After the whole Captivity billboard incident that happened in L.A. a few weeks ago, it seems the MPAA is still riding high on a bit of a power trip, determined to re-establish their control over movie marketing materials. This week they have censored promotional content for not one but two movies: Rob Zombie’s Halloween, and the upcoming British horror comedy Severance.

That’s right, despite the fact that we all saw the trailer for the Halloween remake premiere over at Yahoo!, apparently the MPAA decided afterwards that it was too violent and subsequently had it yanked from the web. They requested that any sites hosting the file restrict its viewing to between the hours of 9 pm and 4 am… as if that means anything in cyberspace. (The link to the trailer from the Halloween official site still seems to work however.) But that’s not all. The upcoming horror comedy Severance has been forced to remove an offensive image from their website. The MPAA objected to the picture of a business man with a bloody stump from a severed head spurting blood in a cartoony and comedic way. I gotta say, this is getting a little bit ridiculous. I sided with the MPAA on the Captivity issue, mainly because it was a billboard in a public place where people could not avoid it. But what makes them think they can now start policing the internet? I think it’s safe to assume that anyone going to the website for Severance knows what they are getting into. And the whole idea of time restrictions on a movie trailer is applying a late night TV standard to a medium that has virtually no boundaries. It just doesn’t make sense. Besides, it’s not like the internet doesn’t have a million other more disturbing things that are more easily accessible anyway!