IDT Entertainment/Showtime’s MASTERS OF HORRORS series has won notice for giving its genre-fave filmmakers license to be as gruesome and intense as they desire—but while speaking about the series recently, John Landis, one of the directors taking part, reveals that one proved to be too much for the cable network. “Dario Argento’s [JENIFER, pictured] is probably the wackiest one; it’s the one where you watch and think, ‘What the f**k am I seeing??’ because some of it is pretty shocking,” he says. “They did have to cut one scene for Showtime, involving some cannibalism of a phallus, which is a little severe. I remember when I saw it—and Dario’s a very sweet guy—he said, ‘Oh, come look, this is great!’ And we were all watching it on the Avid going, ‘Jesus Christ!’ So it’ll be implied on Showtime, but it will be explicit on the DVD,” coming from Anchor Bay next year.
So, no one on the MASTERS team objected to this moment in the script? “There’s a big difference between when [the screenplay] says, ‘She’s caught devouring the young man…’ ” Landis notes. “That means you could shoot many different things.” The director also promises a startling sight in Tobe Hooper’s DANCE OF THE DEAD, airing this Friday night: “He was very excited, Tobe, because they used for the first time this new kind of gel for fire effects, where you can have a burning person with flames on their skin in a way that can’t burn them. And so of course, Tobe put it on three naked girls being thrown into a dumpster!” See the official MASTERS site here, check out FANGORIA’s MASTERS OF HORROR set reports in issue #248 (on sale now) and #249 (on sale December 6), and watch this site for exclusive chats with directors Argento, William Malone and Lucky McKee in the coming weeks.
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