Ban The Sadist Videos!

Monday night I watched a documentary on Arrow's streaming site, as explained below: 

Note: This review is of both parts of this documentary; originally they were released separately but for streaming on Arrow's site, they were combined into one feature a little more than 90 minutes in length w/ nothing taken out.

On rare occasions in the past when I've done lists for the spooky season there have been documentaries concerning the genre watched. As a change of pace it was decided to view something (which isn't even the only documentary on Arrow concerning the subject) about a topic which I've only heard a few things about... as a dumb Yankee movie fan I of course have heard of the Video Nasty era in Great Britain back in the 80's where various horror movies were banned and the hysteria became so extreme, various videostore owners/video distributors were prosecuted just for possessing something like The Evil Dead or Cannibal Holocaust... but until last night not all the important details were known.

This has the look and feel of something made for video; after all I discovered that this was made by Blue Underground and Anchor Bay. That is irrelevant when it comes to content as it's a standard history piece where various talking heads explain why there was a panic over children possibly seeing graphic horror movies and this resulted in the BBFC being incredibly strict for a Western country and how often all sorts of movie had “controversial” moments cut, with a narrator occasionally present. The people interviewed were on both sides of the issue & included videostore owners, distributors, a psychologist with the last name Cumberbatch, and a member of law enforcement. This and the vintage footage is augmented by some graphic film clips. Not to get political here, but I was not shocked that both the British tabloid media and Margaret Thatcher were involved in this kerfuffle.

Ban does successfully present the point that it was a moral panic which resulted in such an absurd situation. A moralist named Mary Whitehouse led the efforts to have various movies deemed obscene-like I said, absurd. Bills were passed and that resulted in the censorship board (the BBFC) viewing all movies-not just those that were first released in cinemas-and being cut-happy. Some of the talking heads (including Mr. Cumberbatch) explained how there was misleading evidence that was used in the hysteria—not to mention there is rather weak evidence as that viewing graphic footage is so bad for people in general. Of course I wouldn't want my little nephews to see The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Cannibal Ferox or Fulci's Zombie... but it's the job of parents to try and make sure that doesn't happen. In addition, there are brief clips from the likes of Craven, Argento and Franco where they provide their opinion about having their films be censored or banned.

Ban demonstrates how flawed the whole system was; a gentleman named James Ferman was in charge of the BBFC and he was rather stringent in what he cut out yet ironically he was the one who prevented real extremists to have even stricter controls. Believe it or not, in the 90's Child's Play 3 of all movies was erroneously noted as inspiring a horrible case of two boys murdering another, and thankfully that overreaction did not cause even a worse situation. Ferman stepped down in the late 90's and many previously banned/cut films were released in proper form yet plenty are still not allowed in the UK (at least according to Wikipedia). Yet I can't shake my head or laugh at those across the pond as in the United States, there were similar panics over alleged Satanism being prevalent, heavy metal music containing dangerous hidden messages, and videogames from the likes of GTA to Mortal Kombat being “horrible” for kids... anyhow, it was nice to learn some new things last night.