While audiences across America enjoyed the grisly horror of Saw III, there is one man who wasn’t quite as entertained: France’s minister of culture.
After a screening on Tuesday, he expressed disgust at the film’s "violence and intolerable, incessant sadism." In response, he decided to ban minors from seeing Saw III in France, shielding it from people under 18.
This ruling is not typical of Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres; the 16-plus rating is usually slapped on mainstream films containing sex and violence, but in extreme cases (like this one, apparently), he raises the stakes to an 18-plus rating.
Our buddies over at Film Stalker make an interesting point: France released both Hostel and The Hills Have Eyes without an 18-and-up mandate. Sounds like a convenient case of picking-and-choosing—or, perhaps, the minister was just having a grumpy day.
