Video nasties

[philipdalton]

Anybody remember the campaign against horror and violent videos during the early '80s? A lot of the banned films are now legally available on DVD but some are still banned.

[philipdalton]

The Daily Mail newspaper had a 'Ban The Sadist Videos Campaign' as they have a moralistic attitude towards entertainment. Or then again it could've just been a ruse to sell more copies of their paper.

[Betty]

Sadly, I don't remember the campaign against violent videos, (mainly because I wasn't born yet...) but it sounds quite interesting.
I personally believe that nothing that causes no harm to anybody else should be banned for adults, as long as they are properly warned.
I really don't understand the world we live in - harmless (though maybe violent) films get banned, while some people can still charge money (from both adults and children) for exhibiting dead bodies of non-consenting political prisoners who got butchered in the name of science and education. In addition to all this, they force non-consenting passersby to look at pictures of those dead bodies on their huge billboards and posters.
Shouldn't the ban be the other way round?

[philipdalton]

Actually one of the so-called 'video nasties' of the 80's was a film called 'Snuff' which shows a woman being killed in a most gruesome manner by the film crew at the end. The scene is faked, not real, the film was originally called 'The Slaughter' but someone had the idea of splicing that ending on and changing the name after reading an article on so-called 'snuff' movies reportedly being made in South America.
I knew a man who'd watched it on video once and had been very deeply upset and disturbed by it, suspecting it might be actually real.
One of the first films to be banned during the campaign was 'Driller Killer'.

[Betty]

It is definitely important to be properly informed.
Someone once showed me a video that looked like some secret camera show, but it ended by the comedian being shot by an annoyed passerby. It was fake, it turned out - part of an ad, but the video I saw had the last bit chopped off, so there was no way of knowing. Uploading it without the last bit was somebody's idea od a joke. I remember how sick it made me feel.

[Graceful Leonard]

The Daily Mail newspaper had a 'Ban The Sadist Videos Campaign' as they have a moralistic attitude towards entertainment. Or then again it could've just been a ruse to sell more copies of their paper.

Whatever the rights or wrongs about video nasties, The Daily Mail is, in my opinion, a far worse influence than any horror film.

[Betty]

You're probably right!

[philipdalton]

It has been felt by many that the Ratings Board in America were too lenient, particularly regarding violence. This can be seen from the fact that many of the films which have been banned on video in Britain, e.g. 'Driller Killer, 'The Exorcist', 'Reservoir Dogs' etc. were released in US cinemas with an R-rating, which means they could be shown to a child of any age if accompanied by an adult.

[Graceful Leonard]

It has been felt by many that the Ratings Board in America were too lenient, particularly regarding violence. This can be seen from the fact that many of the films which have been banned on video in Britain, e.g. 'Driller Killer, 'The Exorcist', 'Reservoir Dogs' etc. were released in US cinemas with an R-rating, which means they could be shown to a child of any age if accompanied by an adult.

It has been felt by many that the way the ratings system works is ineffective, regardless of the rating you give something. If people are banned from seeing it at the cinema they will simply get hold of a DVD or VHS (as it used to be) and watch it at home. That is exactly what happened with the video nasties. In fact, banning something only encourages a certain audience to watch it.

In my opinion, the Daily Mail and its ilk are precisely the wrong types to try to tackle this sort of thing because they simply don't understand it or the market it attracts. They can spout all the moral outrage nonsense they want but it fixes nothing.

[Betty]

I agree that the rating system doesn't really work. A classic example would be The King's Speech that got an R-rating just because of the f**k scene. It's such a docile film otherwise and I think even small children would survive the above-mentioned scene, as it is not meant in a negative way.