The DPP 39: Video Nasties List - Part 10

In 1984, the Video Recordings Act ushered in a terrifying new era in UK home video entertainment. The regulation and subsequent censorship of home videos by the British Board of Film Classification led to a number of films being seized by the authorities and prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. In total, 39 of these films were successfully prosecuted, over the coming months The Horror Video will look very briefly at the release history of each film and its current status. To view the rest of the series…

Part 1: ‘Absurd’, ‘Anthropophagus’ and ‘Axe’, click here
Part 2: ‘Bay of Blood’, ‘The Beast in Heat’ and ‘Blood Feast’, click here
Part 3: ‘Blood Rites’, ‘Bloody Moon’ and ‘The Burning’, click here
Part 4: ‘Cannibal Apocalypse’, ‘Cannibal Ferox’ and ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, click here
Part 5: ‘The Cannibal Man’, ‘The Devil Hunter’ and ‘Don’t Go in the Woods’, click here
Part 6: ‘The Driller Killer’, ‘Evilspeak’ and ‘Expose’, click here
Part 7: ‘Faces of Death’, ‘Fight for Your Life’, ‘Flesh for Frankenstein’, click here
Part 8: ‘Forest of Fear’, ‘The Gestapo’s Last Orgy’ and ‘The House by the Cemetery’, click here
Part 9: ‘House on the Edge of the Park’, ‘I Spit on Your Grave’, ‘Island of Death’, click here

Title: The Last House on the Left (1972)

Director: Wes Craven
Uncut Running Time: 84 minutes
Alternative Titles: ‘Krug and Company’ ‘Bad Company’, ‘Grim Company’, ‘Night of Vengeance’, ‘Sex Crime of the Century’

During the late 70s and early 80s, few films gained the level of notoriety that preceded Wes Craven’s debut flick, a rape revenge film that is blisteringly raw and did little to hint at the skilled director he would become. Telling the simple story of a couple of young women who are unfortunate enough to fall victim to a quartet of escaped criminals…sadistic rapists, torturers and serial killers every one. The girls are systematically assaulted and degraded, almost within spitting distance of their homes, managing to escape as the parents of one of the girls exacts their own, instinctively and barbarically violent revenge.

Although often hailed as such, this is far from a classic, isn’t particularly well made, is very nasty and incredibly difficult to watch in parts. It shares a number of similarities to ‘House on the Edge of the Park’ (also starring David Hess) and ‘I Spit on Your Grave’. To say that Craven went on to reinvent the slasher film twice with some style, breathe new life into the zombie film with ‘The Serpent and the Rainbow’ and bring us one of the great American outback horror films with ‘The Hills Have Eyes’, you see very little of that cleverness, subtlety and creativity here that made him such a great. Having said that, it is highly effective in what it sets out to do, that being almost total revulsion. It depends on the viewer as to whether or not that’s a good thing or not. Also, the terrible attempts at humour that the two coppers bring is almost completely out of place!

It was never going to be given a fair ride by the UK censors and has the unenviable honour of being refused a cinema certificate in two different centuries! Banned from the silver screen upon its 1974 UK release it was finally unleashed on VHS courtesy of Replay in 1982 but was handcuffed in July 1983 making it one of the earlier ‘nasties’. Another cinema refusal was almost inevitable given its reputation in what should have been a relatively enlightened 2000, although it was given a cinema club certificate before being rejected for a DVD release in 2001. I don’t know what happened between then and 2002 but it was finally released on parole but even then the controversy didn’t end. Following an appeal against the 31 seconds of imposed cuts by the BBFC, our moral guardians decided to cut it further (probably out of spite!) resulting in a version missing 44 seconds of the harsher footage including urination, degradation, evisceration and more…at the same time the ‘Krug and Company’ version was released as a bonus feature with 28 seconds of cuts. By 2008 the BBFC finally had a word with itself and granted an uncut version, claiming the film to be ‘dated’! We’ve now got a staggering release from Arrow featuring three cuts of the film, all remastered in 2K, including commentaries, documentaries, retrospectives, interviews and far more than the film deserves. It’s best viewed in the context of history, censorship and a lesson in the ultimate pointlessness of censorship!

Current Status: Available uncut from Arrow Video in the UK, uncut on MGM in the US.

Title: Love Camp 7 (1969)

Director: Lee Frost
Uncut Running Time: 96 minutes
Alternative Titles: ‘Nazi Love Camp 7’, ‘Camp Special No.7’

This movie holds the distinction of being amongst, possibly even the very first of the Nazi ‘Sexploitation’ films, bizarrely claiming the film to be based on a true story! The plot involves a couple of (naturally beautiful!) female officers who go undercover as prisoners of war in order to extract information from a scientist who is also a prisoner in this particular concentration camp. The women are there purely for the sexual amusement of the Nazi guards so, of course, there are a number of scenes of torture, rape and degradation as the women attempt to ‘blend in’. Ultimately our heroines seek to be punished sufficiently so that they can join their scientist who has been placed in solitary confinement.

