Friday 18 March 2011

A Serbian Nightmare

Okay so shock topic of the moment in Ye Olde World of Horror is the downright stupid fiasco over Angel Sala, director of Sitges International Film Festival and the possibility that he might go to jail over the fact that he screened the controversial A SERBIAN FILM at last October's event.  This is absolutely absurd.  Sala is being accused of screening scenes of child pornography.  What a crock of shit!  There is no ACTUAL child pornography in this movie.  Yes it is implied and it's sick as fuck but it still doesn't count as child pornography, end of!  As Dai Green previously mentioned firstly in the February 2011 episode of THE GASH and then in her artiicle on HorrorNews.net, this is an absolute fiasco!  It was actually after hearing Dai talk about it on The Gash that I decided I really wanted to see it.  Thankfully I got to see the uncut version as well...apparently over 5 minutes have been cut from the version of the film that has been released.  It will be interesting to see what they cut out. 



The thing is, everyone is getting so up in arms about this movie and so much ridiculous controversy is around it.  The film is so over the top however that I actually laughed through a large part of it.  The infamous "newborn porn" scene, oh my god, it is so ridiculous.  I found it near impossible to be offended.  It was shocking but just so absurd at the same time.  What pisses me off is the fact that it's okay to brutally beat, rape and then hack the head off some poor tied up girl with a machete but have some sicko fornicating a new born mechanical baby and that's it...suddenly it's wrong.  Yeah it's sick but so is having sex with a donkey...yet that too seems to be acceptable.  The controversy surrounding this movie is that of its "child pornography" and you know what, if it was a film where it was all Gacy like or what not, then fine, give it that label.  This however is a film where no one is safe, everyone gets royally fucked...man, woman,child...donkey!  There is no bias here!  




As so many people have pointed out - what kind of a sicko would make a film like this?  I remember when SAW first came out, I was working in the cinema and I was IN LOVE with this movie, like seriously obsessed.  The amount of people who commented on what kind of a sick person would think of something like that.  Well you know what...James Wan in honestly one of the nicest people I've ever spoken to.  He is lovely.  I think that you will find that the large majority of the horror folks are a wonderful group of people and whilst they might make movies that involved disturbing subject matter, in real life they spend their time raising awareness around the awful things that are depicted in their movies.  Just because someone thinks sick things, doesn't make them a horrible person.


Think about some of the best crime novelists, are they evil human beings who deserve to be jailed...of course not, don't be ridiculous.  In a world where there is so much evil and that bad things happen every day, it's hard for one not to be affected by them.  We know they happen.  And you know that there are some sickos out there who think about/do this sort of thing.  It is a seedy world we live in with a lot of disturbed people.  We hear about this kind of shit in the papers, where is the wrong in putting all this together to make an dark and disturbing movie?  It's not like it was a romantic comedy with a little bit of child rape put in for fun!  The film maker was in no way, shape or form glamorizing the things that were happening.  And more to the point, Angel Sala was not glamorizing this either.  To make a man face criminal charges for showing child pornography at a festival when not even the director or the writers of this film have been charged, not that they should, but what the fuck, where is the sense in that!?!




One of the things that people who have seen the film and have complained about is the fact that it's not seedy and grindhouse/low budget looking.  I loved that about it.  This is the descent into one mans ultimate nightmare and I don't think it would have been as effective had it been low budget.  Visually it is a very pretty film that had money behind it, if you want to see some cheap, horrible nastiness then you should watch MURDER SET PIECES...that film I found offensive...and more just because it was so shite, I can't believe someone actually funded this crap!!!!  But then that's just my opinion!


At the end of the day, if you don't want to watch it, then don't watch it!  But at the same time, don't go ranting on about how wrong it is if you haven't even seen it and can't actually comment for yourself.  I personally liked the film.  Yes it was sick but you know what, all the stuff that makes you think 'woah, what the fuck!' is worth it just to see one of the evil guys get his eyeball knocked out and then the porn star man puts his horse sized weiner in his eye socket and skull fucks him.  Brutal but absolutely brilliant at the same time!  Haha.




Eli Roth, a director who is not stranger to shock horror is urging horror fans to sign this petition to stop Angel Sala from being incarcerated due to this censorship.  He stated on his Twitter page - If Angel Sala does in fact go to jail festivals will stop showing any controversial or edgy films and censorship will win.”” he also states: “Whatever you think of A Serbian Film a film festival director should not spend a year in jail for exhibiting a filmmaker’s work. Please sign.

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