If you’re on the hunt for a movie more violent than even the blood-soaked Deadpool and Wolverine, keep your eyes peeled for Kraven the Hunter. The first R-rated entry in Sony’s PG-13 Spider-Man Universe, the new movie from filmmaker J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year and Triple Frontier) received the R rating for “strong bloody violence, and language,” according to the American Motion Picture Association. While Marvel Studios’ first R-rated movie earned an R due to its “strong bloody violence and language throughout, gore and sexual references,” Kraven‘s kills are stronger, bloodier, and gorier, per the British Board of Film Classification.
The BBFC’s official ratings site has classified a new Kraven the Hunter trailer with an 18 rating, or the equivalent of an NC-17 in the US. (While the MPA allows people under 17 to see an R-rated movie if they’re accompanied by a parent or guardian, no one aged 17 and under is admitted to an NC-17 movie.) Similarly, no one younger than 18 may see 18-rated content in a cinema.
The UK ratings board’s equivalent of the MPA’s R rating is the 15 rating, which restricts content to those age 15 and over. To compare, Deadpool & Wolverine and Joker: Folie à Deux received R ratings in the US, but are rated 15 in the UK. Dev Patel’s Monkey Man — rated R in the US for “strong bloody violence throughout, language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug use” — was also rated 18 for its strong bloody violence.
According to the BBFC, “portrayals of sadistic violence” are among the reasons a film may receive the 18 rating. Addition reasons listed include material containing “rape or other non-consensual sexually violent behavior … drug misuse or suicide/self-harm where the portrayal is sufficiently detailed, glamorized, or promotional as to represent a non-trivial harm risk” to individuals and society.
In the red band Kraven trailers, the titular hunter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) slaughters people like animals: he stabs his enemies in the neck, slices their throats, kills mercenaries with machetes and bear traps, impales them with spears and bolts fired from a crossbow, and, at one point, bites into a man’s face, rips his nose off, and then spits it out of his bloodied teeth.
“I’m extremely proud of the work we have all done together on Kraven,” Chandor said after the thrice-delayed movie was pushed to December. “When the movie finally gets its chance to be seen, I think it’s gonna surprise the hell out of a lot of people.”
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Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Bullet Train) leads a cast that includes Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) as the voodoo priestess Calypso, Fred Hechinger (Gladiator II) as Kraven’s half-brother, Dmitri Smerdyakov/the Chameleon, Russell Crowe (The Pope’s Exorcist) as Kraven’s father, Nikolai Kravinoff, Christopher Abbott (Chandor’s A Most Violent Year) as the Foreigner, and Alessandro Nivola (Boston Strangler) as the mutated Rhino, a half-man, half-rhinoceros hybrid. Kraven the Hunter opens only in theaters December 13.