This particular genre has troubled our noble censors from the very start with its unpleasant mix of Nazi imagery, sexual violence and general sleaze for the purposes of titillating entertainment. It was never likely to find much of an audience in the UK as a consequence. As I’ve said in previous entries of this type within this rundown of the original 39 video nasties, this isn’t a genre that interests me so must confess that it isn’t one I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of viewing. That said, the censorship and banning of this film just served to give it an infamy it probably doesn’t deserve so that was the point?

In terms of censorship it’s a fairly simple story, the film has never seen the light of day with any official release in the UK since the early 80s moral panic. It was given a VHS release in 1983 through Market, swiftly falling foul of the authorities in 1985. An attempt was made to get it passed for a DVD release but it was rejected outright…cuts were considered but, as it contravened the BBFC’s strict guidance on sexualised violence, the sole purpose of the film’s existence, this idea was rejected. An uncut bootleg version was briefly available on DVD-r from some online retailers though these have also become scarce and the film quality is reputedly terrible.

Current Status: Remains banned in the UK, uncut version available on US blu ray through Blue Underground.

Title: Madhouse (1981)

Director: Ovidio G. Assonitis
Uncut Running Time: 93 minutes
Alternative Titles: ‘There was a Little Girl’, ‘And When she was Bad’, ‘Scared to Death’, ‘Flesh and the Beast’


This one is actually pretty good, so much so that it was picked up for distribution by none other than Warner Bros for distribution in parts of Europe. This Italian slasher is unusual in that the weapon of choice appears to be a dog, more specifically a Rottweiler that tears the throat of its victims, although there is one particularly nasty axe murder that is worth a tenner of any horror fan’s money! The story centres around a woman who becomes convinced that she is being stalked by her disfigured and deranged twin sister just days before their birthday. It makes some atmospheric use of its setting within a large house and is better made than many others appearing on this list. Watching it back, it was most likely the scene that sees the raging Rottweiler dispatched with a drill that saw it gain the attention of the powers that be. They had a real issue with power tools as weapons, as evidence by their treatment of ‘The Driller Killer’, ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ and ‘The Toolbox Murders’.

What’s interesting about this movie is that, rather than try and out-Giallo Dario Argento, the film instead seems to take its influence from the American slasher, slap bang in the middle its golden period. It’s very much an Italian film and perhaps comes across as more stylish than it actually is thanks to its grandiose settings, distinctive soundtrack and shocking dubbing. There were better Italian giallo/slasher hybrids to come, think of Soavi’s ‘Stage Fright’ in particular, but there’s a lot to enjoy about this film. Just don’t expect anything approaching the level of Fulci or Argento, neither in the film quality or gore content. That said, you could do a lot worse!

Medusa brought an uncut version to the UK in January 1983, releasing a truncated version later in the year which ended up in the hands of the authorities anyway…who said censorship worked? Oddly nobody tried to release the film again until Film 2000 released a piss poor copy in 2004. But, to give it its due it paved the way for Arrow to bring us a release with all the whistles and bells in 2017…happy days indeed and it’s good to see one of the better, but lesser known ‘video nasties’ finally given a worthwhile audience.

Current Status: Available Uncut in the UK and US via Arrow Video.

Psycho 2 (1983)

Tagline: “It’s 22 years later, and Norman Bates is coming home”
Duration: 113 minutes

Film Quality: 4/5
Entertainment Value: 4/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Originality: 3/5

Introduction

When Robert Bloch, author of the original ‘Psycho’, wrote a follow up novel in 1982, Universal Studio panicked and swiftly commissioned a sequel of their own that wasn’t to be based on Bloch’s second tome. Bloch used his novel to satirise Hollywood and its’ persistent obsession with slasher movies, something Hollywood wanted no part of, employing Tom Holland to write the script and former Hitchcock protégé Richard Franklin to direct. It can’t be overemphasised what a daunting task this must have been; to revisit one of the slasher genre’s forefathers, a classic film in its own right and come up with a worthy sequel. Whilst they might not have performed a miracle, the film turned out to be far better than it had any right to be.

In a Nutshell

Set 22 years after the events in Hitchcock’s original, Norman Bates is declared sane and released back to his home, the Bates Motel. It’s not a decision that pleases everyone with Lila Loomis, Marion Crane’s sister, vociferously vocal against his release, certain that he will kill again. When strange things start to happen to Norman at his home, he becomes convinced his dead mother is once again trying to persuade him to kill and begins to lose his tenuous grip on sanity. Is it all a trick to get Bates recommitted or is Norman once again going slowly insane?

So, what’s good about it?

Here is a sequel that dares to do something different. It would have been very easy for them to do a simple re-tread of the first film but instead they focus on character and psychology which must have been incredibly refreshing and frustrating in equal measures for movie goers in the middle of the slasher movie boom. It almost plays out like a giallo, creating its own ambiguity by lending motive to both Norman through his previous insanity and Loomis through her anger over the killer of her sister seemingly getting away with murder. Throw in some serious mother issues, a twisty plot and you have a very taught, smart and psychological horror film.

