Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape

Young people nowadays don't know they're born . They want to watch a newly released Hollywood movie ? All they have to do is log on to their parents computer , search around for certain pirate sites and they'll be able to find the latest Hollywood blockbusters . Not so in my day where Rothesay didn't have a cinema from 1976-91 . If you wanted to watch a movie you'd need to take a ferry trip to Wemyss Bay and then a bus to Greenock . Thank goodness for a thing called a video recorder where not only could you record TV shows on to very expensive video tape but could go to a retailer - usually a corner shop that also sold alcohol - and hire a movie to watch . Strangely enough major studios weren't too keen on bringing out major releases . That said no one I knew was interested in major studio pictures , what me and my peers wanted was gore , gore and more gore and the video market was born for this era . If you're middle aged you're still able to name off the top of your head all these legendary "video nasties" you remember from your youth . This documentary featuring film makers , critics , academics and law enforcers take us back to the good old bad days where every film you watched was both stomach churning and laughable at the same time

The documentary wastes no time in showing the audience what the films that gained so much notoriety were and we see an alphabetical countdown of the 72 films that made the banned list . I was somewhat surprised as to how many of these films I saw back in the day . Perhaps even more surprisingly is how many such as ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS , THE EVIL DEAD and DRILLER KILLER actually turned up on satellite or network television years later . There's also a great nod to nostalgia and director Jake West shows the audience by tweaking he picture just how bad these videos looked on a visual level , many of which were third or fourth generation copies with the video heads clogged up with dust and the picture and sound constantly breaking up . Of course it didn't seem so bad at the time , but it's a good nostalgia trip for those who remember these days before DVDs came on the market with their cinematic picture quality and shows the youngsters today that what they were missing wasn't much

People are quick to look for scapegoats . Usually it's Jews who get the blame for everything but in Britain in the early 1980s it was video nasties . There never seemed to be a criminal case appearing in a daily tabloid involving a violent murder that wasn't solely blamed on a video nasty . Very soon the usual suspects of Mary Whitehouse and her acolytes backed up by right wing Tory MPs and the Daily Mail were running around the countryside with pitchforks and flaming torches looking for not only videotapes to burn but the obscene , subhuman degenerates who were selling them . If you're wondering why the police weren't bothered about arresting paedophile BBC personalities or members of parliament in the early 1980s that's because they were down the station getting overtime to slurp coffee while watching a video to see if it matched the criteria as an obscene film . Not only were those films on the banned list being confiscated from video stores but also any title that had a dodgy title like THE BIG RED ONE and APOCALYPSE NOW . Stop laughing at the back because in those days video retailers were being jailed or heavily fined for hiring out films on the banned list . As it turned out due to an oversight the video recordings act of 1983 wasn't actually enshrined in law so it turned out the retailers were jailed or fined illegally

This is a really interesting documentary and a warning what happens when politicians get caught up in hysteria being driven the small but noisy clique in pressure groups and the media . It also gives a window on to the world of the early 1980s . It's also probably the only documentary you will see where QUATERMASS AND THE PIT and video nasty gets mentioned in the same breath !

Everything you wanted to know about the video nasties, but was afraid to ask!

First of all, as an American reviewing this, I was not "there" when this all happened. Maybe that makes it even more enjoyable today. And it also makes watching what happened even more unbelievable and shocking, so let's get to it.

This set seems to be the be all, end all of what you need to know about video nasties all packed into a three-disc set running over thirteen hours in total. If you were a lucky person (and I wasn't) some of the early copies were sold with replica lobby cards advertising some of the nasties talked about in the film.

The set starts off with the documentary, Video Nasties; Moral Panic, censorship and videotape. While being greatly informative and interesting, I felt it was too short as the run time for this was only about 72 minutes. This could have run at least another hour without me losing any interest whatsoever, because the subject is so fascinating. It includes snippets of interviews from both pro and con camps. Mary Whitehouse, Graham Bright and others make appearances in new and archival footage, and the history of what happened with the early 80's videotape scare is made very clear, even if you weren't from England. Archival news reports as well as new footage from reporters is used to illustrate how intense this issue was in the day, and how it seems to have never really gone away entirely as censorship can still be found in movies new and old to this day in England.

While I found the documentary fascinating and should have been the meat and potatoes of this package, it is not. Surprisingly, its the extras which makes this set a must own for all collectors of horror cinema.

The extras on disc one (including two Easter eggs) are as follows. You get almost an hours worth of pre-cert video company identifications. This could be boring for some, but I enjoyed looking at them, and recognizing a few of them myself (Thorn-EMI for one). This will be more nostalgic for VHS tape collectors, and for those across the pond who have seen these often. Last on Disc one is an image gallery showing artwork from the 80 titles on the DPP's section 3 list. These are all VHS covers and look wonderful on the screen.

Disc two starts the amazing reviews and trailers of the video nasties. all original trailers are filmed with new introductions from some of the people who appeared in the documentary. Kim Newman, Marc Morris, Neil Marshall and other experts do the honors to introduce the nasties and their trailers. This portion concentrates on the 39 nasties that were successfully prosecuted in the UK courts. Plus you get another image gallery for those 39 video releases.

Disc three continues along the same path, with the guests introducing the trailers for the 33 nasties that were initially banned, but then acquitted and removed from the DPP list. Plus you get to see the image gallery for those covers as well.

