Ban the Sadist Videos!

Ban the Sadist Videos! (2005)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Very good documentary from David Gregory taking a look at the 1980s in Britain as the start of the decade saw a major boom in the video rental market. A lot of the biggest renters were horror movies like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, EATEN ALIVE, THE DRILLER KILLER and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. The problem is that the moral police started to think that these movies were going to damage those watching them so a push was made to get movies like these banned or at least censored to the point where there would be no reason to watch them.

BAN THE SADIST VIDEOS! is a very good documentary that horror fans are really going to enjoy. It's also safe to say that they're going to be enraged by some of the archival interviews where people claim that if you watch this type of stuff you're going to pretty much turn into a raving killer yourself. American horror films had issues with the MPAA and various women's rights groups but there's no doubt that the BBFC took things a bit further by banning movies and in some cases people getting send to jail for showing the films. The documentary does an extremely good job at explaining how all of this happened and why the moral police were so worried about certain titles.

"According to the media the "Video Nasties" are a new low in sick entertainment!" And so screamed the tabloid press in Margaret Thatcher's Britain back in the 1980's, a country hit by strikes, mass unemployment, race riots and war. A scapegoat was needed and it was found in the form of horror movies on video cassette. I discovered (classic) horror at an early age, then from my mid-teens I was visiting my local video shops weekly, I can remember seeing some of the "Nasties" looking down at me from the shelves. Over the years I built up a sizeable collection of horror movies on VHS, including quite a few Nasties. They are still highly sought after, I have now sold most of my collection, including several to the director of this documentary, but have hung on to a few of my favourites. I can remember the so called moral crusaders who campaigned against violent movies. Mary Whitehouse, who admitted to never actually having sat down and watched a Video Nasty, was a household name. Then in the early 1990's MP David Alton wanted to pretty much ban all violent films on VHS, he was a member of the Liberal Party but his attitude was anything but liberal. And of course the most famous British film censor of all, James Ferman, gets plenty of screen time. Despite his love of cutting movies it is maybe a little ironic that he prevented Alton's bill from becoming law (thanks goodness!). This film is very well made. For video collectors, horror fans or people with an interest in British media history this is a fascinating watch, though many of us will already know much of the content. I have just watched it 20 years after its release, I enjoyed it very much but thankfully since 2005 a lot more progress has been made on the relaxation of censorship in the UK, many of the films have since been passed by the BBFC uncut. This does date the movie somewhat, a revised edition would be nice.

I well remember this period in recent UK history, the hysteria created to deflect from real economic issues of the time, and whilst it now seems like an anachronism it's worth remembering that inexplicably the remnants of this extra-judicial Draconian system of oppression still exists today.

Interesting to hear contemporary and modern perspectives from every side of the issue, of course the chief protagonists (antagonists?) are no longer able to provide a reflection of their thought-processes and justification for their conduct, but there's a couple of pundits on hand to echo their sentiments and overall it seemed an open and unfettered critical analysis.

The penalties which were applied in some instances were manifestly excessive (incarceration) although it seems these were a minority; it's even more concerning how inconsistently the Act was applied by regional constabularies, even to the extent of the titles that were confiscated, amounting to a farcical subjective witch-hunt akin to England's own Spanish Inquisition or House of UnAmerican activities blacklisting.

Good to have interviews included from the auteurs themselves, after all they caused all the fuss; Franco, Deodarto, Craven, uniformly confounded in their reactions to the attitudes of the British Government, a peculiar malady one of the social scientists refers to as a distinctly British cultural trait that no one can explain, just a unique phenomenon of being British, which he quickly corrects to just 'English' - haha, the ultimate self-ridicule.

If you're keen to know what all the fuss was about, check it out it's about an hour long and highly informative as well as entertaining as it shows a lot of the scenes which were cut from various films targeted by the BBFC, presented in graphic, gory detail to apparently corrupt our febrile minds.

Highly informative and relatively interesting "Ban the Sadist Videos!" approximates us with details about the infamous social and politic acts against what was considered to be a risk to the British society: violence, gore, sex, drugs, shocking and disturbing things...presented on recurrent films of the 1970's and 1980's. Thatcher government started to regulate what could be and what couldn't be presented on home video entertainment, something that only occurred on films released on theaters with films being edited by BBFC.

It is established here that films like "The Driller Killer", "Evil Dead" and "Cannibal Holocaust" were the major responsible for a wave of control on the films later called of "videos nasties" after lots of appealing publicity on newspapers urging its viewers to rent and watch a film with shocking scenes (theaters weren't so interesting anymore, now with VCR's available in most homes).

Silly moral crusader Mary Whitehouse and her extensive and successful campaign to forbid these films on British territory is greatly presented here, giving some insights on how dumb some moralists were since they never saw those films, only hearing what people would say about them. Laws were created, BBFC also censored or even banned some of the films (the funniest case was "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" considered as pornographic because of its title). The criterion of which films should be allowed or not to be released or edited was ridiculous and even "Apocalypse Now" had some troubles with this persecution.

All that in the name of the children's sake since they were exposed to them constantly, and society feared possible copycats (oh dear...) who were starting to appear, imitating film serial killers but this time killing real people in real life, finding their inspiration on films. Bottom of line: our society is dangerous because of the films it produces and not backwards, the moralists were saying.

The discussion stretches out for so long (there's the second "Ban the Sadist Videos!" which deals with more on this last subject of 'danger to the society'). Well made and providing classic moments of horror films and nice archive footage of news covering the subject this documentary is quite restrained in its presentation, lack so much energy that it almost becomes boring; and some informations and scenes are quite repetitive. The short interviews with Deodato, Craven and other masters of horror were very good just as much as the interviews with people who were part of the conflicts over the videos.

It's quite good but it only works if you don't know anything about the incidents portrayed here. I believe that people more versed on the subject won't find it much amusing or appealing. 8/10

Seemingly a two part tv documentary sewn together to a feature length experience for streaming. The first part looks at how the video nasty controversy came into being in the UK and the reaction to the sadistic violence and explicit sex that came with this being made available in the high street without any form of censorship. The second part looks at how this issue continued once laws were changed and the British Board of Film Censors / Classification approached their responsibilities.

Actually quite informative for any film fan and demonstrates what a complete pig's breakfast the country made of the matter. The videos were distributed with no controls by a thriving new industry with morally upstanding and seemingly ignorant MPs seeking voter kudos by slamming just about anything that wasn't family entertainment and with the populist press using it to create alarmist headlines around unsubstantiated claims that everyone from naughty children to mass murderers did what they did because they watched violent films. Clearly there was a need to protect children and the government did nothing about this until it fell into the public conscience and get the attention of the press. Thereafter innocent people were arrested, films banned and then not banned endlessly with the police having no idea what they were doing, seizing or arresting.

Then James Ferman took on the BBFC as a leader who was in no way hampered by false modesty and doubt and cut and banned all over the place.

As a country, the UK looked ridiculous with a confused mess from government, our dreadful populist press over reacting with little or no evidence to back up their claims resulting in the greatest amount of film censorship in Europe. The 2 key things I took away from this were, surely the distributors didn't seriously expect this to go unchallenged but secondly how little challenge there was from liberals challenging why grown adults can't see what they want to see. Nanny state at its most appalling with the UK looking idiotic - makes you proud to be British.