Though Rob Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses is now sixteen years old, the cult filmmaker’s feature debut is still the subject of a fair amount of hearsay, much of it concerning the possibility of the movie’s fabled director’s cut finally getting a release.
The 2003 horror flick had a troubled journey to theaters, with Universal refusing to release the film due to fears of an NC-17 rating. Eventually, Zombie managed to buy back the rights to the movie and release it via Lionsgate, but even then, the film was edited down to an R-rated cut.
In the years since, the extreme content from the 1,000 Corpses director’s cut has never seen the light of day. But while Zombie’s fans would likely relish the opportunity to see what gruesome footage was left on the cutting room floor, the filmmaker admitted in a recent interview with Bloody Disgusting that it’s unlikely to happen anytime soon:
“There’s nothing. I mean, I don’t know where anything is. I gotta be honest. Nothing’s ever been discovered.”
For what it’s worth, the 3 From Hell director did go on to mention that he’d unearthed some behind-the-scenes content that could make it onto a future release, before quickly reaffirming that the NC-17 footage has yet to be found:
“The only thing I discovered, which is not footage, is one time I found a bunch of VHS tapes that had interviews with the cast on set while we were shooting. They could be a special feature, maybe, but yeah… no.
“Because we bounced around so much and stuff. It’s amazing that they lose these things. But they do. So all that stuff’s lost.”
While we can never entirely rule out the possibility of this lost footage showing up somewhere down the line, the odds are looking pretty slim right now. But hey, if you’re really desperate for new House of 1,000 Corpses content, then perhaps you can hold out hope that Zombie will some day follow through on his idea of adapting the film into a Broadway musical. Stranger things have happened, especially in the career of this director.