7 Comments
User's avatar
Seth Paul's avatar

While not technically horror, Robocop was one of the first times I was ever actually shocked upon seeing the full movie compared to the original TV edit.

When it was originally shown on ABC, the infamous "toxic waste" bath showed alternate takes and different angles and avoided close-ups. And imagine my surprise when I originally saw the fellow get driven around and collapsing in the road, and then seeing the theatrical version in which he ends up a smear on a windshield.

And I still compare the extremely cut-down R-rated cut in my head whenever I watch the "good" version of Dead Alive. Not a TV edit as much as a "Blockbuster Video" edit, but enough is removed/altered to feel like an almost completely different film.

Expand full comment
Retroist's avatar

I had an opposite experience with Robocop. I had seen the full version and it hadn't dawned on me that scene would be edited. So when it happened, it was so much tamer than I remembered and I thought I had misremembered the original as worse than it was. Those sort of changes and the inclusion of added footage or scenes are a real treat when you are a fan of a film.

Expand full comment
Adam B.'s avatar

Edited-for-TV HALLOWEEN was the first time I saw it. Even with commercial breaks—STILL terrifying!

Expand full comment
Retroist's avatar

I agree 100%

Expand full comment
RosTy's avatar

I didn't know about TV Edit Horror, but I wish there was a way to buy TV-edited cuts of films. It's a lost media in the making.

Expand full comment
Paul Riddell's avatar

Agreed, especially if they include the advertising promoting it. NBC had such a disconnect between the 1984 debut of “The Road Warrior” and the ad department that the final cut excised scenes shown prominently in the ads.

Expand full comment
Paul Riddell's avatar

My personal favorite of this genre was the USA Network screening of George Romero’s “Day of the Dead,” where the censors start out aggressively cutting out anything even remotely disturbing, and then just lost the spirit as the movie went on. A couple of F-bombs and a lot of gore closeups remained toward the end, and I suspect that’s why that cut was never shown again.

Expand full comment