China’s horror-film curbs rebound as directors find ways to fill screens with sex and gore and cynical audiences lap it up
Civic engagement the loser in cat-and-mouse game between censors and filmmakers eager to satisfy audiences’ appetite for movies with paranormal themes
Part of the fun of watching horror films about paranormal events is to see humble mortals outwit their ethereal adversaries. With ghost movies in China, that suspense is doubled, as filmmakers continue to appease the country’s notoriously rigorous censors.
China’s film regulation apparatchiks have, in recent years, allowed directors some leeway to stray from party dogma: the “gratuitous consumption of commodities” and excessively saccharine romances are now deemed tolerable. But officials remain firm in other aspects of ideological doctrine.
Under the recently enacted Film Industry Promotion Law, films that “promote cults and superstition” are banned because they go against the supposedly modern, materialist world view of the People’s Republic. Yet young, thrill-seeking audiences in China can’t get enough of such films.
With the summer holidays coming up, home-grown Chinese horror films will soon be everywhere: three films have already appeared this month, with three more set for release this week though July.