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"It's nothing new," Foley said. "To be honest, we think it's kind of a gross overreaction." Ant Timpson, a programmer for the New Zealand film festival, said the idea that the film's first-person perspective could be harmful was a "big leap." "It's saying that the (point of view) nature of the film mixed with the psychopathic behavior of actor Elijah Wood is more than disturbing, that it's potentially dangerous in the hands of the wrong person (that is, a non-festival goer)," Timpson said in a statement. "It's only my opinion but I simply don't agree with this decision." Maniac premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year and has received mixed reviews. The Hollywood Reporter dubbed it "essentially a sadistic art-house bloodbath," while Variety said: "This merciless work of anti-entertainment is arguably admirable for being as disturbingly disgusting as it wants to be." Elijah Wood is well known throughout New Zealand, the filming location for "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, in which the actor played a decidedly less sinister character
-- hobbit Frodo Baggins. The last film in New Zealand to be banned from general release was "The Bridge," a 2006 documentary about suicides at San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
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