a god and changed his mind'. And I like that. I like the fact that he is just a man. He wanted to be something more but he gave up on this useless endeavor. He's murdered all his acolytes, his devotees, and now he's alone in the dark. I actively went after that, even though it was flying in the face of what the audience expects". Production Clive Barker said: "I had four or five images in my head which were starting places for scenes: the look of the magic show - Swann's spectacular - which we've staged at the Pantages; the look of Nix's lair; the cultists' house; the look of the Bel-Air mansion where Swann and his wife, Dorothea, reside and actually Harry's apartment - that was a late addition ..." The entire film was laid out in storyboards prior to filming. The magic-show accident was filmed at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Reflecting on the film in the 1996 documentary "The Making of Lord of Illusions", Clive Barker said: "I can look through the movie and... every two or three minutes I'm saying, 'Geez, why did I do that? Why did I do this?' Well, the answer is, you know, I got 50 things right and 30 things wrong and that's a pretty good batting average for me! You make your work and you move on - and you do that whatever medium you work in". Editing On seeing Barker's cut of the film, MGM decided that it was too long and there was too much time spent on dialogue scenes that occur in-between scenes involving death or horror elements. MGM insisted on removing roughly twelve and a half minutes from the film and Barker conceded as long as a director's cut could be released later. This director's cut was initially released on VHS and laserdisc, then on DVD and streaming services and was designated unrated, whereas the theatrical release was rated R by the MPAA. It is also known as the Collector's Edition. In 1996, Barker commented: "It's not twelve and a half minutes of blood and gore [that was removed], it's actually the thematic guts of the movie. What MGM/UA did, and I'll think they're wrong till the end of my days, was say that this isn't enough of a horror movie, we want to make it more intense. It was a bad commercial decision