Our colleagues at Twitch reported today that filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, who has directed a variety of movies from Robocop to Showgirls, was awarded a knighthood this week in his native country of The Netherlands. The honor is known as Knight in de Order of the Nederlandse Leeuw, which translates as Order of the Dutch Lion. I don't know much about Dutch tradition or history, but this particular knighthood seems to be awarded to notable entertainers and sports figures. Verhoeven's knighthood was one of over 3,500 honors given at the annual "Rain of Medals" in The Hague, and Expatica notes that most of the honorees were non-celebrities being recognized for volunteer work.

Despite the Showgirls crack, and the inevitable snark about his having directed Starship Troopers as well, Verhoeven has certainly made enough notable films to deserve becoming Sir Paul (or whatever the Dutch equivalent might be). His Dutch films Soldier of Orange, Spetters and The Fourth Man are all critically praised, and there are a lot of people out there who love Robocop and Total Recall. Verhoeven's latest film, Black Book, was released in U.S. theaters this month -- I had seen it in December at Butt-Numb-a-Thon, and despite its being shown in the middle of the night, was completely riveted to the screen. In his review for Cinematical, Ryan Stewart calls it "the best film of 2007 so far," and considers it one of Verhoeven's top films. Stewart also interviewed Verhoeven during a junket for Black Book in February.

Horror has been a sort of win-win genre in the States for over 30 years now, as slasher films and cheap gorefests have shown incredible stability at the box office. It isn't a surprise that studios were quick to do away with press screenings for the genre, since it typically performs well regardless of how critics respond. Though, not every horror film made in Hollywood is successful, and the market is often a bit flooded by too much product, but generally they're a safe bet.

The same hasn't been true for horror in the Netherlands. Since the 1992 disappointment of Rudolf van den Berg's The Johnsons, the Dutch haven't been too keen on producing films in the genre ... until now. After more than a decade, horror is making a comeback in the Netherlands, punctuated by a few special premieres at the upcoming Dutch Film Festival (Sept. 27-Oct. 6). The highlights of the series, called "Nederhorror and other strange phenomena", are Erwin van den Eshof's teenage slasher pic Doodeind (Deadend), Sl8n8 (Slaughter Night) and Horizonica. Van den Berg, whose last film was a romance starring Burt Reynolds and Julie Christie, is also returning to the genre with Exhibition, which goes into production later this year.

We'll have to wait and see if the Dutch will try exporting their new horror films to the States. While Asian horror is popular mostly in terms of being remade into Hollywood versions, European horror has a slightly better chance of getting released in the U.S., if it can follow in the footsteps of High Tension (which sold well because it was easily dubbed) and The Descent (which is British, and thus had no language issues). The last big attempt to break the American market, Dick Maas' Down, which starred Naomie Watts and was an English-language remake of Maas' The Lift, ended up going straight to video, and received little interest. Earlier this year, it was being reported that Quentin Tarantino is thinking about remaking Doodeind (likely as producer, not director), so maybe he can help bring a wave of interest.

In order to help potential immigrants pass a strict new entrance examination, the Dutch government is now putting a DVD called To the Netherlands in the study packets they give to those interested in moving to the Netherlands. Because the new test requires not only some knowledge of Dutch, but also an understanding of the country's liberal values, the DVD includes representative images of those values - and that's where the problem lies. Though they make up only a few minutes of the DVD's two hour running time, the presence of footage of topless sun bathers and two men kissing has outraged opponents of the new immigration policy, who believe those images were inserted primarily to shock Muslims, and keep them out of the country.

Needless to say, immigration officials deny the charges, and in fact have made an edited version of the film without that footage for citizen of Muslim countries where even looking at images of nude women is prohibited. Opponents counter with the fact that homosexuality is discussed on the edited discs, and believe that alone will be enough to keep some devout Muslims from emigrating.