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#REDIRECT [[:Category:Video Nasties]]
{{trope}}
[[File:VideoNasties_4258.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|''Catch catch the horror taxi!
''I fell in love with a video nasty!
''Catch catch the horror train!
''Freeze frame gonna drive you insane!''|'''[[The Damned]]'''}}
In the 1980s, newly arisen video distribution companies in Britain got the idea to [[Step Three: Profit|make a fast buck]] by adapting for VHS cheesy, low-budget and, for the time, rather violent Italian and American horror films of the [[Grindhouse|ilk that would later inspire]] [[Quentin Tarantino]] and [[Robert Rodriguez]]. Unfortunately, at the time there was no law that required videocassettes to be classified before being rented and anyone of any age could legally rent any video; so films such as ''[[Cannibal Holocaust]]'' and ''[[I Spit on Your Grave]]'' could be (and were) [[Harmful to Minors|rented by children as young as 10]].
[[Moral Guardians|Mary Whitehouse]] was not pleased.
So in 1984, the Video Recordings Act was passed, which made it illegal to distribute any film that had not been classified. The [[Censorship Bureau|British Board of Film Classification]] liased with the Department of Public Prosecutions to build a list of videos that had already led to shopkeepers being convicted for criminal obscenity and hence could not be legally distributed in Britain, to which were added a number of videos that were submitted to the BBFC for classification and rejected. Hence was formed the infamous list of the '''"Video Nasties"'''. This ultimately comprised 72 films, of which 39 had been successfully prosecuted. Video stores renting them were subject to police raids.
As time has gone by and society become more liberal about horror movies, many films from the list have been resubmitted to the BBFC. In some cases they were passed with no difficulties, but a few of the more extreme cases were passed only with cuts, only for them to resubmitted again a few years later and released completely uncut in the present day (the most notorious and high-profile case of this being ''The Last House on the Left''). Only a handful of films from the list still remain banned, but usually because they remain so obscure that nobody has bothered to resubmit them. If you are able to find and view these films (most used to be incredibly rare and obscure; what were once considered holy-grails amongst collectors are now widely available in this age of DVD) you will probably be shocked at how tame ''some'' of them are compared to today's standards what with films the likes of ''[[Saw]]'' and ''[[Hostel]]''. In many cases, some films would have been tame even by ''those'' days' standards; often films were convicted of obscenity [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch|based on the cover art or the title alone]]. The featuring of the words "[[I'm a Humanitarian|Cannibal]]", "[[Zombie Apocalypse|Zombie]]" or anything associated with [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazis]] in the title of a film almost guaranteed inclusion on the list. Other films though, such as ''Cannibal Holocaust'', retain the power to shock and horrify.
It really doesn't take a genius to know what the result of Mary's hissy-fits and the bans were; people wanted to see these films. [[Bile Fascination|Naughty little boys, spurred by the media's allegations that these were reprehensible, disgusting, Gorntastic shlockfests that were corrupting the youth]] [[Forbidden Fruit|and which had been banned for the good of the nation]], flocked to video stores in hopes of getting their grubby hands on a copy before the police buried them in landfills. [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity|Their infamy instead took on a nearly legendary status]]; many would have faded into obscurity as generic money-sucking horror drivel and nowadays nobody would know they had ever existed (however, several of them were already wildly successful in their countries of origin and beyond, such as the legendary ''[[Evil Dead]]'' and the [[Dario Argento]] films included on the list).
You can see how [[Roger Ebert|Siskel and Ebert]] reacted to this trend in [http://siskelandebert.org/video/2MW8BASYDOAM/The-Untouchables--The-Witches-of-Eastwick--Video-Nasties-1987 this video], starting at about 12:20.
