Video Nasties

[The Lion King]

Has anyone actually seen any of these? Were they good or bad? I've only seen a few...

I'm pretty sure everyone here knows what they are, but for those who don't:

Wikipedia: "Video nasty" was a term coined in the United Kingdom in the 1980s that originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticised for their violent content by elements in the press and commentators such as Mary Whitehouse. While violence in cinema had been a concern for many years, the lack of a regulatory system for video sales combined with the possibility of any film falling into children's hands led to new levels of concern. Many of these "video nasties" were low-budget horror films produced in Italy and the United States. The furore created by the moral crusade against video nasties led to the introduction of the UK's Video Recordings Act 1984 which imposed a stricter code of censorship on videos than was required for cinema release. Several major studio productions ended up being banned on video, falling afoul of legislation that was designed to control the distribution of video nasties.


Full List:

• Absurd (original/alternat titles: Rosso Sangue, Anthropophagus 2 -- released with 2m 32s cut in 1983)
• The Anthropophagous Beast (original title: Antropophagus -- released with approximately 3m of pre-cuts in 2002)
• Axe! (original title: Lisa, Lisa -- re-released uncut in 2005)
• The Beast in Heat (original title: La bestia in Calore) (Banned outright)
• The Beyond (original title: E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'Aldilà -- re-released uncut in 2001)
• Blood Feast (re-released uncut in 2005)
• Blood rites (original title: The Ghastly Ones) (Banned outright)
• Bloody Moon (original title: Die Säge des Todes -- released with 1m 20s cut in 1993)
• The Boogeyman (original title: The Boogeyman -- re-released uncut in 2000)
• The Burning (re-released uncut in 2001)
• Cannibal Apocalypse (original title: Apocalypse Domani -- released with 2s cut in 2005)
• Cannibal Ferox (alternat title: Make them Die Slowly. released with approximately 5m of pre-cuts plus 6s of additional cuts in 2000)
• Cannibal Holocaust (released in 2001 with 5m 44s cut to remove all scenes of animal cruelty)
• Cannibal Man (original title: La Semana del Asesino -- released with 3s cut in 1993)
• Cannibal Terror (original title: Terror Caníbal -- released uncut in 2003)
• Contamination (released uncut in 2004 with a 15 rating)
• Dead & Buried (re-released uncut in 2004)
• Death Trap (original title: Eaten Alive -- re-released uncut in 2000)
• Deep River Savages (original/Alternat title: Il paese del sesso selvaggio, Man From Deep River. -- released with 3m 45s cut in 2003)
• Delirium (released with 16s cut in 1987)
• Devil Hunter (original title: Il cacciatore di uomini) (Banned outright)
• Don't Go In The House (released with 3m 7s cut in 1987)
• Don't Go in the Woods (released uncut in 2007)
• Don't Go Near the Park (released uncut in 2006)
• Don't Look in the Basement (original title: The Forgotten -- released uncut in 2005 with a 15 rating)
• The Dorm That Dripped Blood -- re-released with 10s cut in 2001)(Alternat title: Pranks)
• The Driller Killer (released with cuts in 1999 - re-released uncut in 2002)
• The Evil Dead (re-released uncut in 2001)
• Evilspeak (re-released uncut in 1999)
• Exposé (re-released with approximately 30s cut in 2006)
• Faces of Death (released with 2m 19s cut in 2003)
• Fight For Your Life (Banned outright)
• Flesh for Frankenstein (re-released uncut in 2006)
• Forest of Fear (original title: Bloodeaters) (Banned outright)
• Frozen Scream (Banned outright)
• The Funhouse (released uncut in 1987)
• Gestapo's Last Orgy (original title: L'ultima orgia del III Reich) (Banned outright)
• The House by the Cemetery (original title: Quella villa accanto al cimitero -- re-released with 33s cut in 2001)
• House on the Edge of the Park (original title: La casa sperduta nel parco -- released with 11m 43s cut in 2002)
• Human Experiments (released with 26s cut in 1994)
• I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses (released with 1m 6s cut in 1986)
• I Spit On Your Grave (original title: Day of the Woman -- released with 7m 2s cut in 2001)
• Inferno (re-released with 20s cut in 1993)
• Island of Death (original title: Ta Pedhia tou dhiavolou -- released with 4m 9s cut in 2002)
• Killer Nun (original title: Suor Omicidi -- re-released uncut in 2006)
• The Last House on the Left (passed uncut on the 17th March, 2008)
• Late Night Trains (original title: L'ultimo treno della notte -- released uncut in 2008)
• Living Dead At Manchester Morgue (original title: Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti -- re-released uncut in 2002)
• Love Camp 7 (Banned outright)
• Madhouse (original title: There Was a Little Girl -- released uncut in 2004)
• Mardi Gras Massacre (Banned outright)
• Night of the Bloody Apes (original title: La Horripilante bestia humana -- released with approximately 1m of pre-cuts in 1999)
• Night of the Demon (released with 1m 41s cut in 1994)
• Nightmare Maker (Banned outright)
• Nightmare in a Damaged Brain (re-released with pre-cuts in 2005)
• Possession (released uncut in 1999)

