(Credits: Far Out / New Line CInema / MUBI / Original Posters)
Tue 30 September 2025 14:15, UK
When the British government decided to crack down on the increase in gory, taboo-filled horror and exploitation movies, they labelled them ‘video nasties’, but was that title really going to stop people?
There’s a dark allure to the term ‘video nasty’; I mean, if a film has been banned, people are going to want to see it for themselves.
The video nasty moral panic that occurred in the early 1980s, of course, coincided with the tyrannical Conservative rule of Margaret Thatcher, whose vision of Britain certainly did not include easy access to blood-soaked tales of transgression. It was the Tory campaigner Mary Whitehouse who was largely responsible for creating this outrage regarding video nasties, however, and she did all that she could to have certain supposedly obscene movies banned for good.
There was a belief that watching these films, which contained images like graphic violence, gore, sexual assault, cannibalism, explicit sex, and everything else taboo that you can think of, was dangerous. If children stumbled across these videos, what would become of them?
Video nasties were films that had failed to receive an age classification or any of the necessary cuts from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) because they were released straight to VHS. Thus, nothing was off limits, and the Tories were horrified by the potentially offensive and uncivilised imagery that could be found in these tapes, of course seeing them as the ultimate scapegoat for real-life violence.
How many movies were on the ‘Video Nasty’ list?
The titles considered video nasties fluctuated as legislation changed, although it was an initial 72 which were accused of being obscene. It’s funny, because some of these films are really tame when you look back at them, and most are easily available to buy at your local HMV or stream online. Yet, if you were caught selling an unclassified copy of a video nasty during this initial era of panic, you’d be charged with a criminal offence.
The Video Recordings Act 1984 made sure that all videos were given an age rating, and the appropriate cuts were made to these films to make them more suitable for public consumption. Many of these movies were prosecuted for obscenity, and only in recent years have their merits been reconsidered (well, not all of them).
Still, this censorship really reflected a time of totalitarian moral terror, when the mere idea of a young person watching a slasher movie was enough to convince a conservative Brit that delinquency would be the only outcome.
The censorship of art is a slippery slope towards fascism, and while the discussion of violence in the media is never a bad thing, it’s shocking that selling these movies – ones that I’ve since watched on my laptop for free – could once be against the law.
The 72 video nasties:
- Absurd (Joe D’Amato, 1981)
- Anthropophagous: The Beast (Joe D’Amato, 1980)
- Axe (Frederick R Friedel, 1977)
- The Beast in Heat (Luigi Batzella, 1977)
- The Beyond (Lucio Fulci, 1981)
- Bloodbath (Mario Bava, 1971)
- Blood Feast (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1963)
- Blood Rites (Andy Milligan, 1968)
- Bloody Moon (Jesús Franco, 1980)
- The Bogey Man (Ulli Lommel, 1980)
- The Burning (Tony Maylam, 1981)
- Cannibal Apocalypse (Antonio Margherit, 1980)
- Cannibal Ferox (Umberto Lenzi, 1981)
- Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato, 1979)
- Cannibal Man (Eloy de la Iglesia, 1972)
- Cannibal Terror (Alain Deruelle, 1980)
- Contamination (Luigi Cozzi, 1980)
- Dead and Buried (Gary Sherman, 1981)
- Death Trap (Tobe Hooper, 1976)
- Deep River Savages (Umberto Lenzi, 1972)
- Delirium (Peter Maris, 1979)
- Devil Hunter (Jesús Franco, 1980)
- Don’t Go In The House (Joseph Ellison, 1980)
- Don’t Go In The Woods (James Bryan, 1981)
- Don’t Go Near the Park (Lawrence D Foldes, 1979)
- Don’t Look in the Basement (SF Brownrigg, 1973)
- Driller Killer (Abel Ferrera, 1979)
- The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1982)
- Evilspeak (Eric Weston, 1981)
- Exposé (James Kenelm Clarke, 1976)
- Faces of Death (John Alan Schwartz, 1978)
- Fight For Your Life (Robert A. Endelson, 1977)
- Flesh for Frankenstein (Paul Morrissey, 1973)
- Forest of Fear (Charles McCrann, 1980)
- Frozen Scream (Frank Roach, 1981)
- The Funhouse (Tobe Hooper, 1981)
- The Gestapo’s Last Orgy (Cesare Canevari, 1977)
- The House By The Cemetery (Lucio Fulci, 1981)
- House on the Edge of the Park (Ruggero Deodato, 1980)
- Human Experiments (Gregory Goodell, 1979)
- I Miss You Hugs and Kisses (Murray Markowitz, 1978)
- I Spit on Your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978)
- Inferno (Dario Argento, 1980)
- Island of Death (Nikos Foskolos & Dimitris Haralambopoulos, 1976)
- Killer Nun (Giulio Berruti, 1979)
- The Last House on the Left (Wes Craven, 1972)
- Night Train Murders (Ferdinando Baldi & Castellari, 1975)
- The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (Jorge Grau, 1974)
- Love Camp 7 (Lee Frost, 1969)
- Madhouse (Jim Clark, 1974)
- Mardi Gras Massacre (Jack Weis, 1978)
- Night of the Bloody Apes (René Cardona, 1969)
- Night of the Demon (James C Dawson, 1980)
- Nightmare Maker (Kerry Rossall, 1981)
- Nightmares in a Damaged Brain (Larry Cohen, 1981)
- Possession (Andrzej Żuławski, 1981)
- Pranks (Joseph Zito, 1982)
- Prisoner of the Cannibal God (Umberto Lenzi, 1978)
- Revenge of the Bogeyman (Jesús Franco, 1983)
- Shogun Assassin (Robert Houston & Kenji Misumi, 1980)
- The Slayer (Julian Jarrold, 1982)
- Snuff (Michael Findlay, 1976)
- SS Experiment Camp (Sergio Garrone, 1976)
- Tenebrae (Dario Argento, 1982)
- Terror Eyes (Robert Hiltzik, 1984)
- The Toolbox Murders (Dennis Donnelly, 1978)
- Unhinged (Don Gronquist, 1982)
- Visiting Hours (Jean-Claude Lord, 1982)
- The Werewolf and the Yeti (Frank Agrama, 1975)
- The Witch That Came From The Sea (Matt Cimber, 1976)
- Women Behind Bars (Jesús Franco, 1973)
- Xtro (Harry Bromley Davenport, 1982)
- Zombie Creeping Flesh (Alfonso Brescia, 1980)
- Zombie Flesh Eaters (Lucio Fulci, 1979)
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