40 Fun Facts About Video Nasties

A distributor seeking publicity anonymously complained about its own video nasty to which morality campaigner?

Mary Whitehouse took the bait from Go Video, the firm behind Cannibal Holocaust, but the stunt backfired when her campaign helped get such tapes banned.

Police hunting video nasties once seized The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a musical starring which singer?

Dolly Parton's 1982 musical comedy was taken in one raid under the mistaken belief that it was pornographic, a sign of how arbitrary the seizures had become.

By director Ruggero Deodato's account, why did Cannibal Holocaust cast members appear before Italian magistrates?

To prove they were alive: Deodato said magistrates suspected the on-screen deaths were real, though he was never formally charged with murder.

Which horror novelist's rave review helped The Evil Dead, later a British video nasty, win a wide cinema release?

Stephen King saw the low-budget film at a screening and praised it so warmly that New Line Cinema bought the distribution rights.

The video nasty Cannibal Holocaust pioneered the found-footage style later made famous by which American horror hit?

The Blair Witch Project used the same device years later: film recovered after its makers vanish in the wilds, sold to audiences as genuine.

Which 1973 possession blockbuster vanished from British video shops in the 1980s and was not allowed back until 1999?

The Exorcist had sold on tape since 1981 without a certificate, but once video classification became law the BBFC's chief censor blocked it, citing its appeal to under-age viewers.

Which future Spider-Man director made his feature debut with The Evil Dead, later branded a video nasty?

Sam Raimi shot it in a remote Tennessee cabin with his childhood friend Bruce Campbell in the lead, two decades before his superhero blockbusters.

Which creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street wrote and directed the 1972 video nasty The Last House on the Left?

Wes Craven made it for about $90,000 as his first feature; British censors refused it a cinema certificate in 1974 and did not pass it uncut until 2008.

Which pop artist's name was attached to Flesh for Frankenstein, a 3D horror later banned as a video nasty?

Andy Warhol's name sat above the title on its first release, but the film was written and directed by Paul Morrissey, who used the extra dimension to push its gore at the audience.

Which film's magazine adverts, showing its gory VHS cover, sparked the first public outcry over video nasties in 1982?

The Driller Killer was advertised with its cover image of a power tool boring into a man's forehead, and the complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority began the panic.

Which Texas Chain Saw Massacre director also had The Funhouse and Death Trap named on the video nasties list?

Tobe Hooper saw both titles dropped from the official list, yet his 1974 breakthrough was refused a British certificate in 1975 and not passed uncut until 1999.

Which Italian director of Suspiria had two films, Tenebrae and Inferno, named on the video nasties list?

Dario Argento's Tenebrae, in which a visiting author's murder mystery seems to inspire real murders in Rome, was banned from sale in Britain until 1999.

The video nasty The Last House on the Left reworks The Virgin Spring, a 1960 film by which arthouse director?

Ingmar Bergman set his story of a father's revenge in medieval Sweden and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with it; the horror version moved the plot to modern America.

Which video nasty, sold in Italy as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead, stages an underwater fight with a shark?

Zombie Flesh Eaters was called Zombi 2 at home because Dawn of the Dead had played there as Zombi; a local shark trainer played the submerged corpse in the scene.

Which video nasty, first released as Day of the Woman, was given zero stars by critic Roger Ebert?

I Spit on Your Grave barely earned back its advertising costs under its first title, and the BBFC was still cutting it decades later, taking 1 minute 41 seconds from the 2020 Blu-ray.

Which film company, founded by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, produced the summer-camp video nasty The Burning?

Miramax took its name from the brothers' parents, Miriam and Max, who helped pay for the slasher; Harvey Weinstein also had a hand in its story.

Which future Seinfeld star first appeared on screen in the summer-camp slasher The Burning, later a video nasty?

Jason Alexander, later George Costanza, shared his screen debut with Holly Hunter and Fisher Stevens; British censors took 19 seconds out of the film for its 1992 video release.

Which Star Trek star appeared in Visiting Hours, a Canadian hospital slasher once named on the video nasties list?

William Shatner, born in Montreal, took a supporting part in the home-grown production, in which a woman-hating attacker follows a journalist to hospital to finish her off.

Which star of the first James Bond film led the cast of the video nasty Prisoner of the Cannibal God?

Ursula Andress, famous as Honey Ryder, played a woman searching the jungles of New Guinea for her missing husband in the 1978 Italian shocker, alongside Stacy Keach.

The video nasty Dead & Buried was credited to Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, the writers of which 1979 sci-fi horror?