'''The complete official list of "Nasties" is below. (Bear in mind that some of the more obscure ones have up to a dozen or so alternate titles; the following are the titles by which they were known specifically in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s)'''
* ''[[Absurd]]''
* ''[[The Anthropophagus Beast]]''
* ''[[Axe (film)|Axe]]''
* ''[[The Beast in Heat]]''
* ''[[The Beyond]]''
* ''[[Blood Feast]]''
* ''[[Blood Rites]]''
* ''[[Bloody Moon]]''
* ''[[The Boogeyman]]''
* ''[[The Burning]]''
* ''[[Film/Cannibal Apocalypse|Cannibal Apocalypse]]''
* ''[[Cannibal Ferox]]''
* ''[[Cannibal Holocaust]]''
* ''[[Film/The Cannibal Man|The Cannibal Man]]''
* ''[[Film/Cannibal Terror|Cannibal Terror]]''
* ''[[Film/Contamination|Contamination]]''
* ''[[Dead and Buried]]''
* ''[[Eaten Alive (film)|Death Trap]]''
* ''[[Film/Deep River Savages|Deep River Savages]]''
* ''[[Film/Delirium|Delirium]]''
* ''[[Film/The Devil Hunter|The Devil Hunter]]''
* ''[[Don't Go in the House]]''
* ''[[Don't Go in the Woods]]''
* ''[[Film/Dont Go Near The Park|Dont Go Near The Park]]''
* ''[[Film/Dont Look In The Basement|Dont Look In The Basement]]''
* ''[[The Dorm That Dripped Blood]]''
* ''[[The Driller Killer]]''
* ''[[Film/Drop Dead Dearest|Drop Dead Dearest]]''
* ''[[Evil Dead]]''
* ''[[Evilspeak]]''
* ''[[Film/Expose|Expose]]''
* ''[[Film/Faces Of Death|Faces Of Death]]''
* ''[[Fight for Your Life]]''
* ''[[Film/Flesh For Frankenstein|Flesh For Frankenstein]]''
* ''[[Film/Forest Of Fear|Forest Of Fear]]''
* ''[[Film/Frozen Scream|Frozen Scream]]''
* ''[[The Funhouse]]''
* ''[[The House by the Cemetery]]''
* ''[[Film/House On The Edge Of The Park|House On The Edge Of The Park]]''
* ''[[Film/Human Experiments|Human Experiments]]''
* ''[[I Spit on Your Grave]]''
* ''[[Inferno (film)|Inferno]]''
* ''[[Film/Island Of Death|Island Of Death]]''
* ''[[Film/Killer Nun|Killer Nun]]''
* ''[[The Last House on the Left]]''
* ''[[Last Orgy of the Third Reich]]''
* ''[[Film/Late Night Trains|Late Night Trains]]''
* ''[[Film/The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue|The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue]]''
* ''[[Film/Love Camp 7|Love Camp 7]]''
* ''[[Film/Madhouse|Madhouse]]''
* ''[[Film/Mardi Gras Massacre|Mardi Gras Massacre]]''
* ''[[Film/Night Of The Bloody Apes|Night Of The Bloody Apes]]''
* ''[[Film/Night Of The Demon 1980|Night of the Demon]]'' (very definitely '''not''' the [[Night of the Demon|classic 1957 Jacques Tourneur film]])
* ''[[Film/Nightmare Maker|Nightmare Maker]]''
* ''[[Film/Nightmare In A Damaged Brain|Nightmare In A Damaged Brain]]''
* ''[[Possession]]''
* ''[[Prisoner of the Cannibal God]]''
* ''[[The Boogeyman 2|Revenge of the Boogeyman]]''
* ''[[Film/The Slayer|The Slayer]]''
* ''[[Film/Snuff|Snuff]]''
* ''[[Film/SS Experiment Camp|SS Experiment Camp]]''
* ''[[Tenebre]]''
* ''[[Film/Terror Eyes|Terror Eyes]]''
* ''[[The Toolbox Murders]]''
* ''[[Reazione a Catena|Twitch of the Death Nerve]]''
* ''[[Film/Unhinged|Unhinged]]''
* ''[[Visiting Hours]]''
* ''[[Film/The Werewolf And The Yeti|The Werewolf And The Yeti]]''
* ''[[Film/The Witch Who Came From The Sea|The Witch Who Came From The Sea]]''
* ''[[Film/Women Behind Bars|Women Behind Bars]]''
* ''[[Film/Zombie Creeping Flesh|Zombie Creeping Flesh]]''
* ''[[Zombi 2|Zombie Flesh Eaters]]''
'''The following films were not included on the list, but are sometimes mistakenly thrown in because they were controversial in earlier or later eras. Not all of them were ever actually banned in Britain.'''
* ''[[A Clockwork Orange (film)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' (predates the "nasty" controversy, withdrawn voluntarily by its director, [[Stanley Kubrick]], due to claims of copycat crimes and threats against him)
* ''[[Dawn of the Dead (film)|Dawn of the Dead]]''
* ''[[The Exorcist]]'' (the BBFC made it unofficially known that it would be banned from home video release for many years, due mostly to the then head examiner's religious [[Squick]] about the film)
* ''[[Maniac (film)|Maniac]]''
* ''[[Mikey]]'' (still banned from cinema and home video release due to its subject matter and perceived similarities to the James Bulger murder)
* ''[[The New York Ripper]]''
* ''[[Night of the Living Dead]]''
* ''[[Scum]]'' (original TV version refused broadcast by [[The BBC]] after being made for them, subsequent film version subjected to an eventually unsuccessful legal claim that [[Channel 4]] had breached its own taste-and-decency rules by broadcasting it)
* ''[[Shogun Assassin]]''
* ''[[Silent Night, Deadly Night|Silent Night Deadly Night]]''
* ''[[Straw Dogs]]'' (predates the "nasty" controversy, but went through a similar torturous and tortuous sequence of bannings and cut releases)
* ''[[The Texas Chainsaw Massacre]]'' (banned from home release by the BBFC for many years but never on the official "nasty" list)
* ''[[Xtro]]''
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Censorship Tropes]]
[[Category:Film Genres]]
[[Category:British Media Tropes]]
[[Category:index]]
[[Category:Video Nasties]]
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