Anthony Perkins initially refused any involvement in a sequel out of respect for the original and only came on board after agreeing to read the script. What a performance! It’s rare to see a horror film focusing on the psychology and character of the killer rather than the victim and Perkins turns in a performance of such vulnerability and sensitivity that we accept he may be the victim of an elaborate scheme. He’s all nervous twitches, sideways glances, awkward smiles, building into his performance a wall that we can’t quite see through…we don’t know any more than he does whether or not he’s killed these people. There are moments when we are afraid of him and afraid for him, it may well even top his performance from the original and it’s clear that Perkins has a tremendous affection for the character to play him the way he does.

Of course he has a wonderful script upon which to hang this performance which gives very little away. Just as we think we know what’s going on, Holland throws something in there that makes us doubt our own opinions. Holland had such a burden placed upon him to respect the original, a burden shared with director Richard Franklin who sought the advice and help of several of the original crew to recreate the set, finding several of the props, including the bird of prey that towers ominously over Marion Crane in the opening scenes. Their intention was for this to be a tribute to Hitchcock and I’m sure the great man would have approved.

Most of the cast do a serviceable job, including a very fresh faced Meg Tilly and Vera Miles reprising her role as Lila Crane/Loomis. Jerry Goldsmith provides a haunting and, at times, beautiful score that takes some of the musical cues from Bernard Herrmann’s iconic original. The set design is also superb with the Motel once again providing an ominous and imposing backdrop to what is about to occur, this time fulfilling a number of roles as the terrible place, lovers’ lane and both a place of sanctuary and danger for Bates and his damaged psyche.

Without giving too much away, just like the first film, the ending is an absolute knockout. There are a number of twists but, despite the signposts, I certainly didn’t see the final confrontation coming in what is a truly chilling conclusion. The cast and crew weren’t given the final few pages of the script until the last day of filming so this ending was concealed from them as well. I won’t say any more to preserve the outcome for any of you who haven’t seen it!

And what about the bad?

The film plays loose and fast with some of the events that occur within the film. It’s easy to accept that Bates would be declared sane after 22 years, after all it is a decent amount of time to have elapsed. However, would they really send him back to the very place that sent him insane in the first place and all of the memories, feelings and emotions that the place would inevitably trigger? It’s the equivalent of sending a recovering alcoholic to live in a brewery only on a potentially fatal scale! It’s clumsily written into the script that cutbacks prevent frequent social worker visits and I’m aware that there would be no film without this setting but it’s a bit of a leap!

Also, I know that the film has the courage of its convictions to succeed on its own merits but I’m not sure that replaying the original movie’s most revered scene at the very beginning is in the film’s best interest. It’s the equivalent of hearing an original recording of the opening of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ just before hearing another band cover it. Nothing can live up to the expectations of such a classic, horrific scene so why show it? Good though ‘Psycho 2’ is, there is no equivalent scene that lives up to that single, iconic moment from the original.

Any themes?

Despite wanting to move away from a satire of slasher films this film does subvert the genre. The character of Lila is a reflection of us, yet is displayed as the villain of the piece, manipulating Bates to question his own sanity. She wants him to lose control so that he can be recommitted, believing that normality for him IS insanity. But what do we want from ‘Psycho 2’? Is it to see Norman reintegrated into society and make a valuable contribution? Despite the fact that we can claim to be sympathetic to his situation and may be pleased to see him declared sane, the answer is ‘no’! We want, perhaps even expect, to see him slowly descend into madness again, just like Lila. At one point Lila says ‘People don’t change’ and for us, insanity would be normality restored.

It’s also an examination of how we are, ultimately, controlled by and consumed by the dead. We learn from the first film that Norman was unable to cope with the death of his mother by his own hand, internalising her strict and moralising stance on life, externalising it through murder. Lila has a similar problem, living her life through the grief and anger caused by her murdered sister. Even the film itself lives permanently in the shadow of its predecessor but isn’t that the case for all of us who have suffered a bereavement and experienced loss? That void has to filled with something.

Release history…

The film suffered a few cuts for violence by the MPAA for its original cinema release although these brief moments, most notably the crowd pleasing knife through the mouth scene, have been restored for subsequent DVD and Blu-Ray releases. Some releases have been shortened further for nudity, specifically when Meg Tilly’s character gets out of a shower whilst being watched through a peep hole. As was the norm back in the early 80s, some additional scenes were filmed and included in TV versions to pad out the runtime, allowing them to fill syndicated slots.

Cultural impact?

Since ‘Psycho 2’ there have been a further two sequels and a long running origins TV series. Of course the original ‘Psycho’ was where it all started but it was the sequel that opened the door to what followed. Would anyone else have been brave enough to touch the original had there not been this sequel to open the floodgates?

Final thoughts?

‘Psycho 2’ has a good claim to the ‘most underrated film of the 80s’  and it will forever live in the shadow of the original but, for those who take the time to watch it, it’s more than a pleasant surprise. What Holland and Franklin have created is a thoughtful, well made and well written film that adds to the original by further exploring the Bates character without ever taking anything away from Hitchcock’s classic. In a decade full of needless sequels and pale imitations, the one that we probably needed the least turned out to be the best of the bunch.

