A film described as "gay zombie porn" has been banned from screening the Melbourne International Film Festival by the Australian Censor.
L.A. Zombie features wound penetration and implied sex with corpses.
It's the first film to be banned from the Melbourne festival in seven years, the last being Larry Clark's Ken Park in 2003.
According to a report in The Age, the censor's letter says the decision to ban the film is based ''on information submitted by the festival, inspection of the film and the classification history of the director'', who is Canadian provocateur Bruce LaBruce.
L.A. Zombie will have its world premiere next week at Locarno, Switzerland. The Melbourne festival would have been its second-only public screening.
The film follows an alien zombie who roams the streets of Los Angeles in search of dead bodies and gay sex, an activity that reveals a gift of ''shagging'' the deceased back to life.
There are full-frontal nude scenes and erect penises. The zombies have cucumber-shaped penises which are clearly prosthetic.
The festival's director Richard Moore has told The Age that LaBruce's blend of sex and violence can be confronting, "but I would argue that within the context of the festival, it is nonsensical and patronising to not allow people to decide what they want to see.''