• Prisoner of the Cannibal God (original title: La montagna del dio cannibale -- released with 2m 6s cut in 2001)
• Revenge of the Bogey Man (original title: Boogeyman II -- released with additional footage in 2003)
• Shogun Assassin (re-released uncut in 1999)
• The Slayer (re-released uncut in 2001)
• Snuff (released uncut in 2003)
• SS Experiment Camp (original title: Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur -- released uncut in 2005)
• Tenebrae (original title: Tenebre -- re-released uncut in 2003)
• Terror Eyes (original title: Night School -- released with 1m 16s cut in 1987)
• The Toolbox Murders (released with 1m 46s cut in 2000)
• Twitch of the Death Nerve (original title: Reazione a catena -- released with 43s cut in 1994)
• Unhinged (released uncut in 2004)
• Visiting Hours (released with approximately 2m cut in 1986)
• The Werewolf and the Yeti (original title: La Maldición de la bestia) (Banned outright)
• The Witch Who Came From the Sea (released uncut in 2006)
• Women Behind Bars (original French title: Des diamants pour l'enfer) (Banned outright)
• Xtro (released uncut in 1987)
• Zombie Creeping Flesh (original title: Virus -- released uncut in 2002)
• Zombie Flesh Eaters (original title: Zombi 2 -- re-released uncut in 2005)

I've only seen The Evil Dead, I Spit on Your Grave and Cannibal Holocaust, and all were excellent IMO.

[Marquoz]

[*]Mardi Gras Massacre (Banned outright)

OMG, I've seen this movie! It's the campiest most horrific movie I've seen, but I personally know somebody who was in it for about 30 seconds, so I had to see it. I've got it on DVD somewhere floating around.

[Rob71]

Blue Underground is going to release on Blu-Ray and they distribute a few of these I believe.

[quirkmanly]

I've saw Xtro and The Burning, both uncut, a very long time ago.

I never really understood why Xtro was classed as a nasty. At the time it was a very different twist on an alien movie and I enjoyed it alot. The birth scene is a very off the wall, but any movie that has a giant GI Joe (or Action Man in the UK) and lots of naked Maryam D'Abo was good by me.

The Burning is very much a Friday the 13th clone. Standard slasher fare, with some memorable moments (

[Show spoiler]the fingers on the raft was classic

). My cousin picked up a copy from his local video rental store at the time when the tape was being pulled from the shelves due to the widespread obscentity crackdown in the UK, so we had a big family get together (me, my bro and my parents, my cousins and my aunt and uncle ) to see what it was all about. Watching it in that context took the edge off the film (compared to viewing with friends in the dark), but I remember thinking that this movie wasn't particularly so much worse than FT13th, in spite of its' growing notoriety.

They are not on your list but the two Nekromantik films are the most "woahhh!!" i've seen.

[David Craig]

I haven't seen any of them. I do from time to time pick up dollar store movies with weird titles like those in the first posting. Hopefully I'll see one of them some day.

[Lucy Diamond]

This is a Blu Ray subculture place...so we are all "yeah...I've seen a couple of these, they are nasty" but I'm sure if you go to any Horror/ slasher sub culture place they are probably all "Um....yeah...bought those when I was 5 man...I'm only into pure snuff now."

They seem worth checking out though...I mean...for us.

Thanks.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Lucy Diamond

This is a Blu Ray subculture place...so we are all "yeah...I've seen a couple of these, they are nasty" but I'm sure if you go to any Horror/ slasher sub culture place they are probably all "Um....yeah...bought those when I was 5 man...I'm only into pure snuff now."

They seem worth checking out though...I mean...for us.

Thanks.

? Come on, tell us....what you been taking?

[Blu n Gold]

In my younger days (with disposable income) I would have tried to watch/buy some of these. Now that I am more money conscience, I am curious but I will not go out of my way to get a hand on them.

[doctorsteve]

Saw Faces of Death 1-4. I can still recall The Korean family visit to the dog pound.

[katharsis]

I've actually seen quite a bunch of these (to list the ones I have not would be easier). I guess that's what happens if you jobbed in a video store just 18 years of age and curious to what the world of film has to offer besides the every day rentals... especially even more so if this is in Germany and most of them are either heavily cut or banned outright. There is a real subculture of people collection them at any cost!
If you've seen a few of them, you know what the rest will be about. And after while they won't really shock you anymore. I've tried to watch a few of them about 2 or 3 years ago again, but the only thing that still comes close to call them "video nasties" is that the production value is really low and they contain little to no acting skills!!!

[DocNovak]

Originally Posted by doctorsteve

Saw Faces of Death 1-4. I can still recall The Korean family visit to the dog pound.

I've seen the first 4 faces of death as well, and at one time I had copies of all 4 on VHS. I got them from my sister who, at the time, worked at a local video store that decided to not rent them out due to there graphic nature (they continued to rent numerous other graphic films, XXX movies, and were finally closed down for carrying snuff films), so she just brought them home and gave them to me. I lost them during a move at some point.

It is also interesting that my dad was in one of the actual news footage scenes during the opening credits of I believe 3. If anyone remembers it was of the rescue squad/coroners office pulling an extremely bloated, fish eaten, dead body that was stuck in a spillway out of a river. My dad worked for the state managing the spill way at the time the unfortunate boater fell in and drowned and could be seen in the background watching them pull the body from the water.

[darkpoet25]

Originally Posted by doctorsteve

Saw Faces of Death 1-4. I can still recall The Korean family visit to the dog pound.

It was actually a Vietnamese family, not Korean. It pisses me off when ignorant people ask me all the time if I eat Dog or Cat, for being half Korean. Anyway, back on topic. If you notice in the 4th one a lot of it was recreated footage, not real footage. The two I remember most are of the guy bungee jumping from the roof of a hotel and hitting the ground. The other was of the girl who had that mutated leech that covered half her arm. That looked fake as hell.

[El_Fez]

So saw my first on-purpose video nasty last night - I'm going to try and work through all 39 here someday. I say on purpose because I've seen a couple that made the list here or there, Friday the 13th, Last House on the Left and so on - but this is the first time I've made a dedicated effort to watch.

My first go? Axe AKA Lisa, Lisa AKA The California Axe Massacre (despite obviously being nowhere near California). Its interesting on just how tame Axe compared to some of the other harder Rape Revenge movies I've seen. It's simultaneously brutal and gritty while being quiet and haunting. I love how there's no real backstory to this - who are these goons attacking these other two guys? Is it because thy're gay? Are they even gay? Do they owe money? Is this a heist gone wrong?

What's up with Lisa? Clearly there is something wrong here, beyond her convalescent father. She's harboring some kind of trauma long before the three goons show up on her doorstep.

And this got banned? It much have been solely based on the cover artwork, because the movie is not that bad. Intense, sure - but violent? Not really.