[versions] BODY BAGS (1993)

[pipefan413]

I don't yet have a thing that would make this a little more comprehensive: the 2013 US Blu-ray. The thing is, that Blu-ray is apparently cropped to 16:9 (despite having been shot and framed for 4:3 TV), so I highly doubt that'll be the version I'll want to watch when I properly sit down to watch it on the projector with decent sound at the right speed etc.

Nonetheless, I've just spent quite a lot of time (too much, really) comparing the three releases of the 1993 TV film BODY BAGS that I have so far:

1. the 1994 US Republic Pictures LaserDisc (NTSC)
2. the 2000 US Artisan DVD (NTSC)
3. the 2012 Italian Medusa DVD (PAL)

NOTE: This is a film in which you see Luke Skywalker with a Hulk Hogan moustache doing three things he never did a whole lot of in STAR WARS: domestic violence, shagging*, and a Southern accent. Strap in.



* For the Americans, I'm talking about willy business. Special hugs. The two-pump tango. I hope that helps.

Now, as you'll already begin to understand as you look at the above image, the colours are absolutely all over the bloody place here. Depending on which scene you're looking at, you might find the LD looks the best by a mile, or the US DVD, or the Italian DVD. At times one will be heavily pushed toward green and the others are really blue, and then suddenly it will flip completely the other way when the shot changes. It's really inconsistent and annoying. I wonder if that's where I might get some use out of the Blu-ray, but who knows? I'll find out soon enough.

The other major thing here is that until the Blu-ray (allegedly, as I don't have it yet to verify personally) most releases of this film were cut to varying degrees. There have been at least one or two European DVDs that aren't cut, of which the Italian DVD appears to be one, but the old 1994 US LaserDisc is partially censored and the 2000 US Artisan DVD is *extremely* heavily cut. I'm actually thinking that the US DVD may be the original TV broadcast version, because there's a whole bunch of stuff in the uncut version that is absolutely heinous and definitely wouldn't have made it onto TV in the US back in 1993, unless I've absolutely no idea what I'm talking about (which is a very real possibility).

So to start with, I ran through and synced both cut versions to the uncut Italian DVD, partly just out of pure curiosity and partly to try to gauge how viable it might be to resync the LaserDisc audio to the uncut version. I'm kinda feeling like it would be more hassle than it's worth after this, because the DVD audio sounds decent enough as it is and there are moments where the LD audio seems like it has significantly *less* fidelity than the DVD, which isn't good (moments where dialogue is partly obscured/distorted or appears to have a short skip in it, that kinda thing).

Anyway. Here are all the differences I noticed, without actually watching the film from start to finish. There are a lot of them.

WARNING: this is a big detailed list of all the changes in the whole film. It is therefore obviously a bit spoilery, although I'm not going to post screenshots of anything that is in the body of this post (I'll put them in a linked gallery at the end instead). It's also a horror film, and quite a grim one at that (especially here where it's variously either heavily censored, gently censored, and seemingly totally uncensored). Expect violence, nudity, both at the same time, lots of blood and gore, and a generous helping of bad taste humour. More importantly, though...

! TRIGGER WARNING !
Film (and therefore the following text about it) contains a couple of scenes involving domestic and sexual violence. Though I've not really put any visual evidence of that here (there is one screenshot which is not especially realistic or upsetting imo), I do talk about a particularly distressing scene in some amount of detail.

0:01:46.356 | frame 2550
ALTERNATE SHOT (censorship): US DVD is 21 frames shorter
Less than 2 minutes in and there's already censorship! The LaserDisc and Italian DVD show a pretty gross close-up practical effects shot of the coroner (and yes, that is John Carpenter) cutting into a corpse, but the US DVD instead cuts to a wide shot of him sort of vaguely insinuating making a hole in the corpse's side, which is conveniently the side facing away from the camera, and sticking his hand in there.

