There are many great horror films out there that have defined the genre and set standards for the whole filmmaking industry in terms of storytelling and effective ways to keep audiences engaged. Think of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, for example. Some have even generated their own cult followings. There are also some not-so-good cheesy, but fun horror-like franchises like Scream. At the other end of the spectrum, though, you can find horror that's just so extreme you couldn't even begin to get through it.
Many countries have strict laws about which sort of content is acceptable in a film and which isn't, and that has led many horror films to be banned in different parts of the world. And while most of these movies might leave you in utter disgust, wondering why they would ever get done in the first place, some bans have been debatable or outright laughable. Regardless of whether we agree or not, here are some of the most controversial horror movies that got outlawed for being too extreme.
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I Spit on Your Grave
Released in 1978, this American rape and revenge horror film was met with extreme controversy—which remains even to this day. In fact, due to its extreme depiction of explicit violence and subject matter, I'm pretty confident there's no way the movie would even get made today. Critics and audiences alike rejected the film, with Roger Ebert calling it "so sick, reprehensible and contemptible" that he could not believe it existed, arguing it is "a film without a shred of artistic distinction."
Its raw violence and the thought that it supported gender violence and misogyny led Norway, Iceland, and West Germany to outright ban it, while the U.K. would only release a highly censored version. Canada initially banned it, but later left the decision of whether to show the film to individual provinces. Australia banned it 20 years release (for some reason), and even though most countries have lifted the restriction, the film remains banned in Ireland to this day.
The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence
The whole Human Centipedetrilogy is built on the premise of the grotesque, seeking to make its audience feel as disgusted as a movie could possibly do, and then some. But out of the three films, it's the second that got the ban treatment most harshly.
Claiming that The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) is extreme is certainly an understatement. The film simply goes out of its way to be as outrageous and gratuitously disgusting as possible, which led the U.K. to even refuse to classify it at first, as the British Board of Film Classification argued that it was so obscene that even after censoring it heavily, the film would still remain unacceptable.
The film's director, Tom Six, replied that horror films should be horrific, so he made a horrific horror film. Still, one could argue that horror films should be horrific within certain boundaries. Surely, there's a line to be drawn somewhere.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
You might think the newest remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are relatively tame and average horror flicks. Violent, sure, but too extreme? Doubtful. But back in 1974 when the very first film in the franchise was released, it was met with universal outrage. The seminal slasher film was banned in Australia for four years and in Britain until the 1990s, with many other countries attempting to prevent it to ever see the light of day in their territories, including Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Ireland, France, Ukraine, West Germany, Brazil, Chile, and Singapore. That's a lot of countries.
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The Evil Dead
The Evil Deadis so over-the-top it's almost cartoonish, but that didn't stop certain countries from censoring it. Though it has become a significant cult film over the years, establishing many standards for the genre, officials were initially split about whether it was appropriate to show it at all. Some thought its extreme treatment of its subject matter was nearly laughable, and that it couldn't be taken too seriously. Others, however, found it "nauseating." In the end, Britain required 49 seconds to be cut from the film, and the uncut version wasn't released there until the 21st century.
Cannibal Holocaust
Now, this one is truly something. Cannibal Holocaustwas among the movies to spearhead the now-overused format of found-footage horror, and its content was so extreme that its director, Ruggero Deodato, was arrested under obscenity charges upon release and suspected of murder because of it. That's right, the violence is explicit to the point that rumors started circulating that Deodato had actually killed several actors on camera—which was not the case, of course. But the film did involve killing animals on screen, which is certainly bad enough.
The whole premise was to make everything look as real as possible, and the crew went perhaps too far to make it so. To maintain the film's illusion, the actors involved even signed a provision not to make any appearance in the media for one year, which led to the rumors that they were really dead.
Cannibal Holocaust was banned in Italy, Australia, Norway, Finland, and New Zealand, while other countries such as the UK heavily censored it. And I can't say the movie didn't have it coming this time—they really did kill animals, after all.
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Hostel
Hostel was controversial in Europe for scaring tourists away from otherwise safe and convenient travel, depicting the continent as a dangerous no-go zone filled with depraved individuals and a secret, multinational organization ready to kidnap any unassuming foreigner. Ukraine, of course, took particular offense, banning both the film and its sequel for excessive cruelty—not to mention for the terrible business it meant for the country. The sequel had it worse, with New Zealand and Germany outright outlawing it and Malaysia and Singapore only allowing a heavily censored version to be released.
A Serbian Film
Perhaps one of the most extreme films on this list, A Serbian Filmis infamous for its gratuitous and extreme depiction of violence, crossing lines no other film would dare even approach. I mean, what other movie would be as sick as to portray the rape and murder of a baby, necrophilia, and an adult film star being tricked into sexually abusing his child. As such, A Serbian Film has been banned in Norway, Germany, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Malaysia, and Singapore.
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