Oh Voor, you cheeky chap, I know I'm one of those who has entered this discussion with you. But you misconstrue my concerns. Frankly when faced with the trailer of A Serbian Film I would be worried if I did not feel trepidation aboiut seeing it at let alone with an audience. Does this film really carry the political subtext to justify what appears to be the extreme exploitation of it's performers? Or will if feel like Pasolini's Salo, a film I felt used it's supposed anti fascism to hide a director getting his rocks off filming degredation. The last is a controversial point, plenty of people do not feel this way about Salo. I should also say that I am basing everything I say about Serbian Film on it's undoubtably effective and shocking trailer. But trailers lie, I am fully aware of that.The recent discussion about ‘A Serbian Film’ frankly worried me – how many festival audiences would claim a desire to not see a film because the audience might behave inappropriately? I haven’t heard any London Film Festival or Sci-Fi London Film Festival discussions based around the inappropriate laughter at certain films. Does this mean it doesn’t exist? Does this mean there is something inherently wrong with us, the horror hounds, that we have to operate some sort of auto-censorship amongst our own?
Also we are talking about cinema at extremes here, personally I am a horror masochist. I like films that leave scars. However there is undeniably a sadistict element to the genre audience. Stephen King has remarked that for every 10 people getting rid of something reading his fiction, there is one taking something in. That worried King, and crucially he argued he would not be an artist if it didn't worry him. It is not inappropriate laughter that concerns me with regards to Serbian Film.