Featured Image Credit: Unearthed Films
Topics: Horror, Film and TV
Michael Slavin
Warning: The content of this piece may upset some readers.
Lots of people love a good horror film, full of gore, guts, and scares, but do you think you could handle the most controversial horror film in the world?
But this is no ordinary horror film.
This film isn’t like Sydney Sweeney’s Immaculate, where presentation of satanic is considered offensive by small groups of people, this is a horror film which has been banned in over 40 countries – and where it's screening even got a film festival director arrested.
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Watch the trailer here (which still manages to leave out probably the 50 most messed up parts of this film):
The film is called A Serbian Film, and I really do promise you – I am not exaggerating.
A Serbian Film follows a retired Serbian porn star, Milos, who is offered the chance to make one final film for an exorbitant amount of money.
Before Milos can change his mind, he realises he has signed up for a brutal snuff film – full of deranged sexual content, murder, and other things so awful we can’t even tell you what they are.
When asked how they came up with the film, director Srđan Spasojević told Indiewire: “We just wanted to express our deepest and honest feelings towards our region and also the world in general — a world that is sugar-coated in political correctness, but also very rotten under that façade”.
The film was released in 2010 to widespread controversy - with every country it was released in needing substantial cuts in order for it to even receive a rating.
In the US, it needed to be cut by roughly a minute to receive a NC-17 rating, whilst in the UK it was required to be cut by a massive three minutes and 48 seconds across 11 scenes to even be released.
One film festival director was even arrested for screening the film, as Angel Sala was charged with ‘exhibiting child pornography’ in 2011 following complaints from a Roman Catholic organisation.
The charges against Sala were later dropped, but he could have faced up to one year in prison if convicted.
Of the 46+ countries to have banned the film, major markets such as Spain, Australia, and Malaysia have all prevented screenings of the movie from ever taking place.
The film has divided critics, with some recognising the vision of the director and others calling it ‘disgusting’.
Film critic Mark Kermode said in his review: “The director says it’s allegorical… if it so, then the allegory just gets lost in the increasingly stupid splatter.
“The most annoying thing about it is – torture porn is one thing, but pompous, pretentious torture porn is something else.”
If you’re still reading thinking “Yep, sounds good, I want to watch it”, then the top review on IMDB is sure to either put you off or fully confirm that mindset.
It reads: “I heard about this movie on YouTube it was someone saying don't watch it it's made to disturb you but I didn't listen and I feel like vomiting now please do not watch this just don't I'm literally crying right now.”
I don’t know about you, but I think I’m going to listen to them.
You can watch A Serbian Film on Vudu in the US. But I wouldn't. No, really.