Review of the Famous Surgeon Scene
“If they’ve got the negative you know I’m sure they’ll put it on some Bluray extra sometime somewhere, and then you too will be able to say to everybody,”Yeah it was crap.” – Peter Atkins
After watching the deleted ‘Surgeon Scene’ from Hellbound: Hellraiser II I can see why writer Peter Atkins would feel the way he does about it. I’m sure when he was writing the scene it must have played perfectly in his head as a great cenobite moment. But what’s weird about making movies is that sometimes the best scenes that you think are going to be great are actually the ones you end up being most disappointed by and getting rid of. And vice versa, scenes that you feel are terribly written end up being the best ones in the movie. You just never know.
But anyway I wanted to do a small review of the scene for the fans that weren’t able to pick up the recently released The Scarlet Box from Arrow Video. As many of you know they’re also releasing another box set that will only contain the first three Hellraiser films themselves. I’m sure the extras from the Hellbound disc will be ported over to this new release so I’m positive you’ll all get to see the ‘Surgeon Scene’ somehow.
!SPOILERS!
The scene starts off with Kirsty and Tiffany returning from hell after their fight with Julia like in the released version. Kirsty tells Tiffany that they’re going to take the hospital elevator and walk out of the place. The elevator takes them down to the bottom of the hospital where Dr. Channard keeps all the crazies and as they walk towards the end of the hallway two doctors step out in front of them. One of the doctor’s tells the girls that they can’t be running around in this part of the hospital and then asks who their doctor is. A couple of SCENE MISSING title cards are placed where finished effects were obviously going to go and we get reaction shots from Tiffany and Kirsty realizing the doctors are Pinhead and the Female Cenobite. The girls run back to the elevator as they are pursued by the two cenobites. They get on the elevator and as it begins to descend back up, the lights begin to flicker inside it. It finally reaches the top and when the door opens the Chatterer is waiting for them right outside of it. He charges them but both women are able to get out of the way just before he reaches them. The elevator begins to close and the Chatterer tries to stop it from shutting by keeping it open with his hands, but instead he has couple of his fingers cut off for his efforts. And then the scene picks up where Tiffany realizes she needs to solve the puzzle like in the released version.
!END SPOILERS!
The scene is goofy for sure, but it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Yes, the moments with the cenobites are pretty cheesy (especially the part with the Chatterer), but there’s nothing here for the filmmakers to be embarrassed about. To be honest it’s hard to judge it overall because the scene isn’t finished. I think if they would’ve had more time and money this sequence probably would’ve worked so much better. Surprisingly though, the best moments from it have nothing to do with horror but with comedy as we get to see the return of the hospital patient that has the famous line, “A hundred and five years and he still doesn’t know my name.” I wish they could’ve figured out a way to keep those moments in the movie. I loved that character and it was good to see him again.
But overall yes, the scene was wisely cut. It just didn’t fit into the movie, and it still might have been cut even if they had the extra time and money to do it right. Right or wrong, it just wasn’t meant to be.
5/10
