Chinese scary movie fans are really scared this time when the state censor -- the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) -- banned last month all horror or supernatural films from sale.
"It's sort of like The Mummy Returns (2001)," says a fan.
Last year, when the GAPP banned the popular Death Note books and films, the movie goers were reminded of The Mummy, the 1999 film about the awakening of a being from a bygone age who sets out to wreak havoc.
Just like the zombies in Dawn of the Dead (1978), the ban will only make more illegal horror movies keep on coming, whatever the GAPP can throw at them, says Yang Yang, the creator and editor of the Horror Paradise fan website.
The 21-year-old student at Beijing City University says he and millions of his Chinese peers find the thrill of a good fright just too much fun to let the censors spoil it.
"The ban won't make much difference," says Yang. "We'll just download out movies from the Internet."
Yang thinks of the ban as irrational. "Don't they remember that they're supposed to be promoting the concept of letting one hundred flowers bloom in the garden? " he says rhetorically.
