[Daemonia]

I've emailed the BBFC expressing my disdain and asking how they can justify it.

Hi there

I have just read that the recently submitted Inferno for DVD and Blu-ray has been cut. The cut concerns a scene where a cat eats a mouse. I'm a little confused as to why this has been cut. I understand that you apply the Cinematograph Act (Animals) to home video presentations (even though there is no law that says you have to, merely a policy set out by yourselves - but that's a policy, it's not a law, the law applies only to films for public exhibition, I believe). Now this law is in respect of the mistreatment of animals in the course of making a film. However, how is filming a cat doing what it would naturally do in the wild (and why some cat owners buy a cat in the first place) considered animal cruelty? A cat would, instinctively, capture a mouse and kill it - often tormenting it also in the process. Should the cat be charged with animal cruelty or the filmmakers?

I'm baffled. I think most people agree that the barbarity and severity of the abuse heaped on animals in some of the Italian cannibal films and the so-called Mondo films should be excised - but an animal killing an animal when it would do so in its natural environs anyway? That's just daft, in my opinion. A cut like this will severely damage sales of this niche title for a niche label that relies on its fanbase - a fanbase that, as you know, are very critical of censored works, especially from a director as well-regarded as Dario Argento.

Could you please explain to me the rationale that governed the reasoning behind making a ridiculous censorship cut like this.

I look forward to hearing from you.