The original ‘Video Nasties’: The low budget horror films released using a loophole straight to VHS – so how many have YOU seen?

As the legendary cult horror movie Faces of Death is due for a reboot, we take a look at some of the most notorious ‘Video Nasties’.

Filming started in April this year for a ‘reimagining’ of the horror franchise.

It is touted to star Josie Totah, Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery.

The original 1978 movie, written and directed by John Alan Schwartz, was extremely controversial but commercially successful.

Filmed in a documentary style, it centres on pathologist Francis B. Gröss as he presents the viewer with a variety of footage showing different ways of dying.

While most of the iconic scenes were faked, the movie weaved in pre-existing video footage of real deaths or the aftermath of a death.

Despite receiving generally negative reviews, it was a huge success at the box office and grossed $35million worldwide.

It gained a cult following and was eventually deemed artistically significant to film.

There was also a sequel released in 1981 titled Faces of Death II and all of the subsequent sequels contained less or no fake footage.

However, it is not known what kind of style the re-release will be or whether it will contain real footage.

The stars are also better known for more lighthearted roles such as Saved By the Bell and Stranger Things.

Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber are co-writing the re-release, having previously said: ‘Faces Of Death was one of the first viral video tapes, and we are so lucky to be able to use it as a jumping off point for this exploration of cycles of violence and the way they perpetuate themselves online.’

Considering that today’s society is more permissive than in the 70s or 80s and because of the availability of all sorts of salacious footage on the internet, the idea that low-budget horror movies could create such controversy seems antiquated.

But what defined a ‘Video Nasty’?

Video Nasty

‘Video Nasty’ was a term in the British film industry, referring to a low-budget horror or exploitation film distributed on video.

Because of a loophole in film classification laws that allowed home videos to bypass the review process from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), they were often dramatically more violent and disturbing than anything at the mainstream cinema.

They often featured rape scenes, full frontal nudity, realistic cannibalism and obscene amounts of blood.

They were such a part of the zeitgeist that even Only Fools and Horses had an episode called ‘Video Nasty’ that parodied the phenomenon.

In the episode, Rodney tries to write a horror movie called ‘There’s a Rhino Loose in the City’ while Mickey Pearce films a punk rocker performing a striptease in the Trotter’s flat – unbeknownst to them.

Video Nasties became the target of infamous campaigner and conservative activist Mary Whitehouse.

She said in an interview: ‘I have never seen a Video Nasty. I wouldn’t.

‘If somebody tells me, as we get these reports in Europe, America and this country that a video nasty contains this, that and that, I don’t need to see visually what I know is in that film.’

Mrs Whitehouse led a campaign along with the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (NVALA) which led to prosecutions against individuals producing allegedly obscene videos.

Out of a list of 72 films that allegedly violated the Obscene Publications Act 1959, the films had either been previously acquitted of obscenity convictions or had already obtained a BBFC.

The confusion over the definition of ‘obscene material’ led to the Video Recordings Act 1984 which required a certification of video by the BBFC, following a private member’s bill from Conservative MP Graham Bright.

Video Nasty movies were so controversial that the led to arrests and it would take decades for uncut versions of the movies to be released.

Here are some of the most notorious films dubbed as a ‘Nasty’.

Cannibal Holocaust

The director of Italian movie, Cannibal Holocaust Ruggero Deodato was arrested 10 days after the movie’s release for murdering the cast.

Cannibal Holocaust is regarded as an all-time classic which spawned the ‘found footage’ genre of horror, such as The Blair Witch Project.

It tells the story of a group of documentary filmmakers who go missing on a trek into the Amazon rainforest to make a movie about cannibal tribes.

Deodato made the actors who died in the film to sign a contract saying they would stay out of all media and not engage in interviews for a year to convince the public their deaths were real.

But the plan worked too well as the film was confiscated by authorities and Deodato was charged with obscenity.

When the movie was released in France a year later, the media started to speculate that the death scenes were so realistic because they might be true.

After being charged with murder, it was only after it was proven that the actors depicted dying horrifically were actually still alive.

Despite being cleared of all charges, the movie remained banned in various countries because of its depiction of real animal deaths and the overall disturbing nature of the movie.

Driller Killer

Some of the Video Nasties were allegedly comedies, although they weren’t any less gruesome or even particularly funny compared to Airplane or other contemporary comedies of the time.

Driller Killer (1979) is a comedy slasher film, directed by Abel Ferrara, about a struggling artist in New York City who turns insane from stress and begins killing vagrants with a power drill.

Dubbed as one of the original Naties, newspapers ran headlines saying ‘BAN THIS FILTH’.

