The MPAA Strikes Again; Bans Poster for Stevan Mena’s Bereavement

Steve Barton |

Dec 5, 2010

Hot on the heels of its derailment of Dark Sky’s unrated release of Adam Green’s Hatchet II in AMC theatres this past October, the MPAA has struck another blow against our genre with its banning of the poster for Stevan Mena’s Bereavement.

Here’s what Mena told Fangoria: “The MPAA has banned the poster for depicting a child holding a weapon. It’s hugely disappointing because that poster really encapsulated the plot of the film with an intriguing image. It’s a real setback for us, considering the challenges we already face competing for attention with a small budget.”

Someone who doesn’t have to worry about budgetary constraints is The Weinstein Co., which is in the midst of an appeal against the MPAA for the NC-17 rating slapped on Blue Valentine for an oral sex scene that is eerily similar to one that also appears in Black Swan, although in the case of the latter it’s woman-on-woman versus man-on-woman as in Blue Valentine (see the LA Times for more about that). A real double standard kind of like how Piranha 3D somehow managed an R rating whereas Hatchet II did not. The MPAA’s ruling on director Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine comes down on December 8th, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on things as the Weinsteins and Cianfrance say they aren’t changing the scene, and there’s almost no precedent for a rating changed on appeal without a change in the movie.

In any event, check out the banned poster below (click it for our full image gallery), and keep it here for more on Bereavement, Mena’s sequel to the popular Malevolence (review here), which he says is “a very, very different film from the first one. The only way to describe it is like an epic horror story. It’s more in the vein of The Shining, whereas the original was kind of like Halloween or Friday the 13th. Bereavement is more of a character study than Malevolence was.” Look for the film, starring Michael Biehn, Alexandra Daddario, Brett Rickaby, Nolan Gerard Funk, and John Savage, in February, 2011; and for more visit the official Bereavement website.