Movie Review: Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape (2010; Nucleus Films/Severin)

...and to think that we've had it bad, here in the States, with regards to an established movies rating board, and it's effect on horror films, or even the whole of motion pictures, itself; well actually, if one gets right down to it, it isn't necessarily the viewers who have it bad here...it's the film makers, and their desire to get their uncut and unexpunged 'vision' out for the genre-favoring public to see (...though, in favor of the filmmakers, their 'vision' is often eventually realized and seen, upon home video release, giving the avid and indiscriminant viewer a choice between the rated and the unrated). The domestically based MPAA ratings board has gone through a whole spectrum of transition, since it's untried 1922 inception...it's staunch, disciplined and assumedly morally driven members...reputably considered a responsible and morally sound lot...yet, often going back and forth and back again, from easy and liberal, to strict and militant. One cannot help but view the more contemporary archival evidence of the past, in taking an overview of this transition, and be quite taken aback...from a day when an imported Dracula film, exuding blatant images and concepts of sex, immorality, drunkenness, lesbianism, atheism, the domineering/surrendering of religion by/to the forces of evil, grave violation, church desecration, and downright violent imagery of blood-gushing death, dismemberment and impalement, garnished a 'G' rating (...circa 1968, Hammer's "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave"...don't believe me?? Check out the movie's page at IMDB. A misprint, you say?? Now check out the back cover of the home video)...to today's ratings board atmosphere, where mere cigarette smoking can make the difference between a 'PG' and 'PG-13' rating, and the difference between a 'PG-13' and "R' rated movie is sometimes dependent upon how many times the word 'fuck' is used in the film. Hypocritical, you say?? As the great Al Jolson once said, "...you ain't seen...or in this case, 'heard' nothing yet!!" Let's take a trip across the seas, to our neighboring continental British counterpart, shall we?? You just ain't gonna believe this...



...let's spin the short version: in the onset of the '80's home video rental boom, in and about the area of Great Britain, there was an exploitation of a non-prominent niche in the legal doctrine, involving motion picture classification; as the result of this niche, a large cache of extraordinarily ultra-violent and graphic genre films...a good number of which were produced in the neighboring European continental areas...managed to escape examination and scrutinization by the British Board of Film Censorship. As the result of such regulation, or lack thereof, having been glossed over, these films were invariably made available to video rental shops, notably snatched up by underaged youth, and eventually...as the result of prominent sensationalist press...stirred up massive parental and morally driven public debate, as to why these films managed to evade the normal channels of regulation...

...quick to take on the cause of this gross oversight, the National Viewers and Listeners Association, led by prominent social activist Mary Whitehouse, engaged a relentless moral campaign, in an effort to ensure the staunch and immediate prosecution of all motion pictures, released on home video, which exuded an arena of over-the-top ultra-violence, obscenity and a grossly unsound sense of immorality. As the result, the Director of Public Prosecutions established a straight-line roster of films, which were believed to subversively go against the grain of 1959's marked directive, the Obscenity Publications Act. This 72-title film list, coined as 'video nasties' would invariably aid local law enforcement in identifying, and thusly confiscating these films from marked video rental establishments. However, the establishment of this banning list of films, coupled with lesser films, which had already received certification from the British Board of Film Censorship, having been shorn of the moniker of what might be defined as obscene, led to gross vagueness and confusion, as far as what constitutes as obscene, and what does not. In the end, governmental Parliament got involved, the culmination of which wrought the 1984 Video Recordings Act, which instructed all home video titles to be submitted to the British Board of Film Censorship, for review and certification...

...and that, folks, is the 'official' story...or rather, that's the one for the tourists; for the purpose of the enlightening documentary, 2010's "Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape"...well, we'sa jus'a gonna ha'fa dig a lil' bit further inta' da' muck, filth an' slime, won't we??...

...as hypocritical as the 'video nasties' scandal proved, at least politically, in a way, one cannot wholly and necessarily blame the stanch moral masses for rallying to the cause, as far as tempering and suggestively banning these titles, or at the very least, bringing a greater awareness to them. After all, right in the onset, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, when one takes an gander at the lurid, subjective and grossly sensationalist artwork, which many of these genre titles bore...right on the video shelves. One the rental tape covers...in your face, graphic depictions of horror, mutilation, cannibalism, sadomasochism and sexual deviancy graced the video rental shelves, strewn amongst the mainstream titles. It wouldn't have been surprising if anyone...let alone the aforementioned youngsters, by which drew the initial concern...would have pulled such titles off the shelves for a closer look, and wonder '...good grief!! Just what the heck am I in store for, once I pop this tape into my machine?' Amusingly enough, as suggested in this documentary, that's exactly where a portion of the hypocrisy comes in, with regards to the so-called political 'voices of reason', who discriminately made it a point to expunge the 'video nasties' from existence, at least in Great Britain; 90 to 95 percent of them never actually bothered to view the material, which they were speaking out against...

