EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to Matthew Hale on Letterboxd, I’ve learned that there are alternate versions of this Mill Creek box set. For the sake of completeness and my obsessive compulsive disorder, here’s this missing movie.

The site just covered Tenebrae but this is the American version which appears on some copies of the Mill Creek Drive-In Movie Classics DVD box set.

Unsane is the American title, which was thought to make more sense — and maybe be easier to pronounce, anyway — than Tenebrae.

Obviously, there’s a new title card that appears right when the book goes into the fire.

The pages from that book are also now in English, which looks to be filmed for this release.

Throughout, some shots are slightly longer, like when Elsa is shoplifting. However, the tracking shots in the American version as the camera goes over the house in that incredible scene are cut down. That’s just one of the many things that angered Argento.

Much of the gore is removed, such as the beach girl being knifed more than once and Jane’s death, which is really trimmed.

Another change that disturbed the director was the inclusion of “Take Me Tonight” by Kim Wilde over the closing credits.

Overall, the film has less dialogue and cleaner kills. You can find it on the Arrow and Synapse releases. It’s hard for us today to think that a celebrated director like Argento would have his film treated like this, but in 1982, the world was much different.

Sources

1. Movie Censorship: Tenebrae