Alien was such a hit that it helped the pair get their next horror script financed, though O'Bannon later distanced himself from the finished film.

In the video nasty Death Trap, a hotel owner in the Southern bayou feeds people who upset him to which animal?

A crocodile lives in the swamp beside the hotel; the whole film was shot on a sound stage, which its director said gave it a surreal, twilight look.

Which horror sequel was wrongly blamed in Britain for the 1993 murder of James Bulger, reviving fears of video violence?

Child's Play 3 was named in the press as a possible influence on the killers, a suggestion that the officers investigating the case rejected.

Which BBC sitcom spoofed the video nasties craze in its 1984 episode Nasty, in which four housemates meet a vampire?

The Young Ones had its housemates struggle to set up a new video recorder so they could watch a nasty, while a vampire waited in a parcel delivered to the house.

Which punk band played Nasty, their tongue-in-cheek love song to video nasties, on British television in 1984?

The Damned recorded the song for a BBC comedy's horror-spoof episode and put it out as the B-side of their 1984 single Thanks for the Night.

Before video had a law of its own, British police seized video nasties under which Act dating from 1959?

Obscene Publications Act cases turned on whether a tape would tend to deprave and corrupt its likely audience, a test so loose that seizures varied from one police force to the next.

Which official's office drew up the list of video nasties so that shops knew which tapes police might seize?

Director of Public Prosecutions staff first published the list in June 1983, after video retailers alarmed by random police raids asked for guidance on what they could stock.

Which British newspaper ran its own campaign against video nasties soon after the story broke in 1982?

Daily Mail coverage followed a Sunday Times article on high-street horror, and the growing media frenzy only increased teenagers' appetite for the tapes.

Low-budget horror flooded early British rental shops because the major studios stayed away from tape, fearing what?

Piracy worried the big distributors enough to leave the shelves bare, and cheap horror titles, some already refused a cinema certificate, filled the gap.

When former video nasties were finally passed in the 2000s, cuts were mostly limited to sexual violence and what else?

Cruelty to real animals cost Cannibal Holocaust 15 seconds as late as 2011, though that was down from nearly six minutes of cuts a decade earlier.

In 2009 the Video Recordings Act was found to be unenforceable because which body had never been notified of it?

The European Commission should have been told in 1984 under a technical-standards directive, so Parliament had to repeal and re-enact the same law in 2010.

Which video nasty, shot in Argentina as Slaughter, was retitled after its distributor tacked on a notorious new ending?

Snuff got its new ending and title in 1975, after its distributor read a newspaper story about rumoured real-murder movies from South America and saw a way to cash in.

Which 1963 Herschell Gordon Lewis film, later banned as a video nasty, is considered the first splatter movie?

Blood Feast follows a caterer who murders women for an Egyptian banquet; British censors still took 23 seconds out of it in 2001 and only passed it whole in 2005.

Which French star won Best Actress at Cannes for Possession, an art-house horror later named on the video nasties list?

Isabelle Adjani played a wife who asks for a divorce and then unravels, opposite Sam Neill as her spy husband, in a drama shot beside the Berlin Wall.

Director Jess Franco said he took on the video nasty Bloody Moon after being told which band would write the score?

Pink Floyd's involvement was a pretence, by Franco's account; he also talked the producers into shooting the work-for-hire slasher in his native Spain instead of Austria.

Which bestselling suspense novelist wrote the novelisation of the video nasty The Funhouse under the pen name Owen West?

Dean Koontz's book went on sale before the picture came out, so some readers met its carnival monster on the page first.

Which Italian director, nicknamed the Godfather of Gore, made The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery?

Lucio Fulci did not live to see either title passed uncut in Britain: he died in 1996, and the two were only cleared in 2001 and 2009.

Which slasher sequel closely echoes two killings from the earlier video nasty A Bay of Blood?

Friday the 13th Part 2 repeats a blade to the face and a spear that impales two lovers, both staged by Mario Bava ten years earlier in a thriller hugely influential on the genre.

Which star of Fellini's La Dolce Vita played the title role in the Italian video nasty Killer Nun?

Anita Ekberg took the part 19 years after her breakthrough as Fellini's unattainable dream woman; Britain cut the result in 1993 and did not pass it whole until 2006.

Which Conservative MP for Luton introduced the private member's bill that became the Video Recordings Act 1984?

Graham Bright took up the bill in 1983 at the suggestion of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, and later spent four years as John Major's parliamentary aide.

Which American-British film censor ran the BBFC from 1975 to 1999, throughout the video nasties era?

James Ferman had been a television director, and several long-banned titles, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre among them, were passed uncut soon after he retired.