...equally amusing, ironic and hypocritical is the fact that the established doctrine's 'hired guns' of law enforcement, sent out to ransack the video rental establishments, and confiscate the 'video nasties', never really had fully disclosure, as far as the details on the emergent doctrine, covering the regulation of this material, and the parameters by which they fall under. As the result of this indescript vagueness, many of the video titles confiscated were mistakenly considered in the expunging...titles thought questionable, like "Apocalypse Now", "The Big Red One" and "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", for example. There was, of course, the typical meanderings, which crop up in the sensationalist newspaper headlines from time to time, suggesting that these films were the cause for nearly all the major crimes...homicides, murders, physical & sexual abuse, and sadomasochistic crimes...which reach the criminal courts, and were thusly made the instigating scapegoats. On an even more drastic level, curators of these video rental shops were genuinely being prosecuted and jailed, for having 'video nasties', or even what were thought to be 'video nasties', on their shelves...

...admittedly, "Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape" is markedly biased, as far as the side of anti-censorship; however, the documentary is invariably fair, in regards to offering points of view from both sides...nay, all sides. Insightful and revelational information material, expounded upon by filmmakers Neil Marshall (..."Dog Soldiers". "The Descent", "Doomsday", etc.) and Chris Smith (..."Black Death", "Severence", etc.), and interspersed with archival footage of barnstorming activist Mary Whitehouse, at-the-time Director of the BBFC James Ferman, and contemporary opposing arguments and eyewitness accounting from conservative MP Graham Bright, once-Scotland Yard police officer Peter Kruger & social scholar Martin Baker. In fact, the most interesting and exponentially compelling revelations in these scandalous proceedings, come from Baker himself, in his overview of the controversy, at the time...a time when he was outright lambasted for his anti-censorship views, by not only the moral spearheaders, but also by the overly exploitative and sensationalist press, as well. Indeed, Baker also offers a compelling expose on the outrageous height of the campaign...it's inclined tendency to exaggerate, divert, distract, lie and mis-represent...an incorrigibly contradictive and hypocritical behavior, shown here to have been markedly traced all the way up to the pinnacle level, of which this controversial issue was eventually presented...the staunch scourges of Parliament...

...one might think that all of this literary evidence and eyewitness accounting, though quite informative and revelational, would come across as exhausting and...well, not necessarily boring, per say, but perhaps lackluster in it's overall presentation; rest assured that the latter is hardly the case, Director Jake West...of 1998's "Razor Blade Smile", 2009's "Doghouse", as well as a contributive multitude of various behind-the-scenes movie documentaries & extras, associated with many a genre film favorite, stemming back to 2003...injects a measure of serio-comedy into the scandalous proceedings, with humorous subject-to-subject transitioning bridges, amusing anecdotes by some of the filmmakers in documentative attendance, herein (...with jovial wit, including psychologist Dr. Patricia MacCormack, and film critic Alan Jones)...an overall editing style which amusingly exudes the laudable and hypocritical politics of the archival footage presented, associated with this event...and of course, a veritably endless plethora of deftly edited snippets of most, if not all of the strikingly graphic 'video nasty' movie trailers, which graced the darkened theaters, back in the day...

...and you'd think that such a thorough, intelligent and humorous documentary presentation would be enough, right?? No siree, Bob!! Just wait, folks!! If you act right now, Severin Films (...who has recently picked up this outstanding documentary for domestic NTSC distribution...having already been released in Region 2 format) will include not one, but two additional discs (...OK, just kidding...there's no need to act so emergently; it's three-disc editions for everyone). Disc two features original trailers for 39 of the 'video nasties', which were successfully, though heinously prosecuted in the British courts, as being affectingly liable for depravity and corruption. And disc three contains trailers for the remaining 33 films on the 'nasty' list, which were initially banned, but were subsequently acquitted, and eventually removed from the 'video nasty' rogues' gallery. Still not enough, you say?? Well, far be it for Severin to disappoint, as each of the two trailers discs can be presented as a separate and quite entertaining trailer show free-for-alls, or they can be preceded by eclectically special introductions to each trailer, offering even more tidbits of information, by the hosts of the documentary, with regards to why the associated films were deemed irredeemable...or opposing justification as to why the overall banning of the film, or films, might have been, as Shakespeare once put it, 'much ado about nothing'...

...there have been similar documentaries put out there, covering quite similar material; however, "Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide" is just that...the most definitive, as well as comprehensive, intelligent, funny, and well...just ball-out entertaining...