Memorable Quotes

Mary: ‘I think there’s someone else in the house.’

Norman: ‘Just don’t let them take me back to the institution.’

Norman: ‘No mother, I won’t do that…you can’t make me kill her.’

Norman: ‘Would you care to share my toasted cheese sandwich?’

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Psycho’, ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’, ‘Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’

Related Reviews…

Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer – Click here for full review
Deep Red – Click here for full review
Beyond the Darkness – Click here for full review
Halloween – Click here for full review

The Evil Dead (1981)

Tagline: “The ultimate experience in gruelling terror’”
Duration: 85 minutes

Film Quality: 3.5/5
Gore Content: 4/5
Entertainment Value: 4.5/5
Originality: 4/5

Introduction

When two teenage lads decided to venture into the woods, full of hope and dreams, they surely didn’t expect that kind of reaction. No, not Dale and Tucker, I’m talking about Raimi and Campbell. Having begged, borrowed and probably attained by other means, enough money to make a feature length version of their short ‘Within the Woods’, a small crew of some 13 (they really didn’t help themselves did they!!!) began pre-production on a low budget film about demonic possession that within a couple of years had secured distribution with New Line cinema and a ringing endorsement from Stephen King. Campbell and Raimi had arrived…in style!

In a nutshell

Five teens venture into the woods where they unearth a tape recorder in an old log cabin. Foolishly they play the tape and unleash a demonic force that possesses them one by one. Can they unravel the mystery of the Book of the Dead and defeat the evil?

So what’s good about it?

This a true success story and a sheer triumph of creativity that goes to show that money and marketing are not the driving forces of creativity and entertainment. Raimi and Campbell were friends from school and it was through stubbornness and an absolute desire to get this film done that the horror community was given a genuinely original and fun film. They had just $100,000 and, though you could argue that they were lucky to have a friend with connections at Cannes to give them a wider audience, it was no fluke that Stephen King publicly endorsed the film. It really is a ferociously original film!

Let’s start with Raimi’s wonderful camerawork. The shape and form of the demonic force is never shown but its presence is everywhere, largely through Raimi’s expert handling of the lens. Just watch the scene where Cheryl comes out of the cabin and she looks to her left and right. The camera never lets you see past her field of view, she is on display and we are the ones watching her along with the evil presence. It’s unnerving and there are many other scenes like that in the woods, in the cabin, long tracking shots and the now infamous camera through the woods shot at the end. There is a sequence about an hour in where almost everything is shot at an angle of 45 degrees that is astonishing and shows a talent and capacity for editing way beyond what you normally expect from a low budget gore fest.

Raimi clearly knows his horror as the film works on two levels. The first half is surprisingly frightening, working more as a haunted house movie with strange noises, something in the cellar, temporary possession and an omnipotent force keeping the quintet at the cabin. There is some very creepy sound work going on here, particularly in the moments leading up to the infamous ‘tree rape’ scene and Shelly’s gruesome and very noisy demise. Those looking for a gorefest may be disappointed by the opening 40 minutes but as soon as Cheryl ‘turns’ there is more than enough splatter and gooey gore thrown at the screen. We’re treated to eye gougings, flesh eating, decapitation by axe, head loppings and a very painful moment involving an ankle and pencil (which is mightier than the sword?).

But who’d have thought that the breakout star would by Bruce Campbell’s ‘Ash’ who, certainly for the first half of the film does nothing special. In fact for most of the second half he struggles underneath book shelves or standing around not knowing what to do and Raimi seems to delight in throwing blood at him in various parts of the movie. In truth it’s the film’s superior, albeit more goofy, sequel where Raimi goes ‘Full Campbell’ and really cuts his childhood friend loose in his now trademark madcap style. However it’s this film that gave the pair their big break in a partnership that’s still giving us horror fans so much pleasure today, both in and outside the ‘Evil Dead’ universe.

What about the bad?

One of the reasons Sam Raimi made ‘Evil Dead 2’ so jovial was because of the reaction he got from some quarters to what was a fairly brutal original. Despite a thick undercurrent of black humour running throughout the film, the ‘tree rape’ scene never sat well with some critics and it does appear a little out of place with some of the other demonic attacks. I’m sure it wasn’t Raimi’s intention to trivialise rape or make it appear a little hokey but, despite it not being particularly graphic, it is pretty tasteless. With the rest of the film being such good, occasionally over the top fun I don’t think the film would have been any the worse without it.

Raimi would go on to write and direct bigger and better films and there are some elements of ‘The Evil Dead’ that don’t stand up too well to modern audiences. It has been surpassed by its own superior sequel and, despite some nifty camerawork and useful effects, it is rough around the edges and shows all the hallmarks of a low budget, amateur, independent film, albeit done VERY well and hugely enjoyable!

Any themes?