0:06:23.049 | frame 9184 (161 frames cut from US DVD)
then
0:06:32.309 | frame 9406 (2334 frames cut from US DVD)
ENTIRE SCENE REMOVED (Wes Craven cameo!): US DVD has 2495 frames cut in total here
Come on, man! You can't put Wes Craven in the film and then cut him out! Jeez.
The LD and IT DVD have an establishing jump scare shot of his character entering the frame from behind our viewpoint character is cut first, then it cuts to a shot of the protagonist's notebook, then on the LD and IT DVD it cuts back to show a short scene with him being a creep for a bit at a petrol station and then he buggers off again. In the US DVD though, both the establishing shot and the entire scene with him in it are completely removed, so it just cuts to the protagonist ending her shift and looking really stressed, even though we didn't see the thing that made her stressed (which was Wes Craven being a creep). I hesitate to quite call this "censorship" but there is a distinct air of "sexual predator" about this character, so that might be it (he tries to get the female petrol station employee to come out to his car and drink bourbon with him... boak).



0:18:06.127 | frame 26041 (10 frames missing from LD)
0:18:06.210 | frame 26043 (2 frames missing from US DVD)
END OF REEL 1



0:20:01.117 | frame 28798 (26 frames cut from US DVD)
SHOT TRIMMED (censorship)
US DVD trims 26 frames from the end of a gory close-up (still shows it, just doesn't linger as much)

0:25:11.051 | frame 36229 (134 frames cut from US DVD)
then
0:25:19.601 | frame 36434 (26 frames cut from US DVD)
SEQUENCE TRIMMED
US DVD has a total of 160 frames cut from a suspenseful sequence here that isn't especially violent, might've been a pacing thing. I'm guessing at this point that the US DVD is just the actual TV cut that aired originally, which isn't necessarily a bad thing to have even if it is cut quite heavily (which it is).

0:26:02.811 | frame 37470 (87 frames cut from LD)
0:26:02.895 | frame 37472 (85 frames cut from US DVD)
0:26:09.526 | frame 37631 (140 frames cut from US DVD)
0:26:09.568 | frame 37632 (31 frames cut from LD)
1 SHOT REMOVED, 1 SHOT TRIMMED (censorship): total of 118 frames cut from LD, 225 cut from US DVD
This one definitely is censorship... the LD and then the US DVD cut away just before a massive spurting blood geyser launches out of a guy, then a moment later they trim the beginning of a shot of him convulsing and dripping blood. Gnarly! The LD *is* censored but it's noticeably less trimmed than the US DVD here, there's still quite a lot of corn syrup on display.

0:26:48.941 | frame 38576 (39 frames cut from US DVD)
ALTERNATE SHOT (censorship)
Instead of showing a really gory close-up of a mangled corpse like the LD and IT DVD, the US DVD instead re-uses a more distant angle that we previously saw a moment earlier (from frame 38480)



0:27:15.843 | frame 39221 (929 frames cut from US DVD)
TRIMMED SCENE (censorship for nudity and... other things)
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if this one was never broadcast either... the US DVD cuts away right before the coroner opens a drawer in the morgue, because what he pulls out of the drawer is the body of a woman with comically oversized breast implants that are so huge they catch on the drawer (he comments that the drawers were built before breast implants were a thing). Extreme closeups of giant boobs complete with revolting sloshy liquid sound effects probably aren't the most TV friendly thing in the US, I expect. Immediately after that, the same scene continues with him pulling out the bodies of two decapitated people and making them "kiss" then flinging them away with contempt. All of this is obviously absent on the US DVD, but the full thing is present on both the US LaserDisc and Italian DVD. Go figure.



0:38:29.265 | frame 55367 (11 frames missing from LD)
0:38:29.349 | frame 55369 (4 frames missing from US DVD)
END OF REEL 2



0:47:28.262 | frame 68290 (2 frames missing from US DVD)
0:47:28.346 | frame 68292 (1 frame missing from LD at side change)
LASERDISC SIDE CHANGE
This is a weird one. In addition to the US DVD being mysteriously missing 2 frames at the exact same point as the original US LaserDisc, which is a little odd in itself, the US DVD also has the exact same kind of dropouts you see on LDs, though not all that often. Curiouser and curiouser.

0:52:39.031 | frame 75741 (309 frames cut from US DVD)
SCENE CUT (censorship)
It isn't the only thing cut here but clearly the reason this short scene was removed was that it contains a reasonably grim shot of a wee wormy thing crawling out of a dude's face. No biggie. This is fine.
Incidentally, this is a really clear example of something that seems to happen right before (almost?) all these cuts on the US DVD: the geometry goes all wonky, like a worn out tape being recorded without a TBC. Interesting.



