20th February 2008.
Ban the Sadist DVDs Part 2. Congratulations to director Joe Lynch. He told us all at FrightFest last year that he made WRONG TURN 2: DEAD END in homage to the Video Nasty. And now he’s found himself in a similar controversy in Australia. Underage sex offenders at a juvenile detention centre were shown his movie by a government officer who paid for it using taxpayer’s money. The result? The staff member has been ‘disciplined’ and moved to another admin position but remains on the same pay level. Former Children's Court magistrate Barbara Holborow wanted the officer sacked immediately and is quoted as saying, "Where do they get these people from? When you put a child into a detention centre it's not just to punish them, it's to rehabilitate and educate them. How can you rehabilitate kids if you're going to show them filth like that?”
Filth like that! Who knew Joe? I’d have paid more attention to all ‘the sex related crimes, zombie incest, oral sex and semi-naked women” if I’d known. What was the last film Mrs. Holborow saw, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK? What was the officer in charge going to show them? Ingmar Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL so they could discuss the moral implications of death playing chess? Or a Chips Rafferty season so they could review their cultural heritage? Or what about the first season of PRISON BREAK? PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT would probably be more appropriate thinking about what men behind bars are supposed to get up to! Who needs a FrightFest Down Under. Seems to me it might be worth getting arrested just so one can be a member of the adventurous rep program at the Keelong detention centre near Wollongong. They showed SAW II too. Reminds me of the days John Waters used to show his early movies to prison inmates to shake them up before his lectures. Joe, get an Australian tour set up now. I always knew you could be the new Kylie.
A more high profile banning incident is currently occurring in China. I couldn’t careless about any sports, have no interest whatsoever in the Olympic Games, so fail to understand what’s so important about wining shiny bits of metal. Especially in a country like China with the worst human rights record, carbon footprint, Darfur guilt and other daily atrocities on their seemingly guilt-free conscience. Steven Spielberg did exactly the right thing in withdrawing his association from the opening ceremony and I hope the head-in-sand contestants going who say politics should not enter the arena choke their guts up on the pollution in the stadium.
You’d think the communist government in Beijing would be trying to do something in those key areas to present some pretence at social responsibility. So what have they done? Cracked down on all DVD movies containing ghosts, monsters and other things that go bump in the night so the right image of their oh-so-fabulous society is presented to the West. Their hypocrisy is astonishing.
Producers now have around three weeks to look through their back catalogues for horror and report it to authorities. Offending content includes "wronged spirits and violent ghosts, monsters, demons, and other inhuman portrayals, strange and supernatural storytelling for the sole purpose of seeking terror and horror”. The new guidelines aim to "control and cleanse the negative effect these items have on society, and to prevent horror, violent, cruel publications from entering the market through official channels and to protect adolescents' psychological health”.
Well done China. Now all those banned DVDs will be found in even vaster quantities on every street corner because, of course, you have the worst pirate DVD copyright record too. Why didn’t you do this year’s ago? Then we wouldn’t have had the proliferation of Asian horror that bankrupt of ideas Hollywood still thinks is worth remaking.
Until next time…
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