The team over at Shout! Factory specializes in giving the special-edition treatment to films that are cultish even by cult-film standards. And later this month, Shout! will release a new Blu-ray edition of Brian DePalma’s oft-overlooked split-personality thriller, Raising Cain.
Raising Cain stars John Lithgow, John Lithgow, and John Lithgow as Dr. Carter Nix, a respected child psychologist who suffers from multiple personality disorder. Carter and his criminal personality, Cain, are offing mothers to kidnap their children for experiments. Shout! Factory has granted The A.V. Club two exclusive looks at the new Raising Cain Blu-ray, featuring interviews with stars Steven Bauer and Gregg Henry.
One of the more interesting aspects of this new release is the director’s cut of the film on the second disc. Back in 2012, commercial director Peet Gelderblom completed work on his own fan edit of Raising Cain; after obtaining the original script, Gelderblom reordered scenes the way that DePalma had originally intended, before studio interference led to the final film. The re-cut made its way into De Palma’s hands, and the director later stated, “It’s what we didn’t accomplish on the initial release of the film. It’s what I originally wanted the movie to be.” So De Palma did Gelderblom a favor, making his version the official director’s cut of Raising Cain and making certain that Shout! Factory included it on the new release of the film. “I looked at it and said, you’re right,” DePalma told Fandango. “That’s the way it should have been done.”
Raising Cain hits Blu-ray on September 13.