Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Video Nasties
For those of you outside the UK, you may not be familiar with the Video Nasty phenomena we grew up with during the early to mid-80’s. Film censors had been in place for cinematic movies since the dawn of the medium, many early horror films suffering cuts or outright bans. It was the advent of video that created the problem for the government that violent movies could be watched by anybody in their own homes. It also created a market for a whole host of low budget exploitation movies that had no place on a cinema screen. Suddenly the horror industry blossomed and anybody could get a movie released, each one trying to outdo the other in terms of on screen violence, blood and guts. A worrying trend that the powers that be had to put a stop to, as the modern horror film became THE folk devil of its time.
Lurid covers drew attention to themselves, “Driller Killer” with a man having a drill thrust through his head and “I Spit on Your Grave” with its cover claim “This woman has just cut, chopped, broken and burned five men beyond recognition” brought the wrong kind of attention leading to something approaching a moral panic. Suddenly new legislation led to the creation of the BBFC whereby every title had to be withdrawn and reclassified, some of them becoming illegal resulting in numerous police raids. Video shop owners in 1984 were roundly raided and targeted by police in a not too dissimilar fashion to how terror suspects are targeted today.
This led to a number of movies, most notably “Last House on the Left”, “Evil Dead”, “Zombie Flesh Eaters” and “The Anthropophagous Beast” becoming labelled ‘Video Nasties’ and banished from our shelves. Others were seized and released in drastically cut versions, especially director Lucio Fulci who’s movies “House by the Cemetery”, “The Beyond” and “City of the Living Dead” suffered pre-cuts by cheap video labels who couldn’t afford the liassons with the BBFC, “Cemetery” in particular suffering some 7 minutes of cuts rendering it almost suitable to receive a PG certificate.
It also resulted in some excellent movies coming under scrutiny and cases of mistaken identity as Police Officers who knew little about these movies seized titles like “The Big Red One” and “The Last Little Whorehouse in Texas”. Tobe Hooper’s “The Funhouse”, a fairly tame slasher flick was banned, some thinking it was mistaken for “The Last House on Dead End Street”, another American gore movie also known as “The Fun House”, that escaped the DPP’s list. Dario Argento’s spectacular “Tenebrae” also found itself undeservedly in hot water, Mario Bava’s incredible nod to “Ten Little Indians”, “Twitch of the Death Nerve” and peculiar brit sci-fi flick “Xtro” were lumped in with dross such as “Don’t Look in the Basement” and “House on the Edge of the Park”. Suddenly the boom time of horror movies was under threat. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. All this did was make awful films appealing and an underground trade in bootleg videos that actually CREATED a crime!
A brief relapse of the nasty era materialised in the early to mid 90’s when The Daily Mail, rather tastelessly, tried to blame a child murder on kids watching “Child’s Play 3”. This led to quality movies such as “Man Bites Dog”, “Reservoir Dogs”, “Menace To Society” and “One False Move” standing in limbo as the BBFC went a bit weak at the knees. However common sense prevailed and we can now see the likes of “Dogs” and “Natural Born Killers” on network TV uncut.
Of course most of these movies are completely legal and suitable now, with no ill effects to society, no rampaging maniacs or breakdown of moral values. The likes of “Evil Dead”, “Driller Killer”, “Zombie Flesh Eaters” and “Snuff” are now available uncut, with cuts made to release such as “Cannibal Holocaust”, “Cannibal Ferox” and “Island of Death”, many people realising most of these films are crap after all and not worth the fuss of not seeing. To sum up the ridiculous nature of some of these so-called nasties, alien flick “Contamination” was released with the proud banner ‘Previously Banned’ emblazoned on the front cover, barely masking the accompanying ‘15’ certificate. Makes the whole thing seem like a complete waste of time, government intervention eh! Until next time folks…
“Beware the Moon and stay on the path…
Lurid covers drew attention to themselves, “Driller Killer” with a man having a drill thrust through his head and “I Spit on Your Grave” with its cover claim “This woman has just cut, chopped, broken and burned five men beyond recognition” brought the wrong kind of attention leading to something approaching a moral panic. Suddenly new legislation led to the creation of the BBFC whereby every title had to be withdrawn and reclassified, some of them becoming illegal resulting in numerous police raids. Video shop owners in 1984 were roundly raided and targeted by police in a not too dissimilar fashion to how terror suspects are targeted today.
This led to a number of movies, most notably “Last House on the Left”, “Evil Dead”, “Zombie Flesh Eaters” and “The Anthropophagous Beast” becoming labelled ‘Video Nasties’ and banished from our shelves. Others were seized and released in drastically cut versions, especially director Lucio Fulci who’s movies “House by the Cemetery”, “The Beyond” and “City of the Living Dead” suffered pre-cuts by cheap video labels who couldn’t afford the liassons with the BBFC, “Cemetery” in particular suffering some 7 minutes of cuts rendering it almost suitable to receive a PG certificate.
It also resulted in some excellent movies coming under scrutiny and cases of mistaken identity as Police Officers who knew little about these movies seized titles like “The Big Red One” and “The Last Little Whorehouse in Texas”. Tobe Hooper’s “The Funhouse”, a fairly tame slasher flick was banned, some thinking it was mistaken for “The Last House on Dead End Street”, another American gore movie also known as “The Fun House”, that escaped the DPP’s list. Dario Argento’s spectacular “Tenebrae” also found itself undeservedly in hot water, Mario Bava’s incredible nod to “Ten Little Indians”, “Twitch of the Death Nerve” and peculiar brit sci-fi flick “Xtro” were lumped in with dross such as “Don’t Look in the Basement” and “House on the Edge of the Park”. Suddenly the boom time of horror movies was under threat. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. All this did was make awful films appealing and an underground trade in bootleg videos that actually CREATED a crime!
A brief relapse of the nasty era materialised in the early to mid 90’s when The Daily Mail, rather tastelessly, tried to blame a child murder on kids watching “Child’s Play 3”. This led to quality movies such as “Man Bites Dog”, “Reservoir Dogs”, “Menace To Society” and “One False Move” standing in limbo as the BBFC went a bit weak at the knees. However common sense prevailed and we can now see the likes of “Dogs” and “Natural Born Killers” on network TV uncut.
Of course most of these movies are completely legal and suitable now, with no ill effects to society, no rampaging maniacs or breakdown of moral values. The likes of “Evil Dead”, “Driller Killer”, “Zombie Flesh Eaters” and “Snuff” are now available uncut, with cuts made to release such as “Cannibal Holocaust”, “Cannibal Ferox” and “Island of Death”, many people realising most of these films are crap after all and not worth the fuss of not seeing. To sum up the ridiculous nature of some of these so-called nasties, alien flick “Contamination” was released with the proud banner ‘Previously Banned’ emblazoned on the front cover, barely masking the accompanying ‘15’ certificate. Makes the whole thing seem like a complete waste of time, government intervention eh! Until next time folks…
“Beware the Moon and stay on the path…