All of the trailers look to be in the correct aspect ratio and seem to have been cleaned up as much as possible considering the rarity of some of them. The introductions are concise, insightful and genuinely honest about the material and you can learn what nasties seem to be the most popular, the best to watch, and which ones to avoid. To the collector though, the DPP list is a dream list to be able to collect all the nasties, good or bad, to be able to proudly say you own them all.

As I said in the beginning, this is a must own for all horror collectors. It will take you back in time with its documentary, and it will give you something to enjoy and study with its commentary and nasties trailers. I believe that this might be the final word on the subject of the video nasties And if not, surely it will rank among the most enjoyable. Go out and get yourself a copy of this now.

This was a documentary that was on my list of ones that I wanted to see for a while. I picked this up on DVD during a sale. The problem then became trying to find time to work it in. What I ended up figuring out was that I have a program where I could rip this into an MP4, to then treat it like a podcast and watch it at work. I still want to find the time to delve into all the special features as this has 2 additional discs of information.

Now something interesting here is that thanks to my good friend Duncan from the Podcast Under the Stairs, I knew most of the information. I've listened to most of his shows from the TPUTS Collective of Doing the Nasty where they were covering the films from all three lists. The introduction pulls soundbites and this theme song from this documentary. That still didn't diminish my enjoyment of this. I was born in the 1980s and in the United States, so when this was going on, I had no idea. It is quite interesting.

What I like most about this documentary is that it tells both sides of the story. We are getting great film critics like Alan Jones, Kim Newman, Julian Petley and Stephen Thrower telling their side. What is interesting then to go along with them is hearing from British filmmakers like Christopher Smith and Neil Marshall. Then on the other side of this, we hear from people who were in favor of the ban like Graham Bright, who introduced the Video Recordings Act 1984. The best documentaries try not to be completely biased so I give credit here.

This is also a well-made documentary. There is a funny part in the beginning when they talk to people who used to seek these films out. They talk about how you could tell when a gory part or nudity was coming because the quality would dip. Having grown up with VHS tapes, I do remember that. What is fun is that the quality of what we're watching mimics that. This does well in editing in footage to help show things they were talking about. I'm glad I finally sought this out. This definitely gives an interesting introduction to this period of British history and to this list of wild films, which were added for a variety of reasons.

My Rating: 8 out of 10.

Video Nasties, eh?

Anyone here remember the luridly awesome looking covers at your local fleapit video shop, the type of shop where you just knew the owner was kinda dodgy? They were gonna corrupt us, deprave us, and turn us all into thrill killing time bombs. Or so the powers that be apparently thought at the time, and decided that enough was enough as they certainly knew what was best for us all.

This documentary explores this mindset, its consequences, how it affected people and its possible effects in regards to today.

Jake West lets each camp equally give their opinion, and is more than happy to give advocates of the Video Recording Act enough rope to hang themselves by coming out with patently ludicrous views. West also highlights the unscrupulous and fraudulent methods used by advocates of the ban and Video Recordings Act, in regards to statistical data to back their claims of films being able to morally corrupt, and how said data was gotten.

The doc also features insightful comments from the likes of Neil Marshall, Christopher Smith, Kim Newman, Alan Jones and Stephen Thrower and is well worth checking out for any self respecting horror fan, particularly UK fans and particularly fans who were around at the time of the era.

It's nothing especially new- the topic has been covered in the also excellent Ban The Sadist Videos documentaries- but it's a cracking and often amusing documentary all the same.

Not much else to say really, except that it's great and is well recommended for any horror fan. 9/10, an absolute treat.

The "video nasty" era of Great Britain fell right in my lifetime arc, I was still at senior school and therefore apparently at risk of being corrupted by the sickening filth that was being trundled out on VHS. Watching this quite wonderful documentary now just confirms how bizarre, bogus and utterly ridiculous the whole thing was.

That's not to say I, or any right minded parent, would purposely seek out the likes of I Spit On Your Grave, Driller Killer et al, and then sit down our six year olds in front of the TV, "hey kids, watch this, it's really cool", but the moral panic whipped up by the press and politicians not fit to actually run the country, was at the time like some sort of hysteria. It was like The Sex Pistols saying a rude word on the television was seen as the starting point for the break down of civilised society!

Jake Wests' documentary could quite easily have been a loaded piece just arguing about freedom of choice, artistic integrity etc, in fact when you see that respected purveyors of British Horror like Chris Smith, Neil Marshall, Kim Newman and Andy Nyman are lined up for comments, it lends one to think that might be the case. However, and of course they have their own opinions and spleen venting towards the whole thing, West deals in facts, deconstructing the figures and viability of supposed research into what our youngsters were watching back then. And if you believe Tory MP Graham Bright, our dogs as well!

Led by the key player, Martin Baker who still to this day is happily awaiting for the government to try and sue him for exposing the truth, this documentary lays it down true. Complete with old footage, stills and newspaper reports, the time period is brought vividly to life (remember those top loading video recorders!), so yes there's obviously a big nostalgia factor for myself and my luminaries; Messrs Marshall etc. This shouldn't detract from the core issue of censorship and the abuse of such, making this an essential viewing for any horror film fan.

Hey! Don't get me wrong, in truth 90% of the films that made the infamous banned list were, and still are, pretty naff, where quite often the cover of the VHS was far more scary than anything in the film! But that's not the point is it? 9/10