MovieChat Forums > Just Before Dawn (1981) Discussion > We will NEVER see the Original Cut

We will NEVER see the Original Cut


The Original Cut was more than just a backwoods slasher. It was a voodoo witchcraft movie. They cut most of the movie and done quick reshoots to make it a slasher instead.

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Um, what?



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Wait a minute... who am I here?

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What are you talking about?? This is the first I've ever heard of this do you have a source for what you're saying??

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Well yes, it's in the documentary. I thought it was a well known fact about the original version of the movie?

Heck, there's even a bit of the info in the trivia section on imdb about it.

Some info I found online:

The film's original script, based on a story by Joseph Middleton, was titled The Tennessee Mountain Murders, and later The Last Ritual, and had heavy religious themes behind the twin killers' motives, which director Jeff Lieberman felt were awful. It also included a sixth camper named Eileen and a different fate for Megan, which entailed her being tossed to her death over a cliff. It also included a climax involving Connie being forced to handle rattlesnakes by the inbred villains before becoming one of their wives; this version of the script also had more involvement from the Logan family, who were part of the scheme. Lieberman rigorously rewrote the screenplay from page one by himself to eliminate all the religious overtones in favor of a more thriller-based plot. Lieberman was heavily influenced by Deliverance (1972) while writing the film.

This also explains a lot of peoples questions on some random scenes that just feel like they don't belong in the movie. It was cut into a slasher movie.

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After watching the movie again last night, you can clearly see the whole Ritual/Witchcraft feel was still there.

The curse? The amount of twins? etc etc.

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[deleted]

A 'well known fact?' Everything that was cut out of the original script STAYED cut out, discarded forever. NONE of it was ever shot. Do you really confuse an original version of a script that was totally changed with an 'original version of the movie?' The movie you saw IS the original version of the movie! How can you read the paragraph you found on line and then conclude it means all the stuff cut out of the script was shot for some unknown reason? Snakes, religious rituals, forced marriage, Twins who spoke throughout, all taken out of the script, not a frame of it was ever shot.

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