Reality Killers is a horror film in which a man obsessed with violent ‘snuff’ videos, featuring people being abused, tortured and killed, goes on to commit his own similar crimes.

Reality Killers consists of a series of short vignettes in which people, including women and children, are killed. In some cases, acts of sadistic violence follow or involve sexual behaviour and nudity. The protagonist acts as a narrator, relishing in the violence and endorsing the actions of the killers. Women, in particular, are portrayed as either sexual objects to be abused or as predatory killers themselves. Potentially harmful attitudes, such as the suggestion that victims and perpetrators ‘enjoy’ violence, and that women are presented primarily as sex objects or predatory killers, are not clearly challenged, nor is there a narrative counterbalance to the sustained focus on sadism.

As a last resort, the BBFC may find content unsuitable for classification, in line with the objective of preventing non-trivial harm risks to potential viewers and, through their behaviour, to society. In our Classification Guidelines we state that this may occur ‘where a central concept is unacceptable, such as a sustained focus on rape, other non-consensual sexually violent behaviour or sadistic violence.’ The guidelines also state that we consider ‘whether the availability of the material to the age group concerned would run contrary to broad public opinion’.

The BBFC considered whether the film’s issues could be adequately addressed through intervention such as cuts. As Reality Killers consists almost entirely of scenes of sadistic violence and abuse, we determined that cuts would not effectively address these issues. The film, when taken as a whole, transgresses BBFC Classification Guidelines and policy, and we believe that its classification even at 18 would run contrary to broad public opinion. The BBFC therefore found Reality Killers to be unsuitable for classification.