0:53:23.158 | frame 76799 (38 frames cut from US DVD)
SHOT TRIMMED (censorship)
Like some of the other ones, this is just shortening a fairly grim shot so that we don't linger on it quite as long.

0:53:45.347 | frame 77331 (sequence is 503 frames shorter on US DVD)
SEQUENCE SHORTENED, ALTERNATE SHOT (censorship)
Another fairly minging effects shot or two in here so this is probably to reduce the number of those, though it's also a bit of expository dialogue, so could again be for pacing.

0:55:26.365 | frame 79753 (alternate shot on US DVD, no time difference)
ALTERNATE SHOT (censorship for nudity/horror)
Back in the morgue, the coroner does a "Right, guys?" kinda thing and the LD and IT DVD cut to show two gurneys with corposes on them (one is covered with a sheet but the other one is very exposed). Instead, the US DVD just shows a wider shot of the middle of the room / staircase, which doesn't really show the corpses apart from a pair of legs or two off to the right. To be fair, neither shot really serves this moment that well, so whatever (the uncensored one is just kind of a weird angle).

0:55:30.202 | frame 79845 (alternate shot on US DVD, no time difference)
ALTERNATE SHOT (censorship)
Same thing again: "No volunteers?" and it cuts to a couple of horribly eviscerated corposes. The US DVD instead cuts to 3 bodies under white sheets, not a drop of blood in sight.

0:57:42.250 | frame 83011 (7 frames missing from US DVD)
0:57:42.292 | frame 83012 (10 frames missing from LD)
END OF REEL 3



0:59:23.977 | frame 85450 (24 frames cut from US DVD)
0:59:28.607 | frame 85561 (245 frames cut from US DVD)
SHOT TRIMMED (censorship)
Another "show it but don't linger" one of a character with a particularly grisly injury.

1:03:46.656 | frame 91748 (alternate shots on US DVD, no time difference)
ALTERNATE SEQUENCE (censorship)
Gory stuff again. Somebody undergoing surgery, shown in close-up detail with practical effects, then cuts to a doctor looking down a scope. US DVD instead shows a wide shot of the surgeon/doctors around him for the duration of the two shots used on the other versions, and you can't see anything.

1:03:57.250 | frame 92002 (alternate shot on US DVD, 1 frame shorter)
ALTERNATE SHOT (censorship): US DVD is one frame shorter around 1:04:17.062 | frame 92477
This one starts with a shot looking up at the medical team from the perspective of the patient. It then cuts to an extremely grisly practical effects shot that hasn't necessarily aged all that well but I absolutely love. Again, US DVD instead uses an extremely boring wide shot of the medical staff instead working on the patient, where they're blocking view of all the grisly stuff that's supposedly going on. Boo.

1:16:43.140 | frame 110365 (9 frames missing from LD)
1:16:43.182 | frame 110366 (4 frames missing from US DVD)
END OF REEL 4



1:18:41.634 | frame 113206 (1243 frames cut from US DVD)
SCENE CUT (censorship/pacing)
Cutting this was possibly dual-purpose: it removes a chunk of expository phone call dialogue, as well as removing what is clearly the start of Sexy Time (there is some very high-on-the-leg groping action going on). It does not look like both parties are showing equal enthusiasm.

1:20:02.631 | frame (alternate sequence, US DVD is 53 frames shorter from this point)
1:20:08.178 | frame 115281 (alternate sequence, US DVD is same length but much less graphic)
1:20:10.514 | frame 115337 (LD has 60 frames cut, US DVD has alternate shot instead)
1:20:18.022 | frame 115517 (US DVD has another alt sequence which is 280 frames shorter)
1:20:21.233 | frame 115594 (LD has 62 frames cut then a few frames of reused alt footage before cutting to end of the uncut scene)
1:20:32.619 | frame 115867 (US DVD has alt shot for a few frames)
Right, OK. Complicated. Horrible sex scene where guy hallucinates shagging a corpse whilst also strangling and then biting said corpse, but of course the corpse is not actually a corpse, so doesn't enjoy this very much. To simplify this fairly complex sequence of edits somewhat, the gist is that the US DVD cuts it quite significantly because it's a really quite disturbing and violent scene, whereas the LaserDisc leaves a fair chunk of it alone and only edits out the most gratuitous nudity, for the most part. The US DVD version is MUCH less violent, whereas with the LD you're mostly just missing out on some extra scuddy writhing and repeatedly coming dangerously close to catching a glimpse of the underside of Mark Hamill's bollocks. Yup.



