The "Video Nasties" Part 3: Winter 1982 - 1983

The first successful prosecutions of "video nasties" gave the forces ranging against extreme horror on video new confidence and the campaign was soon heating up. As October 1982 came around, government itself was starting to take an interest, but the House of Commons made it clear that for the moment it was happy to let the BBFC and the video trade try to sort out the problem between them.

Unfortunately, the trade itself was doing little to help. As the DPP cautioned that it's "softly softly" approach was coming to an end, Thorn-EMI added fuel to the fires by accidentally releasing an uncut version of Tony Maylam's The Burning. It took them three weeks to realise their error, by which time many copies were circulating with the previously cut 15 seconds restored. Thorn-EMI tried desperately to recall the tapes, offering cut versions to any dealer that sent them back, but many copies escaped into the hands of collectors or under the counter of video renters who were realising that the "nasties" were among their biggest money-spinners.

For a while, things seemed to calm down. The press continued sniping at the "nasties" and their distributors and there were the first grumblings of discontent in government, but there were no more prosecutions through to the end of 1982. Indeed as 1983 dawned, it seemed as though the crisis might be averted. In late January, The Times reported that Norman Abbott, Chief Executive of the BVA, was in confident mood regarding the forthcoming changes to the film classification system his group had been working on with the BBFC. He expressed confidence that the new system would curb police action and head off the need for legal regulation. At the end of the month, the fruits of the BVA and BBFC's labours were revealed when the censor board unveiled its proposed changes to the current system of classifying films for theatrical release.

Unfortunately, within weeks, the system was in disarray and the campaign was stepped up a notch. On 4 October 1982, the BBFC had given a X certificate (restricted to audiences over the age of 18) to a new low budget horror film from unknown American horror director Sam Raimi - The Evil Dead. By the time the film was released, it had been changed to the Board's new 18 certificate and was put out to cinemas by its British distributor Palace at the same time that they made it available on video, a bold move for a small newcomer like Palace. Crucially, although the film was legally certified for theatrical showings, no such certification was yet required for its video release, although the version released to the home market was the same version that unspooled in cinemas around the country, one shorn of 49 seconds of violence.

This caused much confusion, not least to Manchester Police who began raiding shops selling or renting the video - often these shops were within yards of cinemas showing the exact same film legally - and beginning legal proceedings against the owners, mistakenly believing that the tape contained a much stronger, uncut version. The cases were all dropped and the tapes returned, but this wasn't the last time that Raimi's film would be in the frame during the "video nasties" debacle.

Last Updated: 15 October, 2008