Has cinema ever been so depraved and the censors so amoral?

BOOING, jeering, shouting at the screen: it was not the behaviour that’s normally expected among the glitterati at Cannes. But in a screening at the film festival last month this was the reaction to a new film, The Neon Demon, which by all accounts is as gruesome and gory as they come. Extreme violence? Yes. Cannibalism? Yes. Lesbian necrophilia? Yes.

The story is of a 16-year-old girl who tries to make it as a model in Los Angeles — where she is preyed upon by various psychopaths in an orgy of violence.

One reviewer breathlessly describes how ‘corpses look like love objects’ and ‘beauty mingles with mangled flesh’.

The film’s poster shows a beautiful girl, her chest slicked with blood. The guts and gore are given a glittery sheen and a cool electro soundtrack.

Not surprisingly, several critics in the press screening walked out, appalled by the level of violence.

Extreme

The Neon Demon is now before the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to decide on its UK release and an appropriate age rating.

This begs the question: will the BBFC roll over, as usual, allowing yet more depraved content to appear on our cinema screens?

For the fact is that over the past four decades, the BBFC has grown increasingly lax in allowing films with extreme violence — approving scenes that are disturbing for young audiences.

Recent years have seen some astonishing decisions.

There was The Dark Knight, the 2008 film from the Batman franchise, which was passed as 12A — suitable for children under the age of 12, with adult supervision.

Any parents reared on the jolly old caped crusader might have innocently assumed it was suitable for a young child.

Yet it contained scenes brutal enough to make any adult wince — such as the Joker skewering an unfortunate victim through the eye with a pencil.

In one sickening scene he relates how he came by his famous grin. His father had been attacking his mother with a knife, when he saw his son looking serious, so, according to the Joker: ‘He sticks the blade in my mouth . . . “Let’s put a smile on that face!” ’

Holy smokes, Batman: why on earth did the BBFC think this was suitable for 12-year-olds?

Then there are the Hunger Games movies, with scenes of children forced to kill children and monsters eating people alive. The producer of the first film said even he would not allow his own young daughter to watch it.

Indeed, some parents claimed their children were so distressed that they had to leave the cinema early. And yet despite loud complaint, the BBFC has happily given all the films a 12A rating.

It did the same for The Lovely Bones — a film about a murdered teenager looking down on her family from the after-life; and the War Of The Worlds — a fantasy with one scene of a ten-year-old girl watching dead bodies float down a river.

Then there was The Woman In Black, considered suitable for pre-teens, with its story of a ghost manipulating children into hurting or killing themselves. One scene showed a little girl setting herself on fire. Oh, and for good measure, a woman hangs herself.

Now, I’m not suggesting children should be restricted to a diet of Enid Blyton and Thomas The Tank Engine.

But I’d argue that such disturbing content is too much for 12-year-olds — let alone eightor nine-year-olds, even if they are accompanied by a parent.

And if the children have been failed woefully by the censors at the BBFC, what about adults?

In the Seventies and Eighties, the BBFC banned a host of films, from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Straw Dogs, on account of their gratuitous scenes of violence, rape and torture.

But material which would have been considered beyond the pale — even for over-18s — is now passed with barely a snip of the censor’s scissors.

Some of the films afforded an 18 rating are frankly beyond the pale: sick and dehumanising.

For example, the BBFC saw fit to approve a French film called Irreversible, which depicts, in close-up, a man’s face being battered into a bloody mess with a fire extinguisher.

It also contains a 10 minutelong depiction of a rape taking place in an underpass, filmed in one unflinching take.

The scenes were so disturbing that they were used by psychologists at University College London during an experiment into ‘intrusive memories’ and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Another film given 18-approval was Antichrist, showing scenes in which a man has his genitals beaten. There is also a scene of a woman mutilating her own genitals with a pair of scissors.

In 2014, the film censors passed Nekromantik for DVD release — a foul Eighties German film which had been banned for a quarter of a century for depicting a threesome between a couple and a corpse. There are also scenes of a rabbit being skinned alive.

A host of films featuring socalled ‘torture porn’ or ‘gorno’ (a portmanteau of gore and porno) have been passed — movies such as the Saw and Hostel franchises, which show serial killings and mutilation in graphic detail.

Perhaps worst of all is The Human Centipede series. It is difficult to convey the films’ full depravity — but basically they show a demented scientist who kidnaps people and stitches them together to create the centipede of the title. The characters are tortured without mercy, the human body brutalised in a depraved way.

The film-maker has boasted of the effect of his vile work, proudly declaring that he ‘saw people vomiting, people left the [movie] theatre because they couldn’t handle it’. Cynically, his publicity material was splashed with the question: ‘Is this the sickest film ever made?’

Harm

It might well be — but what possible case can there be for allowing such hideous material onto British cinema screens in the first place?

How is it acceptable for the vilest depths of human perversion and cruelty to be packaged up as entertainment?

Libertarians will argue that adults should be allowed to watch whatever they want.

Indeed, the BBFC argues that, ‘in line with the Human Rights Act’, they will not normally ‘override the principle that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment’.

But there are laws that govern what people can watch. Images of paedophilia, for instance, are illegal — for fear they may corrupt, harm or inspire those watching.

So why are there not fears about torture, extreme violence and brutal rape inspiring inadequate viewers to emulate such depravity?

Why has the BBFC abrogated its responsibility to protect the public ‘ where material or treatment appears to us to risk harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society’?

The BBFC might argue it is taking its cue from changing social mores; that as society has become increasingly liberal and unshockable, its ratings are becoming more relaxed.

Hence we see rating deflation: video nasties become video normals, the Godfather I and II are reduced from an 18 to a 15; previously banned material is now shown on late-night TV with barely a raised eyebrow.

Corrosive

But the truth is that film doesn’t just reflect our cultural climate and moral standards — it also helps to create and shape them.

The more horrific the movies, the more desensitised British filmgoers become.

Of course, in some cases, the depiction of violence can be essential to a great film.

For example, 12 Years A Slave, the Oscar-winning work about a man kidnapped and sold into slavery in the 19th century, included a scene in which a slave girl was strapped to a stake and whipped.

It was so nauseating I couldn’t watch most of it. But, yes, it was important to convey the reality of an evil trade and its violent masters.

But this is a world away from the ‘torture porn’, desperate-toshock drivel which the BBFC has allowed on our screens.

What art is there in people being eviscerated in the most graphic way without even the fig leaf of a proper plot?

What kind of enjoyment can be derived from watching scenes of gratuitous sadism?

What corrosive effect is increasing exposure to violence having on young people’s imaginations?

When extreme violence becomes mainstream, this does not enrich our moral wellbeing — it diminishes it.

Don’t hold your breath, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if the BBFC took a stance and banned films designed only to shock, sicken, corrupt and deprave?