George A. Romero, the director of “Zombie 2: The Final Chapter”, 2016 in Lucca, Italy.
Photo: Getty Images, Laura Lezza. All rights reserved.
An indexed version of Zombie 2: The Final Chapter was shown on Arte “due to a regrettable oversight”. The horror film is notorious for its explicit depiction of violence.
“Zombie 2 – The Last Chapter” was directed by George A. Romero and was originally released in 1987 in German cinemas. At that time, however, only a heavily censored version of the splatter film was shown. Because the original was indexed by the Federal Agency for Child and Youth Media Protection due to its brutal depiction of violence. The film also received mostly negative reviews. Still, for the director, it was “the zombie version of ‘Gone With the Wind'”.
“We deeply regret this incident”
The film was shown in full on Arte last Friday (January 28, 2022) “due to a regrettable oversight”. This was partly because the broadcast of this version is allowed in France. When the error came to light, the strip was removed “immediately” from the Arte media library. The broadcaster also promised: “We very much regret this incident and will clarify the matter comprehensively so that such a mistake does not repeat itself.”
The scenes of the original version differed significantly from the rest of the film. The passages in question were not synchronized and had a significantly poorer picture and sound quality. When the film was shown on Arte at 12:20 a.m. on the night of January 28, 110,000 people watched.