1:28:44.528 | frame 127661 (US DVD replaces 6 frames of gore with 29 frames of black)
SHOT CUT (censorship)
This is my favourite shot in the entire film and yet they cut it from the US DVD. It's so good. Much gore. I'm not sure why (I guess to give the tension a moment to disperse?) but the US DVD actually *adds* time here by adding 23 too many frames of smash-to-black in place of the gore shot.

1:28:46.363 | frame 127705 (US DVD has 247 frames cut)
SHOT CUT (censorship)
A related gory shot is removed from the US DVD but is present on the other two versions.

1:29:15.976 | frame 128415 (US DVD has alternate shot, 14 frames shorter)
ALTERNATE SHOT (censorship)
The uncensored versions start in close-up then cut to the coroner opening a body bag (HEY, IT'S THE TITLE OF THE FILM!) then cut again to show the very gory contents of the body bag. The US one instead does one long continous shot that follows him doing much the same thing but without showing the contents of the bag, then cuts back to his reaction to fall back in step.

1:30:58.828 | frame 130881 (US DVD has ending cut short by >795 frames)
TRIMMED ENDING (censorship)
The uncut version involves somebody rooting around in somebody else's guts while whistling Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". The US DVD cuts before that happens.

Gallery showing many of the changes I described above (so obviously, again, spoilers): https://postimg.cc/gallery/3RvQHjP

[Bigrob]

I haven't seen this since VHS. wasn't aware of all the censorship!

[pipefan413]

I haven't seen this since VHS. wasn't aware of all the censorship!

I'm guessing the VHS version was probably identical or very similar to the LaserDisc cut, but I wouldn't know. I was hoping the LD audio would be great and merit resyncing over the top of the lossy DVD audio, but I'm not convinced with what little chance I've given it so far (I ended up just flicking through with the Italian DVD audio slowed down to 24/1.001 fps and all 3 videos running at that speed).

[LucasGodzilla]

I was wondering why the Italian DVD looked the best / most filmic until I scrolled further down the thread to see it having reel markers. It genuinely baffles me seeing a TV movie having print reel cues though. Did the movie get released theatrically overseas or what?

[pipefan413]

I was wondering why the Italian DVD looked the best / most filmic until I scrolled further down the thread to see it having reel markers. It genuinely baffles me seeing a TV movie having print reel cues though. Did the movie get released theatrically overseas or what?

*shrug* It was supposedly shown at an Italian film fest in '99, but other than that...

I'm now wondering if perhaps it went down like this:

1. Shown on Showtime in the US (US DVD cut)
2. Released on home video in a significantly more grim cut (US LaserDisc, VHS)
3. For some reason, somehow, an uncut version is discovered and screened at Italian film festival in 1999
4. Italian version is then released by a handful of low-rent European distributors since nobody else would give a damn about doing it
5. Scream Factory makes an arse of it by cropping to widescreen even though it was always meant to be seen on a 4:3 screen and is clearly framed for that

Apparently the original plan was for it to basically be "John Carpenter's Tales from the Crypt" but then Showtime shat it and pulled the rug out at the last minute so to salvage what had already been filmed they just made it into an anthology film instead. Could be for the best but I do wonder what else we might've gotten if it had been made.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Body Bags was originally planned as a Tales from the Crypt-like series pilot with provisions (and widescreen framing) to create a theatrical version for overseas markets. It was created by John Carpenter's one off company 187 Productions with finical backing by overseas entities. One of the production companies that were funding the bulk of it had finical troubles and backed out during filming. This meant John Carpenters crew couldn't film more material without financial backing and only had enough footage to assemble an episode or two. 187 made a deal with Showtime to turn what footage they had into an R-Rated exclusive movie premiere, and was also sold to various distributors for international theatrical exhibition.