I always found it interesting that it was the women in the film who become possessed first. Could this be a heavily disguised feminist film? Okay, perhaps that’s a stretch too far but it does raise the question about whether our female characters are in fact the victims here. Traditionally it’s been the female characters who are terrorised, become the focus for our fear and the ones we identify with but not here. By making the ladies succumb to the demonic possession first, it is the males who are terrorised and the women who become the tormentors, albeit with a forced hand. This is certainly more pronounced in the second half of the film with Ash in particular bearing the brunt of the beatings.

By switching the roles and focus of the terror, it’s worth pointing out that this film was made during the height of the slasher boom. The way the film is structured is almost like an anti-slasher. You have the correct setting, a cabin in the woods becomes the terrible place, you have the female character who can ‘see’, many of the gruesome scenes involve sharp, penetrative weapons, guns are useless and there is an unseen, omnipresent force stalking the group of teens. However it is all subverted. The final girl is a boy, it is the men who are stalked and slashed, it’s the women who keep getting up after seemingly being killed and there is no unmasking, no resolution, no real escape.

Release History

Despite ‘The Evil Dead’ becoming intrinsically linked to the video nasties moral panic, it’s worth pointing out that Raimi’s film was never on the official list, or at least not the prosecuted 39 that made the DPP’s list. The original cinema version in the UK was cut by around 45 seconds and it was this version that was released by Palace on VHS and later banned in 1983, being dropped from the list in 1985. Palace picked it up again for distribution in 1990 but the BBFC failed to see the funny side, slicing a further minute from the running time. Anchor Bay brought out the full uncut VHS and DVD in 2001 and all subsequent releases have been completely uncensored.

There is a ‘Book of the Dead’ edition released in the UK which is cropped to fit a widescreen ratio rather than its natural fullscreen display. Some fans dislike this particular version as it is also slightly altered, albeit at Raimi’s request, including the removal of a lightening flash and a zoom into Cheryl’s face as she turns around having been possessed.

It’s worth pointing out that some of the newspapers that campaigned for this film to be banned (yes, I’m talking to you ‘The Sun’) were quite happy to give it away free on DVD in its uncut form as a promotion in the early 2000s to sell copies…hypocritical doesn’t quite cover it!

Cultural Impact

Massive and matches ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ and ‘Night of the Living Dead’ as one of the most culturally significant horror debuts in cinema history. It’s spawned two sequels that progressively upped the humour and slapstick whilst reducing the horror and gore, a very good remake and a TV series that continued a number of years after his own third movie ended.

It gave the world a unique directorial talent in Sam Raimi who became one of the hottest properties in Hollywood when he took a stab at the ‘Spider-man’ movies, doing a superb job on the first two, It’s refreshing to see a director who cut his teeth on the horror circuit not abandoning his own directorial traits and you could argue that his witty style and eye for the unusual camera shot was perfectly suited to bringing comic book characters to life.

And no dissection of the cultural impact of ‘The Evil Dead’ would be complete without talking about the living legend that is Bruce Campbell. There’s something reassuring about an actor like Campbell fully embracing his B-movie pedigree and breakout character persona. He’s given wonderful turns in ‘My Name is Bruce’ and ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’ with gleeful endeavour and didn’t hesitate, in fact seemingly actively pursued a return to the character of Ash for ‘Ash Vs Evil Dead’, a superb continuation of Raimi’s universe. Long may it continue!

Final thoughts

Original, entertaining, gleefully gory and revelling in its own bad taste, it’s very difficult not to enjoy ‘The Evil Dead’. It’s title suggests a zombie movie but it plays out more like a haunted house movie with a touch of the slasher and large dollop of demonic possession. Highly original, it was quite a hit on its release, raking in well over $2.5m and was the year’s biggest selling video in the UK before the BBFC put paid to that! It’s a film to go back to and enjoy over and over again, just enjoy it!

Memorable quotes

Linda: “We’re gonna get you, we’re gonna get you, not another peep, time to go to sleep.”

Evil Dead: “Join us…”

Shelly: “I don’t know what I would have done had I remained on those hot coals, burning my pretty flesh.”

Cheryl: “You will die…like the others before you, one by one we will take you.”

Ash: “You bastards, why are you torturing me like this…why?”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’, ‘The Video Dead’, ‘Bad Taste’, ‘Cabin in the Woods’.

Related Posts

‘Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn’ – Click here
‘Bad Taste’ – Click here
‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ – Click here
‘The Video Dead’ – Click here
‘An American Werewolf in London’ – Click here
'Braindead' - Click here

The DPP 39: Video Nasties List - Part 9

In 1984, the Video Recordings Act ushered in a terrifying new era in UK home video entertainment. The regulation and subsequent censorship of home videos by the British Board of Film Classification led to a number of films being seized by the authorities and prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. In total, 39 of these films were successfully prosecuted, over the coming months The Horror Video will look very briefly at the release history of each film and its current status. To view the rest of the series…

