"For teenagers, it was a wonderful time, but those over forty or fifty were highly offended. "Because video was unregulated, we had the chance to see crazy movies from all over the world that British audiences had never been exposed to," West told me. ![]() A teenager at the time of the video nasties panic, West was a fan from the word go. Teenagers gathered at one another's houses to watch glitchy videos whose tracking damage would turn images into snow at the only bits you really wanted to watch-the sex and the violence.Įarlier this year, horror director Jake West ( Doghouse with Danny Dyer, Razor Blade Smile, Evil Aliens) released the second part of his in-depth documentary about the era, Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide. Horror fans could pick up a copy of Blood Feast when they popped out for cigarettes or filled their car up at the garage. Suddenly, everyone was selling or renting videos. The VCR had been invented! You could watch films at home! Better still, while cinema releases had to make it past the BBFC (now known as the British Board of Film Classification then as the British Board of Film Censors), home video came under no such restriction. ![]() The early 80s were halcyon days for people who liked their movies blood-splattered. It's almost unbelievable that corner shops were raided and people went to jail over films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Evil Dead-films that are regarded today with benevolent admiration, in the same way we remember GG Allin or that kid who used to bring his snake into school. Today, the hysteria, misinformation and censorship of horror films in the mid 1980s seems comically stupid.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |