"I fell in love with a Video NASTIE..." By Yodasnoog

Video nasties are something I’ve been interested in since I was a kid really. Ever since I used to ask my mother about the horror films she used to rent out back when she didn’t think that horrors where stupid. She’d tell me of The Texas Chain-saw Massacre, the gore in American Werewolf In London, and when I found out some of the titles that were banned during the Video recordings act boom of the early eighties, I used to ask, “have you seen this…have you seen that?” I guess it was the fact that I was scared of horrors as a kid that made me so interested, it was kind of a weird fascination in being disturbed, sounds odd I know but I still carry part of that with me today.

When I grew up a bit and started watching horrors on a regular basis I began to actually enjoy watching them instead of just wondering and being a tad hesitant about them as I had been as a child. The Evil Dead movies, the Kruger flicks, The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser. I rented most of em from the local video shop on the corner of my street which has now sadly closed, and been turned into an Indian take away. It was around about the time Dawn of the Dead was shown on BBC2 a few years back that I began to get serious about them again. I got my hands on the rest of the dead trilogy and began renting horrors with a friend on a regular basis (Monday nights to be precise). The only problem was is that they had been banned in the past so they were badly cut down and never did the films any justice. Especially with Lucio Fulci’s House by The Cemetery which I have still yet to see in an uncut form.

I taped Zombie Flesh Eaters when it was on satellite t.v, and didn’t think much of it, maybe it was because of the because of the bad cutting? But the thing is with the works of Fulci is that you have to give them a second chance, because I saw the same cut a few years later on Channel 4 and loved it. Then I saw a better cut and it now stands as one of my favourites of the genre. When I saw the Texas Chain-saw Massacre, I was quite surprised. There wasn’t much gore, No close ups of decapitation with a Chain saw. You see, it turns out that the film my mother was telling me about wasn’t Chain-saw massacre, but I would sure like to see the film she meant, it may have been Last House On The Left.

Whenever a conversation about video nasties and notorious movies crops up, the film that is guaranteed to roll of somebody’s tongue is the “Legendary” Snuff. Is that killing at the end real? Or fake? Obviously fake, but you have to admire the makers of the sequence for trying to con the public into thinking that it was real. I say “makers of the sequence” because it was tagged on to the film after being bought by an American distributor, who used to hire female picketors to rally outside of cinemas showing Snuff to get it some press and hype. I think if it weren’t there then the film would simply be a boring waste of time, not to say that it isn’t that anyway. But the fact that people believe that Snuff films actually exist is probably because of this and the mass of Mondo flicks that were made during the late sixties and seventies, for example, Faces of Death and Mondo Cane among countless others.

There are also simulated snuff movies that circulate through collectors. The guinea pig series being the immediate example. The guinea pig movies are Japanese made films, crafted to look like a “real” snuff movie, very rarely do they have credits or a soundtrack. In fact only the first two are of this ilk. Unabridged Agony (also know simply as Guinea Pig) contains a woman being put through all sorts of humiliation and torture, ending with a hot needle being shoved in her eye, then it cuts to black without any credits. Flower of flesh and blood (also known as Severing Samurai) contains a woman who is kidnapped and tied to a bed in a room full of jars and body parts, and is hacked up by a man in a samurai outfit. Although Severing Samurai is the most unconvincing of the two,  its all still very clever stuff. One of these two Guinea pig movies found its way into the hands of Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen. He was so shocked by the sight that he turned the tape over to the FBI and an investigation was conducted. Silly Charlie, too much coke me thinks.

Of course, not all films that were banned way back when stand the test of time today, which is why we see a lot of them being re-released in there uncut, or at least pretty close to uncut form, today. With the BBFC’s more liberal attitude towards violence in the movies these days since James Ferman retired as director, there is a chance that someday the majority of the so called “nasties” will see the light of day. Already we have.......

Driller Killer (With a few cuts) Zombie Holocaust (Not originally on the DPP list but Uncut) The Exorcist (Not originally on the DPP list but Uncut)) The Beyond (Uncut) Zombie Flesh Eaters (In a more uncut form) Cannibal Ferox (severely cut) Shogun Assassin (Uncut) And more…

While not all of them are the same cuts as were available on video during the early eighties, at least now people can judge for themselves what all the fuss was about. The likes of films like I Spit On Your Grave and Wes Cravens debut Last House On The Left may never see the light of day on video because of there strong sexual violence. Which would most likely still be power full and disturbing today, which the BBFC is very strict about. In fact, Last house on the left was refused a certificate just recently. All in all, things are looking up for us horror fans getting our hands on these taboos of the video world without having too resolve to breaking the law and ending up with a badly degraded copy of your favourite “nastie”.

"Censors tend to do what only psychotics do... they confuse reality with illusion." David Cronenberg

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