From the Irish Times website... THE IRISH Film Classification Office has banned the DVD re-release of Meir Zarchi’s notorious 1978 horror film I Spit on Your Grave. The body, formerly the Irish Film Censor’s Office, has, in recent years, been reluctant to ban films outright, so this must be viewed as an unusual move. The reason given for declining to issue a certificate for the DVD, was the depiction of “acts of gross violence and cruelty towards humans”. Mr Zarchi commented: “It doesn’t surprise me that Ireland have decided to ban the film.
The decision comes a little less than a year after John Kelleher, seen as a liberalising force, retired as the director of classification. Ger Connolly, the current acting director, was formerly an accountant in the advertising and manufacturing industries. The reissue is timed to coincide with an upcoming remake of Mr Zarchi’s creaky original.
I'm surprised by this... Head censor Ger Connolly's move to make the film unavailable is perplexing considering the DVD can be obtained from the UK in a matter of days, never mind the fact that the film is beamed into Irish homes almost weekly on Sky's Horror channel. This is not the first time Ireland has refused classification to titles freely available in the UK - in the early 90's Ken Russell's film Whore was refused a release, as was From Dusk Til Dawn and the 2002 film Spun. Is this latest banning the beginning of a new era of stringent censorship ? Watch this space....
What a load of bollocks.
ReplyDeleteI think the mundane truth of the matter is that the Irish Censor simply doesn't like the idea of I Spit On Your Grave being available in Irish shops, perhaps it puts a taint on our nation... unlike the Censors, I think everyone living on this island should have the right to choose for themselves. It's really the ago old censorship debate going round in circles. I like the film, I think it's a film that deserves a life, and any film that allows the audience to empathize with a victim of sexual assault (which the film and Camille Keaton does) is a good thing...
ReplyDeleteI rented I Spit On Your Grave from Tommy Whitty's video shop in New Ross, 1986. He openly had it on the shelf along with Last House On The Left and Antropophagus. Also got Death Weekend there some time later. I Spit is a rough watch, got the R1 DVD in 2003 or so, and have showed it to others who have watched fascinated and never bored.
ReplyDeletePaul, thanks. I hope I've got your name correct, that Lovecraftian/Aphexian username is quite tricky to write! I was excited to read your comment, because I never did consider how the VHS distribution tendrils reached out beyond the bigger cities - apologies if that sounds vaguely conceited to the fine folks of New Ross, I promise it's not intended so. I spent a good portion of the 90's combing the videoshops of Cork city in search of pre-cert pearls, and whatever it was like in the UK, I was still finding rarities well into the 90's - Bava's Bloodbath, Gestapo's Last Orgy, Nightmares in a Damaged Brain and so on. I did have a copy of the Astra I Spit on Your Grave, which I got from another collector for the Thorn EMI Suspiria, which I believe was uncut (or at least longer than the Entertainment sell-thru tape). I remember well a friend of mine borrowed it, in search of wank material no doubt and was thoroughly disappointed by this dour drama. I think most well-adjusted males would agree the film is anything but a turn on...
DeleteCheers Wes, I remember watching the Today Tonight documentary on the nasties - 1984 or so - and getting inspired to track them down. We had four or five video libraries in the town then, by the end of the decade the pre-cert tapes had all but disappeared aside from one place who had them in the blue porn folder. I was able to persuade them to sell me a few back then (primarily for covers; the tapes themselves were close to being shot). The Thorn EMI Suspiria is a nice find.
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