- The director's cut omits the opening monologue.
- SPOILER: In the director's cut, there is additional footage showing that the hooker John meets at the automat has a daughter. When Emma and Inspector Bumstead go to the hooker's apartment, Emma finds the daughter under a bed with a drawing showing the Strangers killing her mother.
- Here's most of the differences between the 1998 theatrical version and the 2008 director's cut:
- The opening narration with Dr. Schreber's voice has been omitted in the director's cut
- The shots in the opening where it shows the city about to fall asleep have been moved to a later part of the film
- The opening scene in the bathtub has been extended
- The scene in the lobby has been extended with entirely new shots, including a shot where a lady falls from a phone booth due to her unconsciousness
- The shot with John leaving the hotel has been extended
- The shots with the scene when the hotel owner enters John's room and encounters the Strangers have been extended and re-arranged
- A bunch of the shots with John tuning have been altered/replaced
- A new subplot is added with John's unusual spiral-shaped fingerprints and how he's "evolved"
- Some of the effects with the Strangers "true form" have been tweaked with
- During all of Emma's singing scene's, you can now hear Jennifer Connelly's voice instead of Anita Kelsey's voice from the theatrical version
- Some of the shots showing the dead hooker are alternative shots
- The scene when Emma is in Schreber's office contain alternative shots and alternate dialogue
- The shots of when we first see Bumstead playing the accordion have been re-arranged and extended
- Dialogue was added when Bumstead investigates the victim and contain alternative shots
- Extra dialogue between Emma and Bumstead
- It's revealed that the hooker John goes to also has a daughter, thereby giving a different motive for his departure
- Extra shots of when John goes up to the billboard
- When John is up on the billboard, in the theatrical version he goes through some of the newspaper clippings and continues to stand up while doing so. However, in the director's cut, he sits down after examining some of them looking a lot more shocked.
- Some dialogue was added at when Mr. Book is speaking to all the other Strangers in their lair
- Extra dialogue between Emma and Bumstead while in his car
- Alternative shots and extra/alternative dialogue of when we see Emma get out of the shower and sees John sitting down
- Extra dialogue between Schreber and Bumstead
- Extra dialogue between Mr. Hand and Screber plus the addition of shots with John watching the conversation going on between them and John checking out Schreber's bag
- Extra dialogue between Mann and Frau while having dinner
- Extra dialogue between Schreber and Mr. Hand
- When the Strangers have another meeting in their lair, extra dialogue was added and also contain alternative shots
- Alternative shot of when John sees the newspaper salesmen and remembers that he was also the hotel owner
- When Walenski confronts John about there being no way out, Walenski has an extra line of dialogue in the theatrical version, "You're not a killer. They set you up with a fake identity, Iike everyone else here."
- Extra dialogue between Emma and Mr. Hand
- The scene of when John is looking through photos of his "past" contain longer shots
- Extra dialogue between Emma and Bumstead
- A new scene was added showing the dead hooker's daughter hiding under the bed
- The scene when Bumstead confronts John contains alternate shots
- Extra dialogue between John and Emma
- Extra dialogue between John and Schreber along with alternative shots
- The entire scene with John, Bumstead, and Schreber in the car has been extended with extra dialogue, contains alternative shots, and adds a scene where John uses his tuning against Schreber to force him to help John and Bumstead find Shell Beach
- Schreber gives extra dialogue when explaining why they're in the city
- A bunch of the shots during the duel between John and Mr. Book have been tweaked with
- In the theatrical version after the fight, John says to Schreber, "I'm gonna fix things"
- The end credits have been slightly altered, adding "Director's Cut Restoration" credits
- The audio for the end credits has been altered too, both cuts have a reprise of Sway played in the last part of the credits, however as stated above, the theatrical version featured Anita Kelsey's voice while the director's cut replaces it with Jennifer Connelly's voice
- The DVD release is slightly longer than the one on video, with more footage towards the end of the film. There are more scenes of the duel between Murdoch and Mr. Book (the scene with the lightning and huge spikes) as well as both of them ascending into the air to continue their battle. A few scenes later, when Emma gets on the bus, there is an additional shot of the bus driving away.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content