A horror-comedy film that has been a worldwide cult hit and has already played in Australia has been effectively banned by the Classification Board.

Father's Day, an over-the-top revenge fantasy from the infamous Troma horror stable and written and directed by an emerging Canadian collective called Astron-6, was refused classification on October 31 by Australian Classification, the government agency responsible for the classification of films, publications and computer games.

A scene from Father's Day, which you probably won't get to see.

The film was assessed as RC (refused classification), meaning it cannot legally be screened or distributed in Australia in its present form, despite the fact it was granted an exemption from classification earlier this year to allow it to screen in a horror festival in Sydney.

Father's Day features a character with the evocative name of Fuchman enacting revenge on sexual abusers, and features a scene in which he bites off another man's penis. In the words of Adam Brooks, one of the five partners in Astron-6, it features "brutal mayhem, dad rape, maple syrup, friendship" and "extreme gore, nudity, and general gross-out stuff".