But no, not for certain members of parliament who believed that not just our children, but the British public in general, were being corrupted and manipulated and possibly influenced into criminal activities by viewing these “vile and depraved” films. Nothing more than naughty junior japes, you might think, just a bunch of kids sitting around laughing at clearly fake blood and guts, and some boobs and bums bouncing up and down. VHS titles such as Blood Feast, Cannibal Holocaust, The Driller Killer, and I Spit on Your Grave were being distributed by all sorts of sometimes dubious-looking companies and then sold to and stocked by your local corner shop, who then rented them out to any Tom, Dick and Harriet (because it can’t have been only boys that watched them!) that wanted to see them.Īnd of course, this was before any official film certification was sanctioned for video tapes by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) so you had school kids getting hold of the likes of Faces of Death, and SS Experiment Love Camp, and sneaking home to watch them after school before their parents got back. In the UK this was proving to be something of a bugbear for our then Conservative government. Other than sneaking downstairs around midnight to catch whatever old school horrors happened to be showing, video rental stores were stocking some of the most obscure, gory, nudity- and violence-filled films ever to grace the silver screen. The likes of Eli Roth ( Hostel), James Wan ( Saw) and Rob Zombie ( The Devil’s Rejects, Halloween 2007) must have got their inspirations from somewhere other than the likes of the legendary Wes Craven ( Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream) and John Carpenter ( Halloween). But where did this now seemingly endless parade of films come from? How did it start? Add in The Human Centipede trilogy and the recent black metal biopic of sorts, Lords of Chaos, along with cult film studio Unearthed Films giving us the likes of The Vomit Gore Trilogy, and you have a bunch of films that certainly conjure up the word ‘nasty’.īut of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg, as over the years we have been inundated with a slew of films, not just from the horror genre, that explore and push boundaries when it comes to blood, gore, sex, nudity, human nature, taboo subjects, and simply fear, the psychological and the realms of decency in general. It was released in an edited version (with uncut versions readily available) and still provokes and triggers debate on- and offline.
Often cited as the most controversial and shocking film of all time, with many taboo subjects raised – and often shown – in an alarmingly well shot, lit, and acted manner, of course it caused a storm. Fairly recently, films such as Hostel, Saw and the Wrong Turn series, and before that the slightly tamer Final Destination series, really caught film fans’ imaginations, and horror fans with a penchant for gore and torture seemed satisfied with their regular dose of blood and guts.
It’s hard to believe that in 2019 we have pretty much seen it all when it comes to horrific things on screen, through cinema and film in general.
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