By Ali Ikram
It is billed as a supernatural tale of mental illness, bondage, incest, revenge and explicit graphic violence - not exactly family viewing right?
Definitely not says Family First.
The have already called for the film Wound to be banned ahead of its scheduled debut at next month's Incredibly Strange Film Fest, and they haven't even seen it.
David Blyth's directorial debut Angel Mine raised the ire of social conservatives back in 1978. The film received the rating “contains punk cult material".
Fast forward 30 years, what's changed? Well if the hubbub around Mr Blyth's latest offering Wound is anything to go by…not a lot.
“It has explicit graphic violence, bondage, a pregnant woman being hit on the stomach to induce a miscarriage,” says Bob McCoskrie from Family First.
Mr McCoskrie admits he has not seen the film.
“I've seen the promo material that's available but I don't particularly want to see it," he says.
Now I have seen Wound and it's certainly not a first date movie, while the heroine does get revenge she later suffers the indignity of giving birth to a bizarre two headed creature.
As you might have gathered while the violence is confronting it is intended to be symbolic. Mr Blyth says Wound is a comment on sexual abuse in New Zealand and a heartless way he says ACC reforms have harmed the victims.
"I like to think that my film is about the horror of the everyday I see around me, an increasingly uncaring society and it's all put down to ‘oh we don't have the money to spend but we have to spend the money on our vulnerable women and children’,” says Mr Blyth.
Perhaps the one thing that has changed between 1978 and today is that while Angel Mine was funded by the Film Commission, Mr Blyth believes today's commission would not have touched either Angel Mine or Wound with a barge pole.
In the meantime, a decision from the censor’s office on the film is expected by the end of the week.
3 News