Ban the Sadist Videos!

"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.

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.

This was a documentary that I learned about when searching online for documentaries about horror films. I'm fascinated by the Video Nasties' movement in the United Kingdom after learning about it from podcasts. This was doc was streaming on Tubi, so I decided to give this a watch while working, treating it as a podcast.

What I like here is that we're getting an in-depth look at this scandal during the 1980s in Great Britain. Something that this documentary does better than others I've watched recently, it presents both sides of the argument. I can see the side of those that are in favor of banning certain movies like Driller Killer or Cannibal Holocaust. I disagree with banning them though.

This should fall to the discretion of parents. I don't think that the government should prevent adults from seeking out what they want. There seems to be that those in power are looking down on people that they consider to be 'simple'. This brings up a good point that censors are watching this film. Why would they be okay as opposed to the masses? Many of the movies referenced here I've seen. Cannibal Holocaust is great. Driller Killer is solid. There are many others that aren't very good, just using shock as their only gimmick.

Shifting back to parents needing to be allowed to oversee their children and not the government idea. Now I've had cart blanche to watch almost anything that I've wanted to. There were just things like Cannibal Holocaust or The Last House on the Left that my father didn't want my sister and I watching. I'm glad that he did, we weren't prepared for those. Things like Dawn of the Dead or Zombie, they didn't do damage outside making most everything we saw after that tamer. My mother would get mad when she sent me in to rent or buy something, then had to force her to come in. I can see both sides here, but this doc brings up good ideas.

I'd say that this is well-made. I love that this presents both sides of the arguments. Explaining why this was being done and then using clips to help present those points is good. This is a solid documentary that I'd recommend for sure.

My Rating: 8 out of 10.

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.

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.