Cortechba Overrated

Pluskylang Great Film overall

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Michael_Elliott Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010)*** 1/2 (out of 4)The second documentary after the BAN THE SADIST VIDEOS! series that takes a look at the "video nasties" and the BBFC's attempt to ban horror movies that they felt would ruin the minds of young people and turn them into killers. We get interviews with people involved with the banning or fight against the banning as well as historians like Marc Morris and Kim Newman.If you watched BAN THE SADIST VIDEOS! then you're not going to see anything here that you don't already know but this is still very much worth viewing simply because the subject matter is so interesting. It's amazing to watch the archival interviews as well as the newspaper headlines, which were pretty much brainwashing people into thinking that if you watched ZOMBIE or MANIAC then you'd turn into a murderer or if you saw I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE you'd turn into a rapist.If you're unfamiliar with this era then you're certainly going to be in for a treat as a great number of films are discussed as well as clips from the various battles that happened on television as those against these movies would sometimes go up against those for them. We even get to see clips of all the movies as this documentary starts off, which was fun.

Red-Barracuda I remember back in the early 80's when I was at school, in our lunch hour me and my friends would often visit the local video rental shop which adjoined a Texaco garage. This was so exciting and to think that all we actually ever did was *look* at the video covers! We were too young to actually rent anything out. It's probably very hard for younger people to understand the excitement caused by the video boom of the early 80's, especially the influx of horror titles that saturated the market back then. The covers of these videos were garish and unsettling. They promised so much excess. They were a forbidden fruit. Some ironically were given eternal fame by being banned. I genuinely think that back in those days the authorities were so naive that they didn't foresee this. I distinctly remember seeing the list of the banned titles for the first time in a magazine of the time called 'Halls of Horror'. The list contained all of the films that would achieve infamy as video nasties plus several others that were patently absurd such as the war movie The Big Red One. This latter film made the list because the authorities assumed it must be a pornographic film going by its title! Its details like this that shows how absurd the whole thing was in many ways and how amateurishly it was handled.In the last few years or so, I have caught up with most of the infamous video nasties and on an alarmingly common basis wondered how in hell they were ever considered obscene in the first place. Of course, I don't refer to all of them when I say this; movies such as Cannibal Holocaust and The House on the Edge of the Park remain deeply troubling movies, while Faces of Death is guaranteed lasting infamy for its real death footage. But when viewing films such as Funhouse or Visiting Hours, amongst many others I just couldn't get to grips with how they could have fallen foul of the law to such a massive extent. As it turned out the 72 nasties were eventually whittled down to 39 'true' video nasties that were considered the extreme of the extreme Although when you consider that this final list included the innocuous The Werewolf and the Yeti you are still left wondering about the thought process that produced this final list.This documentary looks at the thinking behind the panic and the way the authorities acted. It was driven by politicians, puritans and Mary Whitehouse. The tabloid press were possibly the most influential of all though, informing the public that the sadistic videos were not only pernicious but that some were even genuine snuff movies. All of this was eaten up of course and titles with tabloid friendly, memorable names such as The Driller Killer became poster boys for all that was wrong with the new home video entertainment. Although most of us never actually thought about it at the time but the reason the market was flooded with low budget horror titles in the first place was that when the home video format first emerged, the big American studios refused to release their movies onto it seeing it as a competitor to their cinematic offerings. Consequently, lots of small traders emerged and bought up packages of cheap films, often very obscure and with a large percentage being horror flicks. And with this historical context, the early 80's home video horror boom was born.In fairness, it isn't very surprising that the Video Recording Act happened. It does seem insane that these films weren't age certificated in some way. It's also not hard to understand why a lot of folks were uncomfortable when they were presented with lurid promotional posters for the likes of S.S. Experiment Camp. We have been desensitised these days to film violence and you really have to take into account the historical context to understand the genuine shock that these films engendered. So the documentary looks at why the furore happened and it allows both sides of the argument fair air time to present their case. It would only be fair to say that the film is clearly on the side of the defenders but I did think that it allowed the other side of the argument a fair hearing and didn't make them look silly with cheap editing or anything. We get to see short clips of all the 72 films but in the final analysis, this is not about the films themselves. It's about what caused the Video Recordings Act of 1983 to come into place. If you have knowledge of the subject there probably won't be too much new here although I am certain you will learn a few new nuggets of information. If, on the other hand, you have no, or limited knowledge, of the whole video nasty phenomenon then this is as good a place to start as any.

SmakethDown638 Living in the US, I would read the term "Video Nasty" when it would come to collecting horror films such as the Beyond or Island of Death. I never looked into the term and then I'd come across it more and more. It would always be there when a movie like Horrible would hit DVD and you would see people say things like "finally a Video Nasty gets a DVD release!" Finally, after getting an all region DVD player, I decided to look into this whole "Video Nasty" list and see what I had and needed.This documentary was the big step as it details the Video Recordings Act from 83 and it tells the story of how the powers that be in the UK would have police raid video stores to seize the "Video Nasties" that would morally corrupt society. I already have this fascination with how people react to horror films and how the genre is so different with people compared to other genres. But to see a whole country be affected by a list of horror films? Wow! It takes you through the events and how the legal battles went and everything. Truly fascinating stuff for any horror fan.The extras on the DVD feature every trailer for every film on the list. I can proudly say this documentary was one of the greatest purchases I have made as a horror fan as it made me go after the remaining 33 movies listed on the Video Nasties list. I wish the documentary would get a region 1 release so people here in the States can appreciate a piece of horror history.Not all movies on the list are available on DVD. However, if you look hard enough like I did, you will find them.Everyone should see this. If you are a true horror fan, do yourself a favor and get this documentary. If you are a horror collector, get this documentary and start one of the funnest horror hunts you will ever have as a collector.

Perception_de_Ambiguity This documentary is part of the 3-DVD box set "Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide", the other 2 DVDs feature the trailers for all 72 video nasties.It starts by evoking the feeling of how it was to get and see those gruesome horror movies when VHS first came out in the late 70s. It also repeatedly degrades the picture quality to a crummy low-fi picture that is very authentically VHS-like. Then it goes down to business and we get a history lesson about how the video nasties list came to be, the censorship and VHS burnings in the UK,... People from both sides are interviewed, those who fought against the censorship but also those who wanted to enforce it, everything for the sake of recreating those events. For some good measurement some British young horror filmmakers and Kim Newman are thrown into the mix talking about how they perceived it and how those films even influenced their movie making. It's not about the individual video nasty movies, though, although you get to see some bits and pieces from them throughout. Balanced, well-made and works well as a time capsule bringing you back to your childhood. The 3-DVD-box set is available now...in a VHS case.