Part 1: ‘Absurd’, ‘Anthropophagus’ and ‘Axe’, click here
Part 2: ‘Bay of Blood’, ‘The Beast in Heat’ and ‘Blood Feast’, click here
Part 3: ‘Blood Rites’, ‘Bloody Moon’ and ‘The Burning’, click here
Part 4: ‘Cannibal Apocalypse’, ‘Cannibal Ferox’ and ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, click here
Part 5: ‘The Cannibal Man’, ‘The Devil Hunter’ and ‘Don’t Go in the Woods’ click here
Part 6: ‘The Driller Killer’, ‘Evilspeak’ and ‘Expose’. Click here
Part 7: ‘Faces of Death’, ‘Fight for Your Life’, ‘Flesh for Frankenstein’, click here
Part 8: ‘Forest of Fear’, ‘The Gestapo’s Last Orgy’ and ‘The House by the Cemetery’, click here

Title: ‘House on the Edge of the Park’ (1980)

Director: Ruggero Deodato
Uncut running time: 91 minutes
Alternative titles: ‘La Casa Speruta Nel Parco’, ‘La Casa al Confini del Parco’, ‘Der Schlitzer’

Deodato certainly knows how to cheese off the censors, this is another fairly graphic and controversial film featuring rape, torture and extreme violence. Even Deodato himself thought that the script was too violent (this was the man who made ‘Cannibal Holocaust’!) and it was perhaps inevitable that it’d end up on the UK banned list.

Essentially it’s a home invasion film where a couple of killers (who indulge in a bit of rape on the side) are invited to a party by a group of rich people who they end up helping out of a spot of car trouble. Of course it turns nasty when they make fun of their eventual assailants and, much like another film starring David Hess, ‘The Last House on the Left’, the tables are turned by their victims. It does have a decent twist in the tale at the end, albeit a little convoluted and I’m not sure it really justifies the film itself which is pretty nasty at times. That said, Deodato knows how to shoot a film and as long as you can put up with the violence, which is sexual at times and not easy to take, then it’s on the better side of the 39 films on the original DPP list.

Needless to say it was the sexual violence that got this into trouble more than anything else and it was refused even a cinema certificate in the early 80s in the UK. It’s a sign of the unregulated times that Skyline managed to put out an uncut version on VHS in October 1982, less than a year later it was successfully prosecuted and banned in July 1983. It remained unavailable until VIPCO, rather pointlessly, release a version that was missing a ridiculous 11m43s, mainly from the strong rape scenes and moments of sexual violence, this was in 2002. Shameless did a lot better, missing 43 seconds which was pretty much exclusively reserved for razors being used suggestively and intimately up and down the female form. We may one day see an uncut version, if someone can be bothered to release it, but for now the version we have isn’t at all bad.

Current status: unavailable in the UK on Shameless DVD, cut by 43 seconds, available uncut on region free Code Red in the US.

Title: ‘I Spit on Your Grave’ (1981)

Director: Meir Zarchi
Uncut running time: 94 minutes
Alternative titles: ‘Day of the Woman’, ‘I Hate Your Guts’, ‘The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill’


To describe this film as divisive would be an understatement with people calling it both feminist and exploitative of women in equal measure. There’s no right or wrong answer in that and I’m sure we all know the simple plot which is essentially a rape revenge film where the female victim turns the tables on her attackers. It’s monumentally brutal in its depiction of rape and incredibly difficult to watch, in fact you feel that you need to take a shower afterwards.

It’s clearly low budget and that grittiness just adds to the feeling of shock and Camille Keaton as Jennifer is astonishingly convincing. You are firmly on her side when she exacts her terrifying and brutal revenge and, from my perspective, you certainly aren’t invited to revel and enjoy the horrors that those ‘men’ inflict upon her. The writers and filmmakers make it easy for us by portraying the gang as one dimensional and pure evil, would it have been more challenging had we been given more characterisation? Their actions cause us to want to see them punished so there is a case for calling the filmmakers out for expecting us to revel and enjoy castration, decapitation and basic murder…even if it is an act of revenge. It’s a challenging film and one that asks a number of questions of the audience who, on first viewing (many may never watch it again), are likely to be too traumatised to want to think about.

The film landed itself in serious trouble with the BBFC after Wizard put out the uncut version in January 1982 and then again by Astra shortly after. By July 1983 it had been seized and successfully prosecuted, not seeing any further release until 2001 when it was brought out again on VHS by Screen Entertainment. More than seven minutes were removed, interestingly all from the rape scenes with none of the moments of revenge tinkered with.

In 2006 Screen Entertainment tried again with a version they claimed was uncut, before the BBFC removed 41 seconds. In reality what they had done is reframe some of the scenes in line with previous cuts. This had a very bizarre effect by diluting the rape scenes so much that the moments of revenge suddenly seemed a little over the top! Finally 101 Films put forward a genuinely uncut version in 2010 which suffered from 2m54s of cuts, again to the stronger elements of the rape scenes, entirely removing the rape over the rock and any exploitative emphasis that the rapists were enjoying it. I can’t see an uncut version ever being released in the UK

Current status: Available on DVD and blu-ray on 101 Films, cut by 2m54s in the UK, available uncut in the US on Anchor Bay.

