Slashed and Burned

Wes Craven has a lot to say about the making of his scary success on the laserdisc for Scream, which features a director's cut and bonus audio tracks. The janitor with Henry Winkler is Craven; now we learn he's wearing Freddy Krueger's costume from the original Nightmare on Elm Street. Craven points out each shot deleted from the original R-rated release: a flash of Drew Barrymore's boyfriend's entrails, the first time she's knifed, the scene in which she hangs from a tree (Craven cut every other frame to shorten it), and a close-up of costar Rose McGowan's head being crushed by a garage door. Total time: 20 seconds. As for those references to the ''Richard Gere gerbil stories,'' Craven notes, ''I got calls from agents saying, 'You'll never work again if you leave that in.'''