It probably is possible to argue that this isn’t a censorship issue but two Hollywood films face being indefinitely shelved (via) because the issues they deal with are a timely echo of the recent events at Virginia Tech.

Based on the events of a 1991 tragedy in which a Chinese physics student opened fire in two buildings on the University of Iowa campus, Dark Matter stars Meryl Streep as a university patron who tries to befriend the troubled student. Like Cho, the student was a loner who felt persecuted. He embarked on his killing spree after being told that his doctoral dissertation paper would not be chosen for a prize. One of his victims was the prizewinner and he finally turned the gun on himself.

And then there is The Killer Within, a documentary which traces the tragic story of Bob Bechtel who, at the age of 22, went berserk at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in the 1950s after being severely bullied.

Distributors are refusing to touch either of these films because - let’s face it - no-one really wants to understand what leads to tragedies like these when it’s easier to just blame a film not enough people have heard of and wait for the next Michael Bay blockbuster to turn up instead.

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