{"id":474138,"date":"2025-10-04T18:35:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T18:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/474138\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T18:35:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T18:35:18","slug":"how-many-movies-were-on-the-video-nasty-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/474138\/","title":{"rendered":"How many movies were on the \u2018Video Nasty\u2019 list?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ New Line CInema \/ MUBI \/ Original Posters)<\/p>\n

Tue 30 September 2025 14:15, UK <\/p>\n

When the British<\/a> government decided to crack down on the increase in gory, taboo-filled horror and exploitation movies, they labelled them \u2018video nasties\u2019, but was that title really going to stop people?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a dark allure to the term \u2018video nasty\u2019; I mean, if a film has been banned, people are going to want to see it for themselves.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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? <\/p>\n

Video nasties<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

How many movies were on the \u2018Video Nasty\u2019 list?<\/p>\n

The titles considered video nasties fluctuated as legislation changed, although it was an initial 72 which were accused of being obscene. It\u2019s 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\u2019d be charged with a criminal offence.<\/p>\n

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). <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s shocking that selling these movies \u2013 ones that I\u2019ve since watched on my laptop for free \u2013 could once be against the law. <\/p>\n

The 72 video nasties:<\/p>\n