Showtime also leased the US video and network television broadcast rights to Republic Pictures, who created a "sanitized" TV-14 version to meet broadcast standards. I imagine Republic used the same edited master for the LD and Artisan DVDs (under licence from Republic/Spelling/Paramount), which explains why they're noticeably cut compared to the Shout BDs and Italian DVD. The 1.78 AR on the current HD master is not far off from the overseas theatrical release ratio, but some sections do look really tight and I imagine Showtime had things like credits framed and finished in 4:3 anyway. The bigger problem on the current HD master is the audio. It has that "syllable" issue due to being sourced from an optical audio track and not the Dolby Stereo master element (which may no longer exist if no one in the US has it).

[pipefan413]

Body Bags was originally planned as a Tales from the Crypt-like series pilot with provisions (and widescreen framing) to create a theatrical version for overseas markets. It was created by John Carpenter's one off company 187 Productions with finical backing by overseas entities. One of the production companies that were funding the bulk of it had finical troubles and backed out during filming. This meant John Carpenters crew couldn't film more material without financial backing and only had enough footage to assemble an episode or two. 187 made a deal with Showtime to turn what footage they had into an R-Rated exclusive movie premiere, and was also sold to various distributors for international theatrical exhibition.

Showtime also leased the US video and network television broadcast rights to Republic Pictures, who created a "sanitized" TV-14 version to meet broadcast standards. I imagine Republic used the same edited master for the LD and Artisan DVDs (under licence from Republic/Spelling/Paramount), which explains why they're noticeably cut compared to the Shout BDs and Italian DVD. The 1.78 AR on the current HD master is not far off from the overseas theatrical release ratio, but some sections do look really tight and I imagine Showtime had things like credits framed and finished in 4:3 anyway. The bigger problem on the current HD master is the audio. It has that "syllable" issue due to being sourced from an optical audio track and not the Dolby Stereo master element (which may no longer exist if no one in the US has it).

That's a shame because I was mostly hoping the audio would be the thing I'd be able to glean from the Scream Factory release. Bugger.

The audio on the Italian DVD is actually surprisingly decent, so perhaps it's just a case of "slow down the Italian DVD and call it a day". I've already done that, and encoded two different .dtshd files to experiment a little: one as L+R (since it's a TV film and all the home video releases claim it's ordinary stere) and one as Lt+Rt (because it was nonetheless shot on film and IMDb claims "Dolby"). After testing first by matrix decoding it back to L+C+R+S, the surrounds and sides have a lot of leaking dialogue etc. that clearly should be in the centre, so I think I'm sticking with it being plain stereo (at least in the form that it appears on the Italian DVD). There's none of the sibilance you mention w.r.t. the Scream Factory one so I don't believe this has been sourced from optical. I'm guessing the master must be L+R as opposed to L+C+R+S because they knew it was destined for TV, although if they ever had plans to release on 35 mm theatrically I'm a little surprised by that because you'd think it'd make more sense to mix 4ch so it's Dolby MP Matrix ready. But it seems probably not, at least if the DVD is anything to go by.

The LaserDisc audio, as I mentioned, isn't as impressive as I'd hoped, and I'm leaning toward the DVD.

The Republic logo only appears on the LD, not any of the DVDs, and the US DVD is significantly more cut than the Republic LD. Like, the LD is comparatively almost uncut, it only trims the most obviously OTT scenes (which is mostly just a gigantic spurting blood geyser and some pretty gratuitous violent sex, both of which it still shows, just less explicitly).

I'm guessing if it was shown "overseas" you mean what I meant as well (European countries, primarily, or perhaps exclusively) in which case I take it that would have probably meant 1.66:1 or thereabouts. That's at least a little closer to the essentially "open matte" 4:3 TV presentation and I wouldn't have minded that so much since it'd likely look just a little less cramped. But even from picking just about any random screenshot, the 1.78:1 looks really, really tight.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

So you say the LD is more in line with the IT DVD/SF Blu but with certain scenes cut? The Artisan DVD is most definitely based on the network broadcast version since it looks to also have different footage and angles instead of just sloppy cuts and censor fog.

