Spiral Director Addresses Reports of Cutting a Trap Scene From Film

Ahead of the release of Spiral: From the Book of Saw, director Darren Lynn Bousman had mentioned that a trap had been cut from the film, but didn’t detail the specifics of the scene as to not spoil anything, though now that the film is in theaters, the filmmaker clarified that a trap wasn’t cut from the film, rather that one sequence involving the aftermath of a trap didn’t tonally fit the rest of the film. In this regard, Bousman confirmed that there isn’t a “better” director’s cut of the film and that the version of Spiral in theaters is the best version of the adventure. Spiral: From the Book of Saw is in theaters now and hits PVOD on June 1st.

“With any movie you’ve done, and I’ll give you an example, I made a movie called Mother’s Day, my initial director’s cut was well over three hours long, and you can’t do that. You can’t be subjected to a movie of this type for three hours,” Bousman shared with ComicBook.com. “I’m not Zack Snyder, I can’t have a six-hour director’s cut. You want a lean and mean movie. There were a lot of harsh decisions that we had to make, some amazing Chris Rock humor because it just tonally didn’t work with the scenes.”

He continued, “One of the scenes that had to go, it was a violent scene, I can’t go into what it is and I’ll tell you why: when I made Saw IV, I shot a trap and parts of it were used in Saw V. So there’s a chance they’ll still use it, but we shot a scene with Samuel L. Jackson that was the aftermath of a trap, where something surprising happens, that’s all I can say. But, the reality was, [writer] Josh [Stolberg] was on set that day, it didn’t work, it was kind of funny but unintentionally funny. It just didn’t work. I made the stupid mistake of telling people about it once and it’s become lore, ‘We wanna see it in the director’s cut!’ No, you don’t, you don’t want to see it, trust me. There’s a lot of sh-t that I have you don’t want to see. It’s not in the movie for a reason. But there was a scene and it was really violent and also comically bad at the same time.”

Bousman went on to note that, while in some instances, a director’s cut is considered superior to a theatrical effort, this is far from always being the case.

“There was a much different end of the movie. Here’s what else I’ll say: when people think ‘director’s cut,’ they think it’s the better version of the movie,” Bousman confessed. “Because, again, we go to Zack Snyder, and it’s not always the case. There’s a team of people, Mark Burg, Oren Koules, Jason Constantine, these people that come in that you never see behind the scenes that have shaped the Saw universe over the last 20 years. And, sometimes, I think my sh-t doesn’t smell and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is great, this is art,’ and they’ll come in and call, ‘Bullsh-t, no, it’s not, this is not great,’ and they’re right. And it takes someone else to basically bring us down and say, ‘You know what, they’re right.’”

He added, “Now, there are some scenes that I love that didn’t make the movie and I’ll give you an example. I did a lot of oners this time where the scenes would go on without a cut. They were extremely choreographed and you’d spend half a day rehearsing them, some of those got cut. I think there was three of them in the movie that lasted over three minutes long without cutting, those aren’t in the film. our versions of them are, but they’re not … I shot a bunch of these very elaborate transition scenes, that I’m known for doing in the Saw franchise, they didn’t make the movie and I understand why. It felt we were too showy. This was a different style of movie and these transitions, almost, was, again, ‘Hey look at me, look how cool I am.’”

Spiral: From the Book of Saw is in theaters now and hits PVOD on June 1st.

Do you wish we could get a director’s cut of Spiral? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!