boon23 said:
This version hardly contains any vampires. It is true.
The problem in Germany is, that DVD sells via internet are only open for movies maximim rated as R (16), but the R rating is hard to achieve in germany for movies with strong violence in them. It is also forbidden to advertise for x-rated movies (18). Still the movie companies do want to sell their DVDs to a large audience and that is why there is for almost every x-rated movie an r-rated edition.
Examples:
Blade 1 without blood
From DuskTil Dawn with hardly any vampires, no shot through the hand, etc
Die Hard 1, with no violence at all
Hannibal without the brain scene, without the gut scene, without the pigs... etc
Star Ship troopers without beheadings, with hardly any bugs.
and the list never ends...
and the best example for German editions:
DAWN OF THE DEAD- GERMAN 16 edition
this one features no close up zombies at all, no flesh eating and hardly any blood. Still the movie lengtgh is 141 minutes... now how did they do that?
Thats not complete true. :)
We have normal FSK ("Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle der Filmwirtschaft 'FSK'") ratings:
FSK 0 ("ohne Altersbeschränkung") - Without age restrictions
FSK 6 ("Freigegeben ab 6 Jahren") - Age restriction 6 and older
FSK 12 ("Freigegeben ab 12 Jahren") - Age restriction 12 and older
FSK 16 ("Freigegeben ab 16 Jahren") - Age restriction 16 and older
FSK 18 ("keine Jugendfreigabe") - not for youth (below 18 years of age)
So rated movies are allowed to be sold online on Amazon.de, but FSK 18 need age verification.
Beyond that we have such called SPIO/JK verifications, wich verificate if a movie thats not getting a FSK18 or lower, that this movie may or may not contain stuff "harmfull for youth". Sometimes movies get "indiziert" by the BPjM (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien) so the movie is said to contain content that may be harmfull for the psychological development of youth. Such movies are just allowed to be sold in a way no onbe below 18 could get it. (ie.: "Blade" and "From Dusk till Dawn") Or they may be cutted so the cutted version gets a FSK rating. (Like FSK 16 for cutted Versions fo "Blade" and "From Dusk till Dawn") Amazon don't sell such "indizierte" movies, because they have no system that it verificate that a youth could get it. ADDITIONALLY: The advertising and keeping such "indizierte" Movies/Versions is not allowed where minors could see the advertisements. So you get such Versions normally not in Stores like "MediaMarkt", but in the seperated porn section of Videotheques. ("I am just going into the porn room for getting some horror-movies, my dear.. REALLY!") Sometimes Movies get "beschlagnahmt" (seized), because some judge judges that the content is glorifying violence, against §131. (ie.: "Braindead"/"Dead Alive", "Dawn of the Dead" (1978), "Day of the Dead" (~1980), "City of the living Dead" ... ) Such movies are allowed to own personal, but it is forbidden to: sell, import, store for sell, export, produce for sell and so on. Such movies also may be cutted for sale (like FSK16 of "Dawn of the Dead", "Braindead")
Hardcore Porn automatically is "indiziert".
Fully nude people may even get FSK 0.
In Television there are rules like: "no rated 12 bevore 8 pm, no rated 16 before 22 pm and rated 18 before 23 pm and indizierte movies never" afaik (maybe the time is a bit different) So if a TV Station wants to broadcast a movie they have to verifiy that it is rated proper, or they cut it to get a proper rating. We have a individual rating system for television.
But real comparing the german FSK rating to the US MPAA rating is hard, because different measures. Like I said: If you see t*ts it even may get a children rating, but if you see blood, it may not even get an adult rating. :)