Interesting that you say the SF audio doesn't have the sibilance issue. Have you checked the 2.0 and/or 5.1 tracks? Some BD.com users said it was the 5.1 that had this issue while some said the 2.0, and now I'm not even sure if it's their mishearing like with Black Christmas or used weak soundbars.

[pipefan413]

So you say the LD is more in line with the IT DVD/SF Blu but with certain scenes cut?

Well, content-wise, definitely, yes. See the spoiler in the top post for a comprehensive breakdown if interested (scan through if you like, don't necessarily have to read the entire thing hahah). But not in terms of picture characteristics... I think they're from different sources, for a number of reasons, e.g.

1. Totally different colour (could have just been regraded that way but I don't think so personally)
2. IT DVD has reel change markers, LD doesn't
3. Different dust/damage/warping etc.
4. It isn't only that there are cuts, there's also a fair few brief alternate shots (as there are on the US DVD)

The Artisan DVD is most definitely based on the network broadcast version since it looks to also have different footage and angles instead of just sloppy cuts and censor fog.

I agree that this seems incredibly likely, yes, I'm sure I said as much though didn't state it as fact because I have no way to be absolutely 100% certain. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that it will be.

Interesting that you say the SF audio doesn't have the sibilance issue. Have you checked the 2.0 and/or 5.1 tracks? Some BD.com users said it was the 5.1 that had this issue while some said the 2.0, and now I'm not even sure if it's their mishearing like with Black Christmas or used weak soundbars.

I didn't say that, I said the Italian DVD doesn't. I haven't heard the SF audio because as I explained above, I don't have it yet; I only bought a copy because I was hoping I could make use of the audio, but if you're right about it, I guess not.

EDIT: Ah, I think I might know why you've thought I was saying the SF audio didn't have sibilance, you might have read one sentence toward the end of a paragraph as an isolated statement (and without the context of the text right before it, it probably would sound like I was talking about the SF release)...

The audio on the Italian DVD is actually surprisingly decent, so perhaps it's just a case of "slow down the Italian DVD and call it a day". I've already done that, and encoded two different .dtshd files to experiment a little: one as L+R (since it's a TV film and all the home video releases claim it's ordinary stere) and one as Lt+Rt (because it was nonetheless shot on film and IMDb claims "Dolby"). After testing first by matrix decoding it back to L+C+R+S, the surrounds and sides have a lot of leaking dialogue etc. that clearly should be in the centre, so I think I'm sticking with it being plain stereo (at least in the form that it appears on the Italian DVD). There's none of the sibilance you mention w.r.t. the Scream Factory one so I don't believe this has been sourced from optical. I'm guessing the master must be L+R as opposed to L+C+R+S because they knew it was destined for TV, although if they ever had plans to release on 35 mm theatrically I'm a little surprised by that because you'd think it'd make more sense to mix 4ch so it's Dolby MP Matrix ready. But it seems probably not, at least if the DVD is anything to go by.

That entire paragraph is about the Italian DVD audio: ergo, I wasn't saying the SF had no sibilance, I was saying that the IT DVD doesn't have the sibilance that you say the SF audio has, hahah.

[Evit]

I was wondering why the Italian DVD looked the best / most filmic until I scrolled further down the thread to see it having reel markers. It genuinely baffles me seeing a TV movie having print reel cues though. Did the movie get released theatrically overseas or what?

The film arrived on TV in Italy in 1995, no theatrical release although originally there might have been plans to release it that way but we have no way of knowing. It wouldn't surprise me and it wouldn't be the first time! The Torino Film Festival showing in 1999 was part of a tribute to Carpenter.
I don't have the Italian VHS anymore, othwerise I could have checked the presence of reel cues there too. I assume they have always been there, and I remember seeing all these scenes from the first airing on Italian TV. As far as I know it has always been uncut here. In fact, the dubbing covers all those scenes too as it can be heard from this mux that was uploaded on YouTube (check Wes Craven's appearance) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkaB6cZNYso

Thanks for all the efforts to compare it, pipefan413. I love this film, I didn't know there were different cuts elsewhere