Severed Parts (2004) (V)

User Rating:

4.5/10   

Director:

Jeffrey Schwarz

Release Date:

2004 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Short

Cast

Marcus Nispel

...

Himself

Runtime:

17 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Automat Pictures

Movie Connections:

Features The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Not what I was hoping for.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Severed Parts is a 17 minute long documentary found on just about every DVD edition of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) remake that's ever been released.

Since it was called Severed Parts & since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a gory horror film about people getting sliced & diced I thought this was going to a short documentary on the special make-up gore effects as in severed body parts, you know. The title is in fact a reference to sequences which were cut from the film as in severed (cut) parts (scenes) & features an on camera Marcus Nispel complete with stupid facial hair discussing some of the bits which didn't make it into the final cut.

He starts by saying The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake had a script 120 pages long & that one page represented one minute of screen time which obviously adds up to a 120 minute film which is far too long for something like this. He says scenes were cut for one of two reasons, either because they were too gory & the ratings board insisted they be cut otherwise the film would have been rated 'X' which would have been financial suicide & secondly for reasons of pace. Now while I don't agree with the first reason as I like my exploitations grim & nasty I wholeheartedly agree with the second reason because I generally don't like long films.

Unedited clips are shown of what these scenes should play like as well as a different ending which was cut because his editor mate say it should. Basically his mate said he worked with Stanley Kubrick on The Shining (1980) & that The Shining was going to end in exactly the same way with Shelly Duval in a mental institution recounting her story to a disbelieving audience before something happened that made the viewer realise it was in fact true, more or less the same as the filmed ending on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but the test audience hated the mental institution end so Kubrick told his mate to cut it out & without that mental institution ending (the ONLY alteration to the film at that point) the test audience loved it, so we have Stanley Kubrick to thank for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake being so good. Thanks Stan.

By the way the clips show in this are also accessible as stand alone deleted scenes on the DVD so I don't really understand the point of this but it's nice to have anyway.

Severed Parts would have been nice if it had literally been about severed parts but it isn't, however it's a free extra on a DVD so it's good value & the anecdote about Kubrick is worth watching this for by itself.