You Must Watch Friday The 13th Part 2's Fabled 'Gore Cut'

When Shout Factory announced it would be releasing the entire Friday the 13th movie franchise as a Blu-ray set, the news was accompanied by a revelation that long-lost footage from Friday the 13th Part 2--the first movie to feature Jason Voorhees as the killer--had been unearthed.

The "gore cut" of the film, as it's been called by fans, was the first version of the movie and features more intense and longer death scenes, with far more blood and gruesome imagery. As the story goes, the scenes were trimmed from the film due to the MPAA, though the footage was eventually believed to be lost. Then, earlier this year while prepping this set, it was discovered on an old VHS tape that visual effects artist Carl Fullerton found.

From there, things somehow get more interesting. Samuelson Studios, the production company that put together the bonus material for the new set, got possession of the tape and baked it--literally--to make it viewable. In a Facebook posting by the company, it was explained, "the lab indicated that the tape was stuck together. If pulled apart, the magnetic information could be stripped, which would mean that we would lose everything. The only solution: baking the tape in an oven overnight to separate the reels. The VHS would have to be taken apart, the reels would have [to be] placed into an oven and baked overnight in order to make it playable."

Shockingly, that worked and the footage now appears in Shout Factory's set. It might not be what you were expecting, though.

Is there a gore cut of Friday the 13th Part 2?

Technically, the gore cut is not included in the set because it doesn't exist. Instead, what those who picked up the set get is a new 4K scan of the film from the original camera negative. Then, in the bonus features section, is an option called "Slashed scenes." That is where you can access nearly four-and-a-half minutes of scenes that were cut from the film. Some of them are pretty gruesome, so it's not hard to see why.

Among the deleted scenes are a longer and more disturbing shot of the death of Alice from the beginning of the film, along with a truly horrifying alternate version of Mark's death by machete. There are a number of other scenes features--including the double impalement of Jeff and Sandra-- featured in this section, as well.

What's missing, though, is the audio. While the footage looks great, especially for a VHS tape baked in an oven, the audio is missing from all of the scenes. That said, even without the sound of a machete hacking its way through flesh and bone, these new scenes should send a chill down your spine.

These new sequences should be required watching for all Friday the 13th fans. Given that this film was the first outing of Jason Voorhees, the final scene of the original movie notwithstanding, these longer and gorier death sequences go a long way in showing just how disturbing the Jason character initially was.

While plenty of blood was spilled and bodies were stacked up in the movies that followed, there's something special about seeing just how far those making this movie were willing to go to show Jason's viciousness. While the scenes aren't long, if you're a completionist they're absolutely worth seeking out.

Thankfully, it's not too late if you're one of those people. The 13-disc Friday the 13th set is still available on Shout Factory's website, and it's not just the second movie that includes new special features. In fact, there's hours of extra content on this set, between deleted scenes, audio commentaries, unearthed trailers, and so much more.