Cursed – Things get confusing (SPOILERS)

NOTE: I’M GOING REVEAL SOME SPOILERS IN THIS POST. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

OK, yesterday I wrote all that stuff about the movie Cursed. The highlight of it all was my comments on how Miramax edited the film from a R to a PG-13 rating.

I wished it was that easy.

I can say that yes, Cursed is rated PG-13. What I can’t say is that the same cut of the movie is playing all over North America.

Me, being the movie lover that I am, ignored all bad reviews and went to see Cursed in the theatres. I was in for a major shock.

The first signs that something was askew was in the first 15 minutes of the movie. There is a car accident that involves Ellie (played by Christina Ricci), her brother Jimmy (played by Jesse Eisenberg), and Becky (played by Shannon Elizabeth).

The thing I took notice of was, after the 3 were attacked by a Werewolf and we saw the severed torso of Becky.

I thought. Can they show that in a PG-13 movie?

Later, a dream sequence by Ellie, in which she bites off a chunk of her boyfriend’s neck, resulting in a blood fountain, made me think the same thing.

By the end of the movie, more scenes of violence, as well as constant swearing, made me realize this is not the edited version that was released in the States.

I checked the IMDb forums when I came home, and I noticed that other Canadians have been noticing the same thing.

As such, I have come to the conclusion that either:
A) Alliance Atlantis (the Canadian distributer) decided to release the un-edited version of the movie in Canada (like Lion’s Gate did a few years ago with American Psycho)
B) Prints of the movie were shipped to Canada before the re-editing.

Personally, this is too confusing for me to even think about. All that matters is that I saw the movie, and that I am glad that it was the real R-rated version and not a cheap PG-13 version (after seeing the R-rated cut, I can’t see how the PG-13 version would work as a film).