While they may all seem like weird Friday night watches, the Video Nasty Act also led to the banning of several films that are now considered important and never deserved to be banned in the first place. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The evil deaths, Darkness, PossessionAnd The Driller Killer have all received the label at different times.

If you’re brave enough to venture into the bloody world of Video Nasties, many of the 72 officially rated films are worth watching. Here’s our pick of the five Video Nasty films to see before you die – hopefully not with a chainsaw to the face or an electric drill to the head.

Five must-see “Video Nasty” films:

Deep red (Dario Argento, 1975)

Between 1975 and 1982, Italian horror maestro Dario Argento had four films under the Video Nasties brand in the UK. Hell was banned for 30 years; Contamination was blacklisted for 23 years before receiving a 15-year certificate without any cuts; And Suspiria It took six years to finally get an 18-year certificate. Deep red would be our bad pick for Argento though. It was released in Italy in 1975 but would not be legally available in the UK until 18 years later, in 2003.

In this truly creepy and batshit giallo classic, David Hemmings plays a British pianist who investigates a series of gruesome murders committed in Turin by a mysterious black-gloved figure. It features some of the most disgusting deaths in giallo history – you might have itchy teeth the next time you stare at your fireplace – and a creepy mechanized doll that’s total nightmare fuel.

Director James Wan has spoken openly about how his work has been influenced by Argento on several occasions. Its Wacky Horror Mystery of 2021 Clever is particularly obvious Deep red tribute, while Billy the doll in Saw is also indebted to the film.

Foxy Brown (Jack Hill, 1974)

When most people think of the words “Video Nasty,” they conjure up images of extreme violence, excessive gore, and generally upsetting material. That’s why it’s weird that the blaxploitation classic Foxy Brown was classified as Video Nasty alongside countless films that better fit this project. Sure, there’s a bit of violence and nudity in this story about a woman who goes undercover as a sex worker to track down the person who killed her boyfriend, but it definitely sticks out like a sore thumb to the sides of titles like Blood Festival And Cannibals in the streets.

The film was first released in the United States in 1974, but did not arrive on home video in the United Kingdom until 13 years later. It took over seven minutes of editing to get an 18 certificate, and it would take another 26 years for it to be released in uncut form.

This led to the far-fetched scenario that moviegoers in the UK couldn’t watch an uncut version of Foxy Brown – the film that so inspired Tarantino when he made the 1997 film Jackie Brown – until 16 years after the release of the classic starring Pam Grier.

Fight for your life (Robert A. Endelson, 1977)

Fight for your life It arrived in the UK temporarily in 1981, but the BBFC prevented its theatrical release. A VHS version appeared in stores in 1982, but by 1984 it was swept up in the Video Nasty craze and ultimately banned. Surprisingly, it is one of the few films from this era still banned in the UK. There has never been an official release on DVD or Blu-Ray – although it can be viewed on YouTube – and given the racial content contained in the film, it is unlikely that any of the Blu sales houses -Ray tries to bring him back.

Ultimately, it’s a shame that the film can’t be watched legally in the UK because it’s actually written, acted and directed with surprising skill. The story of an escaped convict who takes a black family hostage, only to find himself in a battle with the family’s pastor patriarch, the film has some very famous fans.

During an interview with furious cinemadirector Robert A Endelson – who is now a dentist in New York – revealed: “I know Quentin Tarantino has a copy of Struggleand he examined it. I wasn’t there, but I would have loved to see the audience’s reaction.

He added: “Tarantino commenting on the film and screening it makes me feel good: he’s a big fan. John Waters too – he mentioned it in one of his books. Recognition is a good thing.

The last house on the left (Wes Craven, 1972)

When the British Board of Film Classification first discovered The last house on the left on July 4, 1974, he quickly decided that he could not give the film a classification that would allow it to be released in the United Kingdom. In a letter to the distributor, BBFC secretary Stephen Murphy wrote: “We find no redeeming merit, in the script, in the acting, in the development of the characters or in the direction, which would lead us to think this confused film deserves to be saved. »

Even after huge cuts to the film to tone down the sexual violence, the BBFC still refused classification and ultimately the film was banned as Video Nasty. It was not until 2002 that the film was finally released as an 18-certificate DVD.

Today, the film has lost little of its power to shock and awe, but it is now recognized that Craven’s performances and direction place it far above most exploitation films. It was remade in 2009 with Aaron Paul and Sara Paxton and received similar vitriolic reviews as the original, the irony being that the perception of Craven’s version had now changed so much that it was considered untouchable.

Delirium (Peter Maris, 1979)

The backstory of this wicked 1979 thriller is truly fascinating. You see, Delirium is actually two completely separate films that were spliced ​​together to make one ultra-violent Frankenstein: A Grindhouse Monster movie. Oh, and it’s also known by a different title in some circles: Psycho Puppet.

The story goes that in the late ’70s, director Peter Maris was making an urban conspiracy thriller set in St. Louis, Missouri, but he didn’t – or didn’t could – finish this film. Thinking, he wrote a new project about a killer and the police’s efforts to catch him. On their own, the two films were unfinished piecemeals, but together they formed a semi-coherent story.

DeliriumIt is therefore a series of murders which terrify the citizens of Saint-Louis. The police investigate the murders and when they find the culprit, they realize that he is a disturbed Vietnam veteran who has been hired by a cabal of businessmen to kill criminals and undesirables of the city. Unfortunately for this cabal, their veteran murderer turns against them, and they begin to fear the very monster they have unleashed on the city.

For decades, Delirium could only be found on VHS, as it was banned in the UK as one of the first Section 2 Video Nasties. In 2022, however, Severin Films released it on Blu-Ray, remastered from the only surviving 35mm print from 1979. Guess who is a big fan of this film? We’ll give you a clue: his name rhymes with Blentin Blarantino.

Related topics