Video Nasty Doc To Premiere At FrightFest

• 1st Sep 2010

Jake West who brought us some growing cult British horror films such as Evil Aliens and more recently Doghouse has been busy with a documentary that focuses on the censorship of horror films since way back in the video nasty era.

Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape will be screened for the first time at this year’s FrightFest taking place in late August. We’ve got the trailer for it on this page.

The doc will then be released as part of a 3 disc boxset titled Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide which will surface in stores on October 11.

Details of the disc are as follows:
Disc One presents the 39 titles which were successfully prosecuted in UK courts and deemed liable to deprave and corrupt. These included: Absurd, Cannibal Holocaust, The Driller Killer, I Spit on Your Grave, Nightmares in a Damaged Brain, Snuff & Zombie Flesh-Eaters.

Disc Two presents the 33 titles that were initially banned, but then subsequently acquitted and removed from the DPP’s list. These included: Death Trap, Deep River Savages, The Evil Dead, Human Experiments, The Toolbox Murders & Zombie Creeping Flesh.

Both discs can be viewed either as a non-stop trailer show, or with newly-filmed introductions from a wide range of acclaimed media academics and notable genre journalists. Each disc is preceded by a brief introduction by cult horror presenter Emily Booth.

Disc Three presents this era-defining documentary and features interviews with filmmakers Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust) Neil Marshall (The Descent, Doomsday), Christopher Smith (Severance, Black Death) and MP Graham Bright as well as rare archive footage featuring James Ferman (director of the BBFC 1975-1999) & Mary Whitehouse. Taking in the explosion of home video, the erosion of civil liberties, the introduction of draconian censorship measures, hysterical press campaigns and the birth of many careers born in blood and videotape, West’s documentary also reflects on the influence this peculiar era still exerts on us today.

For more info on this year’s FrightFest go to http://www.frightfest.co.uk