Darren Lynn Bousman on Deleted and Extended Scenes: During the commentary track deleted scenes are referred to but they’re not included on the DVD. Bousman said, “You know, we had such a short time to make this movie in. In cinema standards and movie standards, it was ridiculously fast so we had to know what we wanted. We didn’t have a lot of time to experiment and play around and do that.
There are things that have been deleted from the movie. There was only one major scene that was deleted that just didn’t work that took place in the hospital with the kid. I don’t know if I talked about that in the commentary. There was one sequence that before John Kramer [played by Tobin Bell] was called into the hospital room that we deleted. And then there bits of scenes that were shortened considerably. Like the needle room scene was a lot longer. The oven scene was a lot longer. But there wasn’t any sequences that we cut out.
I’m sure at some point, I hope at least at some point, they will allow me to put together some. There were sequences that we had to cut down on just for the MPAA, not because they asked us to. We self-censored ourselves. We didn’t have a lot of time. Like usually you submit to the MPAA and you wait for their ruling and they you go back and re-edit the film and try and correct the issues. Because we didn’t have a lot of time from when we were finished editing to when the movie was released, we self-censored ourselves and cut out a lot of the violence. There was a scene where one of the characters throws up blood that we cut out. The needle room scene was about a minute and a half longer at one point, so there are stuff like that definitely did make the cutting room floor.”
Bousman said the cut he sent to the MPAA was his first cut. “That was my edit. Will you see an unrated cut? Maybe. They haven’t mentioned it to me yet but there is a possibility for an unrated cut,” said Bousman, adding, “I’d definitely be willing to do that if they ever came to me with that.”
Bousman on the Hard ‘R’ Rating: “I think that the studios seem to want to appeal to the majority of the audience. They want to appeal to the masses. I think they’re scared to offend anyone or alienate anyone and so by doing that, they take a very specific movie and streamline it to make it more mainstream. We – and pardon my language here – but we said, ‘F**k everyone else. We’re going to make this for the horror fans.’ And it just goes to show you that by dumbing down movies it doesn’t help anything.
We knew who our audience was. We knew it was the diehard horror fans. It’s funny, I was doing a live chat session on the Washington Post and I was attacked by some religious people that were very angry. Very, very angry. They said, ‘How dare you substitute character development for blood and violence! How dare you make a movie which just glorifies the blood and violence and trick people into seeing a movie.’ I can’t get it… The movie’s tagline was ‘Oh yes, there will be blood,’ not ‘Oh yes, there will be character development.’ And it just goes to show you that we told the audience what we’re going to give them. ‘We’re going to give you a hardcore R rated movie. We’re going to give you the blood. We’re going to give you the violence.’ We delivered in that and I think that the public spoke. Now that’s not to say that PG movies aren’t good. Again, if you know your audience. If you’re going to make a children’s movie, yes, make it PG. if you’re going to make a horror movie and you want to appeal to the gorehounds you have to make it R.
It’s funny. There’s been a couple of different incidents where people ask me – even family members – why did I have to make a movie so violent? And it’s the answer you always hear: ‘Well, if you don’t like that kind of movie, don’t see it.’ We’re not trying to trick you. We’re not trying to say, ‘This is a great movie of a father and son love story.’ No, the trailers tell about the violence. The poster shows severed fingers. The tagline mentions the word blood in it. I mean, it’s very much we’re telling you right off the bat, ‘Here’s what we are.’ We didn’t try to hide anything.”
Page 2: The DVD Extras, the Traps, and the Timing of "Saw II"
