Film Review - Video Nasties (2010)

Video Nasties is a UK Documentary that details an infamous period of UK history which surrounded what was deemed to be "Video Nasties" which were horror VHS tapes released during the early 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of Britain and the campaign that to that country's Video Recordings Act of 1984.

Video Nasties is simply a must see documentary by anyone that any level of interest in history for not only does it talk about these Horror tapes that here in Australia were released by major distributors (House by the Cemetery which was one of the Nasties on the UK's list to be prosecuted was a Roadshow release to name one example) but it also talks about censorship as a whole.

And that wider point is why I think this documentary is a must see for historians as the tale of censorship presented here is one that is sadly far too often repeated around the world, we saw it here in Australia a few years ago when it came to internet censorship and the R18+ certificate for video games, the same hysteria, the same brave few trying to be heard above the den and the same eventual acceptance after a long period of trying to effect change then again it is often said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

But before I wrap things up I have to talk about these three VHS documentaries I've seen this one as well as the 2 American ones "Adjust your Tracking" and "Rewind This" as while watching them the Australian example of VHS releases came to mind and for the most part we were fairly lucky to escape a lot of the problems the US and UK had in terms of their video releases.

For example, Palace created their own sub label called Palace Explosive in the early to mid 80s and some of the horror titles like the Beyond which was another Video Nasty were released on that label and given an R certificate and then distributed to video stores, another example is that our releases tended to advertise upcoming and/or now available titles on the same label (Roadshow would pioneer this in 1982 when they launched their Home Video division) whereas the US tended to go more for the sell through route (though CEL would pioneer that in Australia in September 1985 with Roadshow following suit a year later.)

And so that was Video Nasties, a must see documentary that tells an important tale of both the past and the future, 5 out of 5.