George Mihalka’s groundbreaking horror film finally got the chance to shine as the brutal slasher it was originally intended to be. Aided by the release of the remake My Bloody Valentine 3D, Lionsgate finally put the money behind a proper restoration of the original 1981 movie and many of the original crewmembers for that release got the chance to go back and help put together a recutting of the original film. While the new footage amounts to less than five minutes, their impact is huge and BLOODY has a very different feel. The kills are creative, brutal and, most importantly, worth of the BLOODY title.
To help promote the release of the 3-D remake arriving on DVD and Blu-ray May 19, Mihalka was thrilled to discuss the release of his original uncut version of My Bloody Valentine during an exclusive recent interview with Bloody-Disgusting.

Bloody-Disgusting: Is this release a little bittersweet since it took nearly 28 years to get your original vision out to fans?

GM: Absolutely. In a sense, it’s a great relief, because for over 27 years now people have been talking about MY BLOODY VALENTINE and wondering why it wasn’t living up to its name.

Now you know that she does become a human showerhead. Now you know what happened to Mabel in the dryer. Now you know where Hollis got nailed. Now you know how Alfie lost his head. Now you know why the girls are so freaked by everything!

Very few people knew all the background stories. As I like to say, we died by the death of a thousand cuts at the time. This is fantastic news for me. How many films over the years have had this chance?

BD: How much did the death of John Lennon play into the problems you had with the MPAA?

GM: When we were making this film, we had a mandate from the producers and the distributors to do a movie that was as state-of-the-art as possible. So we spent all that time and energy with Tim Diaz and Tom Burman coming up with all this incredibly clever one-shot special effects, all mechanical. In those days, it was incredibly time consuming. You had to understand physics and chemistry and mechanical engineering. We were all very proud of what we were able to do.

I remember driving up to the editing room to look at the final cut the day the news came on about John Lennon. I just went back home that day. I could understand the collective cultural despair of the time. Unfortunately, as is always the case, there was backlash and this one was against senseless violence. We were the first up in front of the MPAA. The response was, “Forget it. This is an X.” Especially in those days, that would have meant going from a 1,200 theater release to about 60 porno theaters.

When we cut the whole damn thing up, the sound was still so impressive they asked us to cut more and I said, “There is no more. It’s just the sound now that you’re reacting to.” It started with take out five seconds, then it was take out two more seconds then it was 12 frames. That’s how picky they got at one point. So by the time we finished, I was jokingly calling it MY NOT SO BLOODY VALENTINE. I think only the strength of the set-ups and the mood, atmosphere and sound was what still kept the movie in the public consciousness. And to a certain extent, it’s subversive working-class quality. This is the first time a genre film brought up the subject of unemployment.

BD: With all the trouble you had getting this film cut and released at the time, are you surprised by the second life it’s had?

GM: Over the years, with MY BLOODY VALENTINE the band in England in the early `90s, people who’d never heard of the movie but loved the music went and checked it out. By then we had VHS so people could look at it and I think that kept us going. And then, of course, when Quentin Tarantino came out and started speaking about VALENTINE, that gave it a good shot in the arm.

I was 27 when I made this movie and, over the years, instead of the movie fading away like most do, it seems to get more legs. Finally, hopefully, the fans will get to see some of it. Not all of it, because unfortunately in places some frames are lost. But our producer found the first large chunks of film and now they’re all back in. And Lionsgate did a fabulous job restoring it.

BD: If you had to give it a percentage, what amount of the original vision’s footage survived for this new cut?

GM: In terms of the special effects, I think you’re seeing about 80 percent or maybe a little more, which is not bad because the other 20 percent were part of those thousand frames of cuts. I think it’s about 80 percent footage but about 90 percent impact if that makes sense. The impact is powerful. What people usually talk about is the lost nine minutes and I think out of that, the actual reveals and special effects were probably about four or five and set-up and reactions that we had to cut out were probably another five, give or take.

BD: At the time, were you upset that the miner killer didn’t become as iconic as Freddy or Jason and did you even discuss a sequel at the time?

GM: There was no talk of a sequel at the time. The whole experience with the MPAA and the hullabaloo because of that, most of the people involved decided to chalk it up to experience and move on. What helped was the iconic quality of the miner. That whole outfit, its sillouette and simplicity has a certain S&M quality to it, but in those days most people thought S&M was a misspelling of the candy. I think also, the miner is in a sense the embodiment of an angel of revenge.

BD: Seeing it now and especially considering the ending, it’s inconceivable these days to imagine how there couldn’t have been a string of sequels. The SAW producers would be appalled.

GM: I know. It came back back up in the late `90s and then for some reason or another, the talk disappeared. Then I was asked to do a director’s cut around 2000 or so, but then they realized all the footage was lost. Then there was another talk about a sequel a couple of years ago and that petered out. And then, finally, Lionsgate decided that they were going to do a remake and when I found out, I said, “Cool.” I thought that was kind of an honor.

BD: Did you have any involvement in the remake?

GM: Not at all. They shot that down in Pittsburgh from what I understand and I was busy shooting a movie up in Canada. I kind of like the idea. I’m looking forward to seeing the film.

My Bloody Valentine 3D arrives on DVD and Blu-ray May 19th