WHAT THE PAPERS SAID

"[NBK] has triggered off a barrage of hate and hell-fire... a series of copycat murders have outraged police and sparked off calls for a review of America's system of film censorship. According to detectives, soon after the release of Natural Born Killers baby-faced Eric Elliott, 16, teamed up with 22-year-old Lewis Gilbert. They then started writing their own script... in blood."

Today

"The risk that it will send people who see it out on the streets in a bout of murderous triumphalism, like the two young psychopaths in it, is tiny... A far greater risk is closing down the minds of people altogether by forbidding them to see what others disapprove of."

Alexander Walker, London Evening Standard

"I find it difficult to imagine any artistic argument to justify the inclusion of so many fatalities."

Frank Cook MP, Standard

"Some may have the effontery to defend this film as `Art', but if so it is art without beauty, art empty of moral content, art with a terryfying power to corrupt the vulnerable and the weak. If ever a film deserved to be banned, this is it."

Leader in Daily Mail

"Why this film MUST be banned from Britain"

Page 1 headline, Daily Mail

"Woody Harrelson was brilliant in his comic role as a barman in Cheers. But he should know better than to get involved in a film so gratuitously violent... especially as his own father was jailed for life for murdering a judge."

Letter in Today

"Pirate videos of the shocking movie NBK - blamed for at least 10 copycat murders - are being sold to schoolchildren ... Student Chris said: `My mate told me his dad got the videos from America.' Chris's furious mum Angela last night said: `It's outrageous that children can buy copies of this horrific video at school. I won't let Chris watch it. I'm worried it will warp his mind.' "

The Sun

"Elizabeth Stone, who divorced the Academy-award winning director 18 months ago after 12 years of marriage, is convinced the film's appalling violence is the result of his anger at their marriage split. `All the lines of dialogue are things he yelled at me. It's my divorce up there on the screen.' "

Mail on Sunday