Title: Island of Death (1972)

Director: Nico Mastorakis
Uncut running time: 108 minutes
Alternative title: ‘A Craving for Lust’, ‘Devils in Mykonos’, ‘Psychic Killer 2’, ‘Island of Perversion’, ‘Cruel Destination’


Hell’s Bells this is a seriously nasty film! A couple (Christopher and Celia) leave London, seemingly intent on ridding the island of Mykonos of anything they believe is perverse or unnatural and nothing is off the table. An artist is crucified and has paint poured down his throat, a policeman is hanged from his own plane, Christopher urinates on another woman before beating her half to death and decapitating her with a JCB…oh, and he also rapes a goat! It seems as if the filmmakers sole intention was to cram as much depravity and exploitatively violent scenes as possible into one film and pretty much succeeded. The twist in the tale is that the couple were brother and sister so the whole thing was driven by incestuous desires…of course it was!

All of the above may sound like a certain amount of fun but it really isn’t. It’s not particularly well made, save for a shot or two using a fish-eye lens involving a mysterious figure who haunts Celia’s dreams. Of course he turns out to be very real and is also a murderous rapist. If the intention was to make a purely exploitative film then it’s a resounding success!

The film was absolutely hammered by the BBFC who removed just over 13 minutes for its original cinema release (as ‘A Craving for Lust’) in 1976 before reverting back to its original title for an uncut VHS release by AVI. It was banned in November 1983 but, possibly due to confusion with a similarly titled Narcisco Ibanez Serrador film, was removed (but not released) from the list only to be reinstated in October 1985. It was refused a video certificate again under the name ‘Psychic Killer 2’ (it’s worth noting that this was a heavily cut version which shows the extreme nature of the material) before being released with 4m09s of cuts by VIPCO in the early 00s. Incredibly Arrow got it past the BBFC completely uncut in 2010 and it’s even been shown without cuts on the UK Horror Channel. How times have changed!

Current status: Uncut in the UK and US on Arrow Video.

Intruder (1989)

Tagline: ‘A new dimension in terror’
Running Time: 88 minutes (uncut version)

Film Quality: 4/5
Gore Content: 4/5
Entertainment Value: 4.5/5
Originality: 4/5

Introduction

Director Scott Spiegel was looking for a directorial project and rediscovered one of his early Super 8 movies filmed when he was a teenage called ‘Night Crew’. Realising that the horror genre was a relatively easy one within which low budget film makers could make a name for themselves and having already achieved success as a writer and producer in the ‘Evil Dead’ series, he gathered up some of the old gang to tread over familiar ground. With a great deal of unrealised talent within the cast and crew they produced one of the most overlooked and original slasher movies to grace the 80s and forever changed the landscape of cinema history.

In a nutshell

The owners of a small convenience store sell up and decide to close down, resulting in the night crew asked to stay behind to ‘slash prices’ in anticipation of a stock clearance. They get a slashing of a different kind as a maniacal killer is trapped inside with them, picking them off one by one. But who is he and will any of them get out alive?

What’s good about it?

By 1989 we thought we’d seen it all in the slasher genre but Scott Spiegel manages to bring something fresh and appealing to the table here. Many of the tropes are there (bunch of kids stalked by an unseen killer at night, all in one place) but there’s something a little more believable and commonplace about it. For a start they all have a reason for being in this ‘terrible place’ and a reason for splitting up…it’s their job and they are where they’re supposed to be. None of the teenagers are irritating or unlikeable, there’s no gratuitous nudity or sex, no forced moral message, no masked killer, legend or folk tale upon which to suspect that there is anything out of the ordinary. It’s just a regular nightshift where something extraordinary happens which gives it an everyday feel.

The kills, on the whole, are wonderfully over the top with lots of the red stuff. We have eyes gouged out on letter pins, heads splattered in hydraulic crushers and in the standout scene, a head cut in half from cheek to cheek (left). It’s presented in graphic close up and we see a lot of the aftermath as well with blood spurting off screen. For such a low budget film the effects really are quite remarkable and it’s no surprise that the make-up effects were provided by Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman who went on to become the world renowned KNB EFX crew. This was Nicotero’s first supervisory role and allowed him to set up KNB as a company, so this is where it all started!

There is a thick vein of very dark humour running throughout ‘Intruder’ and some wonderful dialogue, especially Dan Hicks’ tremendous twice told monologue about a fireman, ‘here comes f’cking Parker, walking down nine miles, swinging the head by the hair in one hand and his sandwich in the other’. Some of the visual gags as well are great, one of the kids is sawn in half and found dumped in a bin with a sign around his head that proudly claims to have ‘Half Off’. Once again, it raises the film above your average slasher by not taking itself too seriously but not sending itself up either. It’s a very fine line to walk and this film treads it almost perfectly.

The production crew proved to be highly resourceful, finding a genuine store that had actually closed down which they could use for virtually nothing and intercepting stock set for landfill to line the shelves. This film cost just $130,000 but looks superb in terms of production values and authenticity. It’s also got some decent acting chops, including Renee Estevez (Martin Sheen’s daughter), an ‘Evil Dead 2’ reunion for the brilliant Dan Hicks, Sam and Ted Raimi and a brief appearance by Bruce Campbell. Hicks in particular is having a ball in the limelight and turns in a wonderfully maniacal performance.

