Video Nasties: The Changing Attitudes Towards Film Censorship

By Karl Benecke on Apr 6, 10 12:45 PM

In the 1980's many 'video nasties' were banned and refused a certificate, this was mainly on the grounds of The Obscene Publications Act (1959).

The rise in home entertainment and the widespread introduction of video in the 1980's saw new concerns raised about what depraved movies people could be watching behind closed doors. The BBFC addressed these concerns by passing the Video Recordings Act in 1984. This meant a film could be banned if it was unsuitable for home viewing, or the studio would be asked to apply heavy cutting to the movie to make it suitable. Video Nasties such as Cannibal Holocaust, Driller Killer, Evil Dead, Cannibal Ferox and Last House on the Left were either banned or forced to make heavy cuts in order to pass the film.
At the time of the VRA Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government were in office, and often sympathised with conservative agents within the press like the 'Daily Mail' and their calls for these types of films to be banned.

Headlines like this in the Daily Mail are frequent even in more liberal times

The BBFC can often be pressurised by conservative agents within the press to ban certain types of film , and increase its authority. the Daily Mail is one such newspaper, in 2009 a film called Antichrist was released and passed by the BBFC, this prompted an online article on the Daily Mail website titled: 'What Does it take for a film to get banned these days'? Speaking of the movie Antichrist the article says: ' As censors approve a movie that plumbs grotesque new depths of sexual explicitness and violence, one critic (who prides himself on being broad-minded) despairs...A film which plumbs new depths of sexual explicitness, excruciating violence and degradation has just been passed as fit for general consumption by the British Board of Film Classification'.
The board also has to balance its liberal stances with conservative fears of film harming its audiences. This again shows the BBFC are moving its classification structure with the times, if the conservative government of the early 80s were in power today, the liberal stance of the BBFC would more than likely succumb to the censorship wishes of news organizations such as The Daily Mail.
In the early 90s there was a succession of dealers in illegal videos, who were tracked down in 1992. The people were in possession of titles banned at the time like 'Cannibal Holocaust' and banned pornographic material. The media at this time became increasingly concerned with the clampdown on video censorship