VIDEO NASTIES – An Introduction

Published on: 9th August, 2009

VIDEO NASTIES - An Introduction  | read this item

Related News

• VIDEO NASTIES – Absurd
• INTERVIEW – ENZO G. CASTELLARI talks The Bronx Warriors
• NEWS – Gory Images From Piranha 3D
• NEWS – Dr. Gore’s Funhouse Launches Cult Trailer Website and Forum

With the dawn of the home video in the late seventies, audiences were suddenly subjected to movies that they would otherwise be unaware of. Whereas previously, fans of sleaze would have had to scour the backstreets of Times Square or head out of a derelict drive-in to witness scenes of splatter and carnage, both VHS and Betamax allowed the new wave of low budget filmmakers to bring their blood-soaked products to the attention of larger audiences.  And with the recent advancements of prosthetics and the new crop of gifted young special effects artists, overzealous producers and directors realized that the only way to compete with the major studios was by offering the viewer something they would not normally see in a respectable motion picture. Thus, rape, decapitation, disembowelment, cannibalism and all other manner of deviant behaviour were suddenly thrust upon the naïve customer. In any local video store, the shelves would be flooded with various excessive exploitation flicks, many of which boasted outrageous titles and offensive covers.

Whilst this new technical advancement caused some issues in various countries around the world, it was in the United Kingdom that the furor would be most notable. For a few short years after the introduction of the video cassette recorder, the viewer was entitled to watch any movie in the privacy of their own home without having to adhere to any kind of censorship regulation. No films were subjected to classification for release on VHS or Betamax and so the responsible viewer was free to use their own judgment on what kind of material they would be willing to watch. During this time, many independent filmmakers realized that the easiest way to break into the film industry was by making a low budget horror, as these would only require a small cast and crew, the most expensive aspect being the special effects. And so, as families began to purchase VHS and Betamax players (the latter of which soon lost the bidding war), they were suddenly introduced to such questionable material as The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue, Prisoner of the Cannibal God and Human Experiments.

Whilst the existence of such ‘filth’ had been brought to the attention of the government, there was one film in particular that would be responsible for the rather draconian reaction that would soon follow. In 1982, VIPCO published a full-page advert of their latest release, The Driller Killer, which depicted a screaming victim having a drill driven through his forehead, his face awash with blood. Angry parents, previously unaware of such barbaric and gruesome material, flooded the Advertising Standards Agency with complaints, forcing the organization to react. Another distributor, Go Video, would try to stir up publicity for their latest release, the disturbing Italian shocker Cannibal Holocaust, by sending an anonymous letter of complaint to moral spokeswoman Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association. Whitehouse had become notorious during the sixties for her Clean Up TV campaign and Go Video felt that she would be the perfect voice to help bring their product to mass attention. Unfortunately, however, her reaction was far more severe than they had hoped and soon she had launched a defensive attack against the makers of various morally questionable trash, resulting in many of the movies being labeled ‘Video Nasties.’

The Daily Mail, renowned for their scare tactics, jumped on the bandwagon and publically expressed their distaste for this sudden onslaught of disturbing films, most notably with their article ‘How high street horror is invading the home,’ published in May 1982. Other tabloid papers soon followed suit, blaming many of these movies for the breakdown of society. The BBFC (British Board of Film Censors), under the leadership of James Ferman, were given full authority to classify, censor or outright ban any video they wished. Ferman, believing himself to be some type of crusade, reportedly took great delight in re-cutting those movies that he considered inappropriate. Whitehouse’ influence soon reached the House of Commons and a new bill was introduced, Video Recordings Act 1984, which would come into force on September 1 1985. This would mean that not only would ever video would have to be passed through the BBFC (now promoted to the title of British Board of Film Classification) and edited accordingly, but also any video already available would also have to be submitted for classification, with each distributor being given just three years for all videos to meet the requirements.

These new rules resulted in any individual or company to possess a video that had been passed through the appropriate classification would be liable for prosecution. One famous example was David Hamilton Grant, whose company World of Video 2000 had released a print of Romano Scavolini’s low budget splatter Nightmare (which had been re-titled Nightmare in a Damaged Brain) that had been a full minute longer than the version that had been approved by the BBFC. Grant was found guilty and sentenced to eighteen months in jail, although he was finally released after six. Both the government and the police, who considered themselves heroes after footage of them carrying bags of confiscated videos from home raids were shown on the news, waged a war against the Video Nasties, whilst the BBFC and Whitehouse (with the assistance of the tabloids) fueled the fire further with their fear mongering. In one instance, during a raid in Manchester, officers seized a copy of a Dolly Parton musical entitled The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, which they believed to be pornographic.

Perhaps the one film that caused the most animosity from both the government and the censors was The Evil Dead, a low budget horror made by a young first-time director. One scene in particular, which involved a girl being raped by a tree branch, resulted in the film constantly being referenced during trials and used as an example of how twisted filmmakers have become. The witch-hunt had become so severe that various films were dubbed Video Nasties and banned with no justification (often Ferman would overrule his fellow censors without giving adequate reason), and so relatively tame and bloodless offerings such as Jean-Claude Lord’s slasher Visiting House (which co-starred William Shatner), Dario Argento’s Inferno and Dead & Buried (which featured Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’s Jack Albertson). The situation became so ridiculous that the BBFC began banning films simply due to their title, with six movies referencing cannibalism (Cannibal Apocalypse, Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Man, Cannibal Terror and Prisoner of the Cannibal God) and, in the wake of the controversy caused by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, any movie with a tool in the title (such as Axe, The Driller Killer and The Toolbox Murders) making the list.

There were two types of films in particular that would become a constant target of both the BBFC and the media – slashers and Italian-produced shockers. With 1980’s Friday the 13th having raised the bar with what can be shown in front of the camera with cutting away, the slasher film had become something of a notorious and despised subgenre, and no fewer than a dozen would make their way onto the list, including Night School (which was released under the title Terror Eyes and initially released in 1983 with cuts), The Burning (one specific sequence, commonly referred to as the ‘raft massacre,’ was the main reason for its removal from the shelves) and Don’t Go in the Woods (an extremely low budget and inoffensive movie that may have contained moments of gore but were executed in rather unconvincing ways). The Italian films that would come under fire were commonly of the cannibal or zombie genre, such as Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery. Sometimes, certain movies would fall under both categories, with Joe D’Amato’s The Anthropophagous Beast and Mario Bava’s Twitch of the Death Nerve (released as Bay of Blood) being of Italian origin.

Whilst only seventy-two films would appear on the list at one point or another, there were countless others that would be heavily censored or banned, yet not labeled as a Video Nasty. Both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist were withdrawn for their so-called shocking content, whilst Sam Peckinpah’s rape/revenge drama Straw Dogs was banned, despite receiving critical acclaim. The notorious Christmas slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night was refused a certificate upon its submission in 1984 (shortly after its distributors had removed it from its theatrical run in the USA after heavy protests from parents and watchdogs) and has to this date never been presented to the BBFC again. Fulci’s deeply unpleasant giallo/slasher The New York Ripper caused such an outcry that all copies were ordered to be removed from the country, although this would never be classed as a Video Nasty. Now, a quarter of a century later, the effects of the Video Nasty debacle can still be felt in the United Kingdom, with some films still unavailable uncut, whilst others (such as Luigi Batzella’s The Beast in Heat and Cesare Canevari’s Gestapo’s Last Orgy) have never been released in the United Kingdom.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Readers Comments