What about the bad?

Coming at the end of the slasher movie craze and WAY past its golden era it suffered horribly through bad timing. Never mind that it did something fresh and original with the format, people were tired of the genre so it fell by the wayside and has only very recently been reappraised and appreciated for the impressive film that it is. It’s also never been given the credit for launching a huge array of talent but more about that later.

Any themes?

‘Dawn of the Dead’ used its mall setting to make a comment on consumerism and whilst I don’t think there were many delusions of grandeur on the part of the filmmakers here I like the way that it places itself right in the middle of small town America in a minimart that’s closing down. At a time when small towns and businesses were being squeezed out by big business and huge supermarkets, here’s a story about the little guy fighting back. There’s a bit of a spoiler alert here but Hicks’ character Bill is being forced to sell up against his will by his former friends and majority stakeholder Danny. He put everything into that store and was being forced to watch it being torn apart brick by brick in the interests of money and development. It sends him over the edge and, as he so eloquently puts it “got a little carried away”’

His workforce are disposable, Danny doesn’t care about them, reflecting big business attitudes towards its own workforce…very relatable in today’s society. So whilst middle America was being left to fend to itself in the marketplace, so were Danny’s workforce, offered little protection against the relentless violence, or ‘power’, of the system.

Release history

One of the film’s major selling points, the notorious gore set pieces, were almost completely shorn by the MPAA which must have been absolutely gut wrenching for the FX teams involved. So much work had gone into creating some impressively gruesome effects that, initially, nobody got to see. The cuts were drastic and rendered some scenes almost nonsensical which certainly didn’t help the flow of the film. Add to that the fact that the killer’s identity, and ultimately the surprise ending, was revealed on the box art to many of the VHS tapes released…way to go!

In the UK, the full uncut version was submitted to the BBFC, needless to say it fared pretty poorly and seven seconds short of two minutes was hacked out of it to give us a version not too dissimilar to the US version. It was more complete, made more sense and, to be fair, it was still pretty gruesome. It also had a brightly coloured, yellow sticker on it emblazoned with the words ‘New Version’ but even in the pre-Internet days it was clear that something quite special was missing.

Thankfully, with the advent of blu-ray and the existence of a fabled ‘director’s cut’ containing untold gory treasures, it enjoyed a serious resurgence in the days of the shiny disc. Both the UK and US now have wonderfully restored versions available and in the US, a limited release of a workprint version which contains EVEN MORE GORE with some of the scenes extended, though not remastered and without sound. These extended scenes are available as special features within the standard releases.

Cultural Impact

I wasn’t kidding when I said it launched some major talent. We’ve already touched on the advent of Greg Nicotero’s KNB FX company and Sam Raimi going on to direct Hollywood blockbusters but they weren’t the only ones.

Renee Estevez (left, in a neat little in-joke camera trick!) went on to appear in 44 episodes of ‘The West Wing’, Craig Stark has continued to act to this day and most recently appeared in Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’, Burr Steer has turned to directing including the reasonably successful ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ whilst cinematographer Fernando Arguelles has had a prolific career in movies and TV with credits including ‘Grimm’, ‘Prison Break’, ‘Hemlock Grove’ and ‘Breakout Kings’.

But most notably writer and director Scott Spiegel introduced co-writer Lawrence Bender to an enthusiastic movie geek by the name of Quentin Tarantino. The two collaborated on a little independent feature called ‘Reservoir Dogs’, produced by Bender, and forever changed the history of film. Bender’s CV is just incredible, including executive producer of the recent Oscar winning ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ and the announced third instalment of ‘Kill Bill, not to mention his frequent collaborations with Tarantino that ended with ‘Inglorious Basterds’.

There was a huge amount of talent working on this film that it’s no surprise it stands out from the crowd and it’s great to see so many of the crew breaking out and making a success of themselves.

Our resourceful 'final girl' surrounded by carnage

Final Thoughts

A very smart, witty and gruesome slasher that was cruelly overlooked at the time but seems to have secured a new lease of life on blu-ray and re-appreciation. It comes across as unique and unusual and the fact that so many of the crew came out of it and have established themselves as leaders in their field shows that the film comes from good stock. I have a lot of time for this film and always thoroughly enjoy watching it…if you think you’ve seen it all within the slasher movie genre then give this a go, it’s fresh, original and a blast!

Memorable quotes:

Bill: “I’m jus’ crazy ‘bout this store.”

Bub: “If my brother hadn’t hit him repeatedly with a blender, he would’ve killed me.”
Linda: “A blender?”
Bub: “Yeah…a Hamilton Beach Blender.”

Bill: “Here comes f@cking Parker, walking down nine miles, swinging the goddamn head by the hair in one hand and his sandwich in the other…”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Stagefright’, ‘April Fool’s Day’, ‘Scream’