The government shouldn't be in the business of banning George Romero horror movies

the Dead,” the latest ultra-gory movie by U.S. cult horror film director George Romero. This is an extraordinarily stupid thing to do, and supporters of free speech should be up in arms over it. President Viktor Yushchenko has his own problems now, but he should take a minute to come down hard on the Ministry’s decision.

The “expert” official commission which banned the movie is convinced that “Land of the Dead” is “not just another zombie flick.” Rather, with its scenes of cannibalism, it’s calibrated to traumatize Ukrainians. “The memory of the Holodomor of 1933 is still fresh in our society,” said that member, Maksym Rostotsky, who also heads the TV Viewers’ Association of Ukrainian Parents, a watchdog group. “A movie with scenes of people being eaten alive should not be given a go ahead.”

But if vague connections to dark Ukrainian history are now enough to get movies banned here, then the Culture Ministry will have a mandate to ban any cultural product that has wars, political repression, dictators, the Kremlin, Polish landowners or secret policemen in it.

Just as ominous is that some members of the film commission are asking the Interior Ministry to prosecute the film’s Ukrainian distributor, Swiss citizen Bohdan Batruch. That’s an outrage, and if President Yushchenko is serious about leading a liberal society, he ought to speak out about it.

One of the things about censorship is that one person’s cultural outrage is another’s finely wrought work of art. Romero is no James Joyce, but “Land of the Dead” has been lauded by reviewers for, among other things, its black humor and its parody of contemporary U.S. societal divisions. It’s dumb to deem it pornography. Meanwhile, Kyiv movie theaters constantly show super-violent Hollywood schlock, to no protest from the Culture Ministry. Who’s to decide what’s licit and what’s not?

The answer should be: no one. Free speech rights should be sacred and near-absolute. The government should get its hand off of Batruch, and off the zombies.