Audition

If you like watching extreme Asian cinema, PhD student Emma Pett would be grateful if you could take the time to fill in a questionnaire that is part of her research project on audience responses to extreme films.

This research is the focus of a PhD which she is conducting at Aberystwyth University, supervised by Professor Martin Barker and Dr Kate Egan, both of whom have researched and written extensively on issues of censorship, the video nasties, and horror films. The research has been funded as part of a collaborative arrangement between the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The idea of these collaborations is to enable high level research to be conducted, which is guaranteed to be of a sufficient quality to be of relevance to a public body like the BBFC. This means that Emma Pett will have the opportunity to present her research findings to a meeting of the examiners at the BBFC, once they are complete. But it also means that the research is being designed and conducted entirely independently, following best research practices.

Current BBFC guidelines recognise that audiences of horror films like to be frightened and shocked, and for this reason they try to avoid cutting or rejecting extreme horror films which are classified ’18′. However, the BBFC argues that this has to be balanced with legal restrictions and in particular with requirements relating to the presentation of sexual violence. The research Emma Pett has done so far suggests that it is sometimes difficult for them to make a decision about whether or not to cut a scene from an extreme horror film. And this is because they are not sure how the likely audience might respond to it. This is one of the reasons that they have entered into this collaboration – they recognise that they need more detailed knowledge of the audiences for films of this kind as a basis for their decision-making. By taking part in this research project you will not only be making a huge contribution to this particular research project. You will also be enabling Emma Pett to present the BBFC with valuable evidence about the viewing experiences of the actual audiences of Asian Extreme cinema.

For more info and to fill in the questionnaire, go to the Asian Extreme Cinema Research website.