Between directing Blue Erotic Climax and Porno Esotic Love, prolific filmmaker Joe D'Amato took a break from his sleazy pornographic exploits and directed his first non-erotic horror Anthropophagus. Also known as Grim Reaper, Man-Eater and The Beast among a multitude of other names (as is quite common for cheap Italian horror), Anthropophagus was d... Click to read more "Anthropophagus"
If you are a fan of unstylish German early-eighties retro slashers (and surely this is a dominant genetic trait nowadays) then you cannot possibly die until you have seen Jesus Franco's "almost" infamous video nasty Bloody Moon (Die Säge des Todes - "The Saw of Death") AKA Profonde Tenebre and The Bloody Moon Murders. For lovers of tasteless disco ... Click to read more "Bloody Moon"
Another movie on the "Why the hell was this classed as a Video Nasty?" list is Ulli Lommel's The Boogeyman. Admittedly The Boogeyman is a movie from 1980 and was probably quite extreme compared to UK Saturday evening TV but, compared to some of the cannibal movies and exploitation flicks on the DPP video nasty banned list, it is simply a low budget... Click to read more "The Boogeyman"
The Burning is a slasher movie from 1981 that managed to get itself banished to the video nasty list. It fortified the genre but, unfortunately, didn't have the impact it should have for a number of reasons. It is often compared to Friday the 13th and quite rightly so; a group of hormonally charged teenagers at summer camp get stalked by a disfigur... Click to read more "The Burning"
Video Nasties taught us a lot of things to "don't" do but some couldn't resist looking in the basement, riding on the late night trains and some were tempted to open the window despite not really knowing which window they were supposed to be wary of. In 1979 the temptation to do what shouldn’t be done arose again with Don't Go in the House, a fairl... Click to read more "Don't Go in the House"
Don't Go in the Woods is another slasher rescued from wrongful imprisonment in the short-lived purgatory known as the BBFC Video Nasty List. Proof that it was not worthy of the cult status imbued by inclusion on the now infamous list is that when it was finally re-released in 2007 it passed the censors uncut and was rated 15. It is also a contentio... Click to read more "Don't Go in the Woods"
Another movie banned in the UK during the Video Nasties hysteria in the 1980's is Pranks, probably better known as The Dorm that Dripped Blood. Directors Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow deliver another slasher quite stereotypical of the era, a time when slashers didn't require numb-nut panic-stricken cheerleaders, a nerd, a trio of pot-heads an... Click to read more "The Dorm that Dripped Blood"
Abel Ferarra's The Driller Killer is the movie that started off the whole Video Nasty hysteria in the UK during the early eighties. Made in 1979, the majority of the controversy surrounding the low-budget movie was due to Vipco's marketing campaign which consisted of a number of full page advertisements showing the video's cover, which was an image... Click to read more "The Driller Killer"
The Funhouse is the second of Tobe Hooper's films to make it to the UK video nasty list (the first being Eaten Alive - the film about the crocodile, not the Umberto Lenzi one about cannibals). It is unclear why this tale of carnival jollity made it on to a list of notorious horror movies that "tend to deprave or corrupt persons" as it is a slasher ... Click to read more "The Funhouse"
Lamberto Bava's directorial debut, Macabre (Macabro) AKA Frozen Terror, is a beautiful romance story about illicit love affairs, unrequited devotion, tragedy, child murder, child murderers, necrophilia, and blind people dropping the soap. It would be impossible to do this work of perverse sinister art justice without giving away the surprise so if ... Click to read more "Macabre (Macabro) AKA Frozen Terror"