Ferrara claims the picture is a comedy and not an exploitative horror flick.

The Evil Dead

The Evil Dead is perhaps one of the most successful of all the Video Nasties.

Horror writer Stephen King has previously said it is one of his favourite movies and the franchise even spawned video games.

Although the cinema version had been approved by the BBFC, there were concerns about the lack of an effective age rating system on videos which meant it could lead to underage viewing.

The video version was seized from a large number of shops around the UK and in many cases, the shop owners pleaded guilty to supplying an obscene article rather than incur the expense of trying to defend the film.

Eventually, the distributors were taken to Snaresbrook Crown Court where they successfully argued the film was not obscene.

The movie was removed from the Video Nasties list by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) in September 1985.

Also, The Evil Dead is definitely one of the most successful Video Nasties and was released to critical acclaim, currently holding an 85 per cent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Last House on the Left

Written, directed and edited by legendary horror producer Wes Craven, known for Nightmare on Elmstreet and Scream, the 1972 movie is about a 17-year-old on her birthday who tries to buy cannabis before a rock concert.

But she and her friend are kidnapped and brutalised by a gang of psychopathic convicts.

It was refused a video certificate and passed with 31 seconds cut in 2002 and passed uncut on March 17, 2008.

The movie was censored in many countries and was particularly controversial in the UK.

The film was refused a certificate for cinema release by the BBFC in 1974 due to scenes of sadism and violence.

Some of the most controversial scenes cut – even from the ‘uncut’ version – include the 17-year-old birthday girl completely naked reading birthday cards and a lesbian rape scene in which the girls are forced to perform sex acts on each other.

Sandra Peabody who starred in the movie said she regretted appearing in the movie due to a constantly changing script and suffering abuse from her male co-stars.

Other actors have since expressed regret.

The movie became a cult classic and even spawned a remake in 2009 starring Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad.

Cannibal Apocalypse

One of many cannibal-themed movies on the Nasties list.

This one fuses cannibalism and zombie tropes as a group of unstable Vietnam vets come back to America carrying a virus that turns them into maneaters.

The film was available uncut on UK video back in the early 1980s, but found its way onto the ‘Video Nasties’ list and the distributors were prosecuted for obscenity.

It was finally re-released in the UK in 2005 but a two-second shot of a rat getting splattered with burning napalm was cut as it was in breach of the ‘Cruelty to Animals’ act.

Nazisploitation Nasties

Perhaps some of the most controversial Video Nasties were never even released in the UK and are banned even to this day.

There are several Nazi-themed movies such as The Beast in Heat about an SS officer who creates a mutant beast that likes to torture and rape.

Or there is Love Camp 7 about two female American officers infiltrating a Nazi prison camp to rescue a prisoner.

They find that the camp’s female inmates serve as prostitutes for German officers and are subjected to humiliating treatment, torture, and rape.

Also, there is The Gestapo’s Last Orgy about a Jewish woman who survives a concentration camp goes back to the ruins of the camp along with a former SS officer and recollects the torture and constant abuse she went through.

The movies contain a lot of full-frontal nudity and an uncomfortable amount of rape that is still extremely controversial as well as uncomfortable to watch.

Night of the Bloody Apes

Some are just plainly bizarre and funny, but unintentionally.

Night of the Bloody Apes is one of the original Video Nasties.

Originally released in 1969, it centres around a scientist who puts a gorilla heart into his dying son which transforms him into an ape monster who decides he likes raping and killing.

Eventually, he is brought to justice by a female wrestler.

The movie was a remake of the 1962 movie Las Luchadoras contra el medico asesino (The Wrestling Women vs. the Killer Doctor).

Axe

A relatively straightforward movie about three criminals on a murder spree at a farmhouse where a girl is living with her paralysed grandfather.

After one of the men tries to rape her, she decides to take revenge, killing her attacker with a razor blade.

The movie was banned in the UK in the 1980s.

Snuff

This 1976 movie was marketed as a genuine ‘snuff film’, which according to urban legend are movies that show genuine murder on film.

It is a splatter film involving a cult leader leading a gang of bikers in a series of supposedly real killings.

The movie helped contribute to the legend of snuff films but the concept did not originate with it.

The Killer Nun

Anita Ekberg stars as Sister Gertrude in this 1979 movie about a nun who descends into a frenzy of drug taking, gay sex and sadistic murder.

It wasn’t until 2006 that the uncut version was finally released.

Mary Whitehouse denounced it as one of the ‘video nasties’ subgenre of violent horror cinema, which ‘might’ adversely affect human behaviour.