Cut, sliced and snipped: the gospel according to Gibbo has suffered the same fate as its leading man. Resurrected in a brand new print trimmed by six minutes and reissued as a 15 certificate for weak-stomached audiences, The Passion Recut conveniently arrives in cinemas just in time for Easter. Yet even with the adjustments, it's still a harrowing tale of "Jesus Christ: Splatterstar", as the Son of God (Jim Caviezel) is scourged and crucified in a relentless barrage of bloody suffering.
A year after the film's initial release, few audiences will be able to tell the difference between the Passion Recut and the original. There's no doubt that the gore has been toned down: the flagellation is less graphic than before (no more close ups of whips tearing flesh from bone); the crucifixion is over a little quicker; and the scene where a crow pecks out an eyeball is now suggested, not shown. Even the audio effects have been sanitized: the beatings, screams and cracking bones seem less pronounced.
"A BITE-SIZED, ONE-NOTE SPLATTERFEST"
Yet the tone of the film is still the same. This is a religious horror movie: a gospel of gore, a bible of blood that turns Christ's suffering into blockbuster spectacle. Shock cinema at its most transparent, The Passion Recut is a bite-sized, one-note splatterfest that rips the guts out of the gospels (quite literally), without offering anything resembling a spiritual epiphany. In such circumstances, cutting six minutes is rather like handing Jesus a band-aid.
In Aramaic with English subtitles.
The Passion Recut (2005)
