Ethan Hawke in Sinister

The filmmakers behind 2012 supernatural horror movie Sinister deleted some scenes for its theatrical release. The movie stars Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, James Ransone, Fred Thompson, and Vincent D’Onofrio. It also originally had Angela Bettis star as a side character, though her scenes were ultimately cut from the movie. The plot of the film centers on true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Hawke), who finds a box of home movies portraying gruesome murders in the attic of his family’s new house.

The new house, actually, was the setting of a family murder that took place years ago, though Oswalt did not tell his wife or children about this before they moved. Oswalt’s plan is to use the case of the murdered family as the basis for a new true-crime book. In watching the home movies that he found in the attic, Ellison learns that each killing was performed by an unseen person holding the camera. Each video also featured a strange symbol and a masked figure. With the help of a local deputy, Oswalt learns that the murders took place in different time periods in cities all across the country. He also learns that a child from each family went missing following each murder.

Related: Sinister Ending: Ashley & Ellison's Fate Explained

Oswalt goes on to consult an expert in the occult, who explains to him that the symbol he saw in the videos refers to a Pagan deity named Bughuul, who would kill entire families and take one of their children to consume their soul. The expert suspects that the murders are part of a cultic initiation rite, and not the work of a single killer stretching across decades. Of course, viewers eventually learn that the supernatural Bughuul is actually behind the killings, and that every family had, at some point, lived in the home the Oswalts just moved into. But when Oswalt eventually moves his family back to their old house after a series of unsettling events, he ends up placing them in incredible danger.

Sinister: Every Deleted Scene (& Why They Were Cut)

Sinister runs at 109 minutes, though it was originally much longer. The original cut of the movie featured an entire character that was removed from the theatrical version. The role is that of the Oswalt family’s next door neighbor, which was written specifically for actress Angela Bettis. She was featured in two big scenes, standing outside talking to Ethan Hawke’s character. Her lines offered a lot of background story; she talks to Oswalt about the murders of the family that used to live in his house, and gives her interpretation of what happened.

What’s more, Bettis’s character added some humor to a dark story. She plays a classic “disgruntled neighbor” character, using sarcasm and black humor when she speaks. What’s more, other than adding humor to the movie, her scenes gave viewers a chance to escape the bubble of the Oswalt household. Director and writer Scott Derrickson said Bettis’s character was cut from the movie due to pacing issues. As Derrickson explains in the DVD commentary—he and co-writer C. Robert Cargill offered commentary on the DVD extras, including deleted scenes—those scenes would have significantly extended a film that was already pretty long compared to the average horror movie run time.

When Derrickson spoke with Bloody Disgusting in 2013, he said he hoped Sinister fans would check out the special features of the DVD. “…The special features we’re most proud of are the two deleted scenes with Angela Bettis,” he enthused.

“And they’re not small scenes, they’re big scenes. We wrote them expressly with her in mind, we love her as an actress. And she knocked these scenes out of the park. They were well shot and well acted and worked as individual scenes, but when we were cutting the film they just didn’t need to be there to tell the story and they broke the spell of the movie.”

Derrickson noted that it was difficult to tell Bettis that her scenes were cut, but she still showed up to the SXSW screening of the film.

Next: Why Sinister 3 Never Happened