Horror movie was so disturbing festival director was arrested for airing it
Horror movies are meant to be, well, just that – horrifying. That’s the whole point.
But sometimes, there’s the odd one that goes a little too far. It all depends on where you draw the line and with different countries having different measures, some films end up banned or censored.
Like this 2010 flick, which even led to a film festival director getting arrested.
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A Serbian Film is said to have built up a reputation across the globe for being one of the most extreme horror movies ever.
As per IMDb, the movie summary is: “An aging porn star agrees to participate in an ‘art film’ in order to make a clean break from the business, only to discover that he has been drafted into making a paedophilia and necrophilia themed snuff film.”
The movie features the likes of sex with corpses to the rape of a new-born child.
Yeah, rough.
And with such intense graphic violence and sexual content, A Serbian Film has been banned in countries such as Australia, Malaysia and Norway.
Directed and produced by Srđan Spasojević, it was first shown in the US in March 2010 as part of the South by Southwest festival.
But when it was due to be shown in the UK in the August, there was intervention from Westminster Council – they wanted it to be classified by the BBFC first before it was shown at the Film Four FrightFest.
A whopping 49 compulsory cuts, totalling in at almost four minutes, were ordered. A Serbian Film ended up being pulled from the festival instead.
The film ran into bigger trouble when it was shown at an adults-only screening at the Spanish Sitges Film Festival in October 2010.
The movie was banned in the country for ‘threatening sexual freedom’.
So when the film festival showed it, festival director Angel Sala was charged with exhibiting child pornography in May 2011 after complaints from a Roman Catholic organisation.
The charges were later dropped.
Talking to IndieWire about those charges, Spasojević said: “On the one side, it’s very funny that someone can still find movies and editing so mysterious, like some kind of devil’s work.
"Of course, on the other hand, it’s very sad. It proves my film was right.
"One of the things the film’s saying is that we’re not living in the free world. The way the film was made also represents our resistance to political correctness, to fascism.
"These kind of reactions are fun, interesting, stupid and very, very sad. It’s evidence that we’re not free people.”
A Serbian Film has just a 45 percent critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 43 percent.
Topics: TV and Film
Jess Battison