I love horror films. My first memory of watching a horror movie was around the age of seven. It was the original 1959 [House on Haunted Hill] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtLw4lbgP8) starring the villainous Vincent Price. My cousin, Becca, was sleeping over that night and, after we watched the movie, my dad insisted we change the phone answering machine to the following:
Cue first 15 seconds of movie intro music-Becca and I, in our most ghostly voices, bellow “We can’t answer the phone right now…because we’re DEAD!!” My mom didn’t find it as amusing as we did but surprisingly allowed it to remain on the answering machine for at least a month.
Add to this my introduction to the vampire soap opera, Dark Shadows, at around age nine and I was officially hooked on horror.
Watching horror movies has been an integral part of my existence for the past 23 years. Living in Austin, Texas made it easy to watch obscure films that I could rent from one of the four independent video stores. I made friends with people who were equally as, if not more, obsessed with horror than I was, and I had access to cult classic horror movies screened at The Alamo Drafthouse [every Tuesday night] (https://drafthouse.com/series/terror-tuesday). It was paradise.
I took this all for granted until I moved to Beijing. I was prepared to give up my weekly big screen viewings of rare 35mm horror films, but I thought surely Beijing would have something comparable. Something independent, perhaps? It turns out they do! Well, in way.
In October, I was feeling nostalgic for some classic horror films so I searched the English language magazine dedicated to entertainment in Beijing, and came across weekly screenings of classic horror films at a small cafe. The first movie I watched at this cafe was the original 1931 Dracula. The following weekend, I convinced Gully and some Austin friends to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Chinese subtitles only added to the surreal experience of watching this movie at a tiny cafe in the heart of Beijing, China. I did some more research and came across another independent movie house that screened a few classic horror films during the month of October. This venue was larger and more of a dedicated space, but didn’t exactly enforce a quiet environment during the screening. I watched David Cronenberg’s The Brood and loved every second of it.
Unfortunately, after October, the horror movie screenings pretty much disappeared. I figured China just wasn’t that into the horror genre, so I didn’t give it much thought following the Halloween screenings. Recently, though, I started jonesin’ for horror again. The low-quality DVDs for purchase just weren’t cutting it. I also wanted to explore the Chinese horror genre.
I knew that China’s regulation of movies is strict, but I didn’t immediately consider the ramifications of these laws on the production and screening of these films in mainland China. After doing some research, I came across the specific restrictions enforced by the PRC State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television:
“Content that mixes murder, violence, terror, monsters, and spirits; whose value orientation reverses true and false, good and evil, and beauty and ugliness, or which confuses the basic nature of justice and injustice; played-up, detailed depictions of crimes and the details of their commission, or exposure of special investigative techniques; particularly offensive killing, gore, violence, drug abuse, and gambling; abuse of prisoners, tortured confessions; excessively shocking visuals, dialog, background music, or sound effects.”
Basically, everything that characterizes a good horror movie is banned. So what does this result in? Either Chinese film directors making watered-down psychological thrillers with none of the above content, or creating a confusing and unconvincing ending that explains supernatural experiences with external forces, which are often drug-induced. What I’ve learned from reading the various descriptions of these Chinese horror films is to just skip the ending.
The funniest part of this heavy censorship is the ridiculously easy access people living in China have to foreign horror films, either through downloading sites or through DVDs for purchase. Something that I didn’t realize while doing my research on censorship in China was the enormous impact it has on the success or demise of foreign films. An [article in Variety magazine] (http://variety.com/2015/film/news/china-box-office-boom-continues-1201594372/) discusses China’s surging film market and accompanying box office sales, despite currency devaluation. This isn’t a surprise, as studies have shown people tend to go to the movies more during times of economic recession. Personally, I think it’s one of the best forms of escapism.
For now, the future of legit horror film production in China is bleak. On the bright side, this is 2016 and access to almost any movie ever made is just a few clicks and a download away. Until I return to the land where “murder, violence, terror, and monsters” are condoned, if not encouraged, in film, then I will have to make due with what’s available.