Shrek: Director's Cut

Let us go back to the year 2001. Remember Shrek? That film caused a lot of buzz and I happen to be a big fan of it myself. It recently piqued my curiosity that there was an unreleased Director's Cut of the film, and as soon as I heard about it, I began a search for it. I tried contacting the people who worked on the film, via emails or phone calls, but I never got a response or I only got an answering machine.

My last resort was contacting Andrew Adamson, the person who directed the film. I managed to get on a Skype interview with him, and I asked him general questions like "Where did you get the idea for this film?" and "What did you think of the finished film?" and whatnot. So when I finally asked him about the purported "Director's Cut", he just fell silent. I could see his face going pale. He proceeded to tell me, "Don't look for it. Just let the memory die." He hung up the call right then, and I just sat at my desk, confused. I went to bed.

The next day, I tried emailing Mr. Adamson about the Director's Cut, in an attempt to find out more. I managed to get a response exactly fourty-five minutes later! The email said: "Just give me your address and I will send it to you... if you're sure you want to see it, then I guess I can't stop you. Beware, for the things you will see will forever stay in your mind for the rest of your life." I was unsure if I really wanted to see the Director's Cut at this point, but hey, morbid curiosity got the best of me. So I sent back another email with my address and a "thank you".

About a week later, I received a package from Mr. Adamson himself. It was the Director's Cut VHS tape... strangely it had the exact same design as the regular Shrek VHS tape. I popped it in my VHS player (Yes, I still have one) and let it play.

Oh how I wish I could take that back.

Well, the intro of the film was different. You know, where Shrek is reading the book? Well, the shot just... stays there. It just froze on the book. It didn't move at all. You couldn't even hear Shrek's voice. It was just total silence. After about six minutes, the tape cut to the scene of Donkey and Shrek walking through the corn field...Wow, this was pretty late in the film. Again, it was dead silence. It cut to static for about five minutes, but again it was silent. The weird thing is that I could make out some sort of video in the static... It looked like Shrek standing over Donkey, and Shrek somehow tore open Donkey's chest and proceeded to eat his intestines. I nearly vomited, but after the video clip ended, the film cut to the scene where Shrek and Donkey are in the castle to rescue Fiona, but again it was silent.

When it got to the scene of Donkey sweet-talking the Dragon, it once again cut to static. This time there was no hidden video thankfully, and it was just regular static. It cut to the shot of Dragon watching Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey leave the castle, with Dragon sighing because Donkey left. However the scene went on longer than I expected... Dragon went back inside the castle, dipped her head in the lava, and proceeded to melt into nothing but a skeleton. This emotionally effected me greatly, as Dragon is one of my favorite characters.

It cut to Shrek and Fiona at the chapel, when Farquaad orders his guards to kill Shrek and capture Fiona. The disturbing thing is, the scene just keeps going. The guards eventually kill Shrek by beheading him, and Fiona was taken back to the castle, and thrown into the lava. Instead of the credits rolling, there was a message saying "The dead have risen. Hail Satan."

I immediately ejected the tape threw it away. Unfortunately my mind wasn't quick enough to think to destroy the tape, so it is still out there somewhere... if you ever see a VHS copy of Shrek, stay away from it.