A “regrettable oversight”, as Arte himself describes it: On the night of January 28, 2021, the cultural broadcaster showed the splatter film “Zombie 2 – The Last Chapter” at 0:20 a.m. This horror shocker is a classic in film history, written and directed by George A. Romero, whom critics like to call the “Pope of Zombie Cinema”. The broadcast of Arte was a free TV premiere, so to speak, because for the first time in Germany the film ran uncut, i.e. in full length.
Only this free TV premiere should not have happened at all. When the film was released in German cinemas in 1987, it was already censored. The longer original version ended up on the index and was therefore banned in Germany. The reason given by the Federal Agency for the Protection of Children and Young People in the Media was that the film contained “overly explicit depictions of violence”. So how could this mistake happen to Arte?
Banned horror film gives Arte good ratings
The station itself has already published a statement and promised: “We very much regret this incident and will clarify the matter comprehensively.” One reason for the error was probably that Arte as a TV station can be received in both Germany and France – and in France the uncut version of “Zombie 2” is allowed, so it can be broadcast without any problems. In response to the error, Arte removed the film from its own media library.
Incidentally, the linear TV broadcast of the indexed version had around 110,000 viewers, and thus a ratings share of 1.8 percent in the overall market. Considerable for the time. However, the broadcast was not a real pleasure for German-speaking viewers anyway: The scenes that were once removed, which can now be seen for the first time, had a significantly poorer picture quality because, unlike the rest of the film, they were never restored. In addition, these scenes were not dubbed in German.
This content first appeared on TVSPIELFILM.de.