Tuesday 25th March 2014 - Video Nasties

Video Nasties

-Quality on pirated films were horrible
-Tapes were being advertised for people to record
-Censorship in horror films - is it okay to show graphic images? Unregulated and uncensored
-Video nasties were available for the first time in the UK around the mid 80's

-Film censorship is motivated by fears about audiences and technologies
-Video certificated and age restrictions
-Censorship was very much honed in on and strict
-Before video nasties came about, boundaries were very rarely pushed
-When you distribute pirated films, it becomes illegal
-VHS's wear out over time
-If you copy two VHS's it becomes a criminal act

Video Nasties - Censorship
-Graphic gore and violence
-Horror films
-Explicit sex scenes
-Rape scenes
-Spectacle
-Couldn't be shown in cinemas due to censorship, they were indie films that were shown on VHS
-Video Nasties were popular because they were restricted
-Government and pressure groups deciding what audiences should see

-VHS then was equivalent to the internet nowdays
-British Board of Film Classification = BBFC
-The reason you have censorship is so it doesn't effect people; people may act upon it. An example of this is Clockwood Orange

-Video Nasties case study on the 1980's - very few people had seen the films and were calling it out as "morally wrong". Conservative pressure groups were right wing, held traditional values, were mainly upper class and claimed to be "protecting" audiences with censorship
-The Nanny State - upper class people making decisions for everyone. The government has ultimate control
-Moral Panic

Video Nasties
-Driller Killer, Cannibal Holocaust
-Gruesome, extreme - packaging was explicit
-No censorship which meant that children could be exposed to this material
-"People indulged in the thrill of the forbidden"
-BVA
-1982 - cuts were made
-Mary Whitehouse - friends with Maragret Thatcher
-The fear of something supernatural and evil
-Video nasties influenced moral decline
-Campaigns led to the Obscene Complications Act
-1982 - police took 22000 casettes to be withdrawn from distribution
-Video Nasties were an extravaganza of gory violence
-The Video Nasties List - obscene films

Technology - Home Video
Political
-Conservative government sought to protect.
-Regulated videos to have age restrictions
-Morality, video nasties, censorship
Social
-Riots, campaigns against video nasties; Mary Whitehouse, Margaret Thatcher, the media and the BBFC.
-The above mentioned scapegoated the video nasties for immoral behaviour which led to a moral panic
Economic
-Cinema attendance declined massively due to the rise of VHS
-Video Nasties like Evil Dead, I Spit On Your Grave and Driller Killer were realistic because they were low budget
-Video Nasties were niche films and really popular
-There were restrictions on re-makes
-Video Nasties were influential
-Watching video nasties helps put it in context of narrative
-Video Nasties were made for distribution only via home-video
-Censorship or individual judgement
Video Nasties created diversity of films