If you didn’t catch the trailer for Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween on Yahoo! the other day, it’s too late. The trailer has been taken down by order of the MPAA, who has declared it too violent. The trailer will now be reclassified as a ‘Yellow Tag’ trailer – it will be back online soon, but only available at night.
This seems like a stupid move – if I am right, all you have to do is set your system clock to a certain time and trick the trailer into thinking it’s night where you’re surfing. But even if I’m wrong, that footage will be snatched a disseminated across the web in minutes. The kids the MPAA is trying to protect will see it anyway.
There’s been some edginess in the horror community following the whole brouhaha with the MPAA and After Dark Films in regards to the Captivity posters. Will the MPAA, who have been getting notably easy when it comes to extreme violence in films (they demanded no cuts in 300, for instance), crack down after getting punk’d by Courtney Solomon? Apparently Eli Roth is pissed at him right now because he’s worried that Hostel II is going to feel Captivity’s heat.
That said, I was actually surprised at how graphic that trailer seemed to be when I caught it last week, so I don’t think we can tell one way or another if this is a legit MPAA ruling or a bit of backlash.