Exterminator 2


Exterminator 2 is a 1984 action thriller film written and directed by Mark Buntzman, starring Robert Ginty and Mario Van Peebles, with cameos by Arye Gross in his debut role, and John Turturro in his second role. It is the sequel to the 1980 film The Exterminator.

Plot

Following from the previous film, it shows Eastland walking freely on the streets of New York, without any hint that his dual identity was compromised. He meets up with another old army buddy, Be Gee, who owns a garbage truck. As seen at the beginning of the film, Eastland wears a welders' mask and wields a flame thrower, while listening to a police scanner for possible crimes to stop. Slaying the brother of a gang leader named X, the Exterminator gains the gang's enmity. Coincidentally, his army buddy happens to see the gang during a robbery of an armoured car, and scares them away with his truck. However, they get the truck's plate numbers, and vow revenge. Following the truck one night when the buddy loans it to Eastland, they follow Eastland to his home, and, not having seen who the driver of the truck was the night it scared them away, they presume Eastland was the man behind the wheel that night. They attack Eastland's girlfriend in the park, crippling her. Later, they break into her apartment and kill her.
Then Eastland and his buddy interrupt a drug deal between X's gang and the mob, stealing the narcotics in the process, though the army buddy dies. Having earlier captured one of the gang members, Eastland allows him to escape to draw X into a confrontation, with the drugs as bait, in a closed up industrial site. Curiously, X seems to be aware of the Exterminator's real name in this final battle. Eastland triumphs, but was shot when last seen, and is seen walking away.

Cast

Exterminator 2 had a very troubled production which included budget problems, heavy re-editing and reshoots, and censorship issues. The Cannon Group studio was not pleased with director Mark Buntzman's original rough cut of the film, so they hired film doctor William Sachs to do extensive reshoots in Los Angeles to improve it.
In 2012 interview about his work, Sachs talked about the reshoots on Exterminator 2. He was the one who came up with idea of the Exterminator wearing the flame proof mask throughout the movie:
Because of the budget problems, the movie had to be reshot in Los Angeles:
Sachs also mentioned that production's initial struggles were probably due to Buntzman's inexperience handling a large film crew:
According to Sachs, the character of X got his name due to more indecisiveness from Buntzman, who could not think of a better name. It was also Sachs' idea to make the character more central.
Even in post-production, the film met with some troubles. The MPAA made Sachs cut down an early gory scene in which an elderly couple is shot up by the gang:
In interview Sachs also had a funny anecdote about the casting of Arye Gross, who played gang member Turbo in the movie: "He came in and read for me, and he was talking like Marlon Brando, through his nose. It was fantastic, so I gave him the part. And when we did the scene, he didn't talk like that. I said, 'You're not talking like you did in your reading!' And he said, 'I had a cold.'"
Sachs tried to get co-director credit for his work on Exterminator 2 but wound up accepting a co-writer and "additional scenes directed by" credit due to a legal battle with Buntzman. "I joined the Director's Guild after that," he said.

Rough Cut & reshoots

The original script for the movie was very different to the movie the public got to see, a lot of the original scenes were removed and new scenes filmed to cobble a different storyline together, watching the movie knowing this its pretty obvious what was done since some of the original scenes are in the wrong order, for example the exterminator goes to Caroline's home early in the film but then travels in the garbage truck with her later in the film where Caroline is wearing the outfit from the previous scene in the movie.
Ginty couldn't return for reshoots so for scenes in which John wears a fireproof mask and burns down the gang members with a flamethrower were filmed with Robert Ginty's stunt double. Originally the only scene where John used the flamethrower to kill the gang members was in the ending when he burns the last few after he already killed most of the others with weapons from the garbage truck. so a double was used for scenes where you never saw his face, the most obvious scene is when he phones caroline and then runs to her home to find her dead.
Deborah Geffner couldn't return as Caroline but Mario Van Peebles and Frankie Faison did return for the reshoots.
The theatrical trailer shows following deleted and alternate scenes from the original rough cut of the movie;
Some lobby cards and stills also show several scenes cut from the movie;
A shot of John taking his mask off in the ending after X dies is actually an outtake edited from the original scene the exterminator flames gang members at the end of the movie, which is why the scene cuts abruptly when he starts taking the mask off, this scene can actually be seen in the "making of" TV special for '"Exterminator 2. According to some interview from the time when the movie was released, Ginty hated the way movie was cut down and re-edited by the studio.
The original ending in the rough cut of the movie was different, Instead of the chase scene between John and X in the factory, both of them confront each other after John kills all of X's gang members and get into a fight. X almost kills John, but Caroline shows up in her wheelchair and shoots X, wounding him. When the police shows up, John puts X into the garbage truck and the chase starts between him in his truck and the police cars. The chase ends with John crashing the garbage truck into the river and X's dead body floating out of it. Some behind the scenes footage included in an old making-of documentary shows the filming of the fight scene between John and X in the original ending, sadly the garbage truck driving off a bridge into a river was never filmed because of the expense.
Despite the fact that the studio demanded more graphic scenes with John burning down the gang members with a flamethrower to be included into the movie, they also deleted some other graphic and action scenes from the original cut during the reshoots and reediting. These include: more scenes with the garbage truck and an entire scene where the police helicopter which is shot down by the gang members crashes down on the nightclub filled with people and causes an explosion which kills and injures many of them.
In various countries more scenes were cut just to meet the R rating, the original final version of the movie was rated X because of the violence. In September 2016, 101 Film released "THE UNCUT" Version of Exterminator 2'' on Blu-ray - this version includes all the few seconds of footage and 1 scene removed for their violent content for the UK release but does not change the story.
The original rough cut of the film has never been released.

DVD and Blu-ray release

announced they would release Exterminator 2 as part of a four-film "Action-Packed Movie Marathon" DVD set on March 19, 2013.
101 Film released the Full Never Before Seen Uncut Version on Blu-ray in the UK in September 2016.