‘Cyborg’ like you’ve never seen before! Now on Blu-ray is Albert Pyun’s ‘Slinger’ starring Jean-Claude Van Damme

Slinger | Blu-ray (Yippee Ki-Yay Video)

If you think you’ve seen Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Cyborg, think again. Available exclusively through Yippee Ki-Yay Mother Video is the Blu-ray (Region Free) for Slinger, Albert Pyun’s “Director’s Cut” of the cult classic action film from 1989!

In the late 80s, The Cannon Films production company was dealing with financial troubles after a series of box office bombs, perhaps chief among them being Tobe Hooper’s troubled Lifeforce in 1986. Cannon had plans to make a sequel to Masters of the Universe and a live-action Spider-Man film with director Albert Pyun (The Sword and the Sorcerer), but financial difficulties forced them to cancel their deals with Mattel and Marvel before the cameras started rolling. In order to best make use of all the costumes and sets they’d already created for both abandoned films, Pyun wrote a screenplay, credited the script to his cat, cast the up-and-coming star Jean-Claude Van Damme, and set to work on Cyborg in an attempt to recoup the studio’s losses.

Albert Pyun’s original cut of Cyborg was a dark, two-hour black-and-white rock opera with Van Damme’s dialogue dubbed by another actor. A test screening of 100 people nearly unanimously rejected it, and Pyun was removed from post-production. Van Damme persuaded Golan and Globus to let him and Sheldon Lettich re-edit it into the more commercial version eventually released in 1989.

This brings us to Slinger, which reverts back to Pyun’s original vision and title. Thanks to Yippee Ki-Yay Mother Video, fans of Cyborg can now see how the film was originally intended. Not only do you get 4 cuts of the film, but you also get the partially shot sequel, Cyborg: The Dark Rift.

Read the full list of extras below:

• 4 cuts of the film: The Nemesis Cut; 1st Generation workprint; The Director’s Cut (HD mixing in the workprint to create a hybrid cut); and The Director’s Cut (in black and white)
• Commentary track by Albert Pyun
• Commentary track by Hong Kong film expert and Albert Pyun friend Mike Leeder and by self proclaimed Albert Pyun film historian Kenn A. Williams
• Cyborg: The Dark Rift – Albert partially shot sequel to his Cyborg universe, a 12 min edit using some stock footage and was intended to star Steven Seagal
• Exclusive slipcase artwork designed by Juan Jose Saldarriaga

Slinger is currently available from Yippee Ki-Yay Mother Video. If you grab a copy, you’ll also play a role in funding Yippee Ki-Yay Mother Video’s upcoming physical release for Pyun’s Interstellar Civil War.

For good measure, here’s the official Trailer for the released Cyborg (Note: There’s no Trailer for Slinger, but expect it to be drastically different from what you see here):