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.