage footage of this sort especially for the Japanese market. This practice eventually caused real trouble with Hammer with the release of The Curse Of The Werewolf which managed even with post production BBFC-mandated cuts wound up including far more nastiness then the BBFC had intended.

In the case of Scars Of Dracula, yes as with virtually all Hammer films the BBCF requested cuts, notably in the vampire woman murder scene and there were no alternate takes as Hammer had long since stopped this practice but this was all pre-theatrical release which when eventually released in it's final cut is considered the "original theatrical release cut" of the film.

[cakefactory]

I'm starting to side with Terry Dactyl on this. This is sounding like a film like say, My Bloody Valentine (81) where essentially no one refers to the theatrical version as uncut, especially after the much longer, uncensored version finally turned up. Or Friday the 13th part 2, where everyone always laments about the "uncut" version being lost to the winds of time. Likewise TCM 2, NOES 5, Jason Goes to Hell, etc. All ended up in the heavily censored forms in the theater, but as long as I've seen books about home video they've been referred to as "R Rated Edits" and the like.

Not that I don't get the point babybreese was making or anything, but what Terry Dactyl's describing definitely sounds more like those 80s slashers that ended up far gorier in eventual restorations/home video releases as opposed to something like a workprint that was never intended to reach theaters before all the editing!

[Markgway]

Originally Posted by Partyslammer

The Japanese version of Horror Of Dracula is a *different* cut of the film then than the UK and the US version as originally released. In the Japanese version of HoD, there's an alternate take from a different angle of Dracula seducing Mina that's arguably more sexually charged and of course, the additional footage of Dracula's death at the end of the film. This footage was *never* in the UK or US version of Dracula.

The footage wasn't in the UK or US version because it was cut.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/dracula-film-2

It's well known that in the early days of Hammer's gothic horror run, they would both purposely film and include more violence, gore and sex than what they knew would make it into the final cuts of the films especially in the UK. It was a "game" they played with the British censor to get what they ultimately wanted in the theatrical release. Hammer would capitulate with the censor's request to delete objectionable footage knowing full well this would ultimately result in getting exactly the level of racy and violent footage they wanted in the films left intact for release in theaters.

That's called hedging their bets. But there's no way Hammer could've known exactly what the BBFC would cut. Some of the board's deletion requests were decidedly odd. You really think Hammer knew that the seduction would be too sexy for the BBFC? Or that the face crumbling would be too horrific?

They also included extended or "harder" takes of this sort of footage footage of this sort especially for the Japanese market.

And often European versions would have alternate nude shots. Those were not submitted to the BBFC because there was never an intent to use them here. But footage that was submitted was intended to be used. Sure, Hammer may not have minded compromising to placate the BBFC, but no company truly submits footage they don't want in their film. If the BBFC had passed it, Hammer would've been stuck with it.

In the case of Scars Of Dracula, yes as with virtually all Hammer films the BBCF requested cuts, notably in the vampire woman murder scene and there were no alternate takes as Hammer had long since stopped this practice but this was all pre-theatrical release which when eventually released in it's final cut is considered the "original theatrical release cut" of the film.

I disagree. So we'll leave it there.

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Not that I don't get the point babybreese was making or anything, but what Terry Dactyl's describing definitely sounds more like those 80s slashers that ended up far gorier in eventual restorations/home video releases as opposed to something like a workprint that was never intended to reach theaters before all the editing!

Right. These weren't workprints. They were finished versions.

[Terry Dactyl]

Originally Posted by Partyslammer

This practice eventually caused real trouble with Hammer with the release of The Curse Of The Werewolf which managed even with post production BBFC-mandated cuts wound up including far more nastiness then the BBFC had intended.

In the case of Scars Of Dracula, yes as with virtually all Hammer films the BBCF requested cuts, notably in the vampire woman murder scene and there were no alternate takes as Hammer had long since stopped this practice but this was all pre-theatrical release which when eventually released in it's final cut is considered the "original theatrical release cut" of the film.

The Curse of the Werewolf was the most cut Hammer film but it is widely accepted that this was revenge on the part of the BBFC who finally got tired of the Hammer game because they were consulted at script stage on COTW and Hammer were informed that it was unfilmable because so many elements were unacceptable and despite this information they filmed it anyway (although they did change the original story) so the BBFC went to town on it. If you've seen the version that prevailed for over 30 years you'll know what a mess it was but despite it being the theatrical release version nobody with any sense would have said it was uncut.
Just because Scars was cut less severely doesn't change a thing.
The directors cut approved for theatrical release was cut by the BBFC so it is cut. That is a fact

As someone mentioned above , does anyone refer to the Friday the 13th sequels as uncut? Of course not because they're not.
Alternate versions with changes made by director or studio are a different thing, but in these (and F13th) cases its straightforward censorship with cuts made by the ratings organisation. When cuts are made to any film for censorship purposes alone nobody says they are uncut - except for Hammer films it seems

[drterror666]

Originally Posted by Terry Dactyl

Yes I did.
Your point is.....?

You've only been here 5 minutes and you're already causing needless and unconstructive conflict.