A social history of the ‘video nasty’. By David Kerekes and David Slater.
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A social history of the ‘video nasty’.
In the early 1980s, video technology forever changed the face of home entertainment. The videocassette – a handy-sized cartridge of magnetic tape inside a plastic shell – domesticated cinema as families across Britain began to consume films in an entirely new way. Demand was high and the result was a video gold rush, with video rental outlets appearing on every high street almost overnight. Without moderation their shelves filled with all manner of films depicting unbridled sex and violence. A backlash was inevitable. Video was soon perceived as a threat to society, a view neatly summed up in the term ‘video nasties’.
CANNIBAL ERROR chronicles the phenomenal rise of video culture through a tumultuous decade, its impact and its aftermath. Based on extensive research and interviews, the authors provide a first-hand account of Britain in the 1980s, when video became a scapegoat for a variety of social ills. It examines the confusion spawned by the Video Recordings Act 1984, the subsequent witch hunt that culminated in police raids and arrests, and offers insightful commentary on many contentious and ‘banned’ films that were cited by the media as influential factors in several murder cases. It also investigates the cottage industry in illicit films that developed as a direct result of the ‘video nasty’ clampdown.
CANNIBAL ERROR, a revised and reworked edition of SEE NO EVIL (2000), is an exhaustive and startling overview of Britain’s ‘video nasty’ panic, the ramifications of which are still felt today.
THIS BOOK ISN’T an encyclopaedia of contentious films or an attempt to discuss every video that has had a run-in with the law or the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). Cannibal Error is primarily a chronicle of video culture in Britain, and of political anti-film propaganda from the late seventies through to the end of the millennium. A substantial part deals with the Video Recordings Act 1984 and the so-called ‘video nasties’. It was during this turbulent era — to paraphrase the little boy in one ‘banned’ film, Shogun Assassin — that everything changed forever.
The original edition was published as See No Evil: Banned Films and Video Controversy (Headpress, 2000). It concluded with the retirement of BBFC director James Ferman, a figure unpopular with filmmakers (he kept cutting their films) and later out of sorts with members of the British government and arguably the Board itself. In revising the book, the authors have stuck with the original framework and not diffused what, in hindsight, is a solid time-capsule of a key period of film and socio-political culture in Britain. Without Ferman the narrative changes and the ‘video nasties’ become another story. However, the inclusion of new material, notably the appendix, offers an insight into the Board today and a timely reflection on attitudes towards this volatile era. […]
PREFACE
A Note on Film Titles | Acknowledgements | Why ‘Cannibal Error’?
BEGINNINGS: ‘TIME MARCHES ON!’
UNEASE: ‘AN ORGY OF COMMERCIALISM’
CLAMPDOWN: ‘PRIVATELY FUNDED BY INDIVIDUALS AND CHURCHES’
SIEGE: ‘DRAINING THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT!’
BLACK MARKET & PIRATES: ‘HARD TO FIND RARITIES’
THE BIG INFLUENCE: ‘WHO SUPPORTS VIOLENT FILMS NOW?’
SEX & WRECKS: ‘AT THE LEAST PROVOCATION’
THE DPP39: ‘SCENES OF EXTREME AND EXPLICIT VIOLENCE’
APPENDIX
A miscellany of rejected video works, 1990–Present
Two interviews with independent video distributors
Two interviews with the B B F C
Anatomy of a raid
The ‘video nasties’ — Where are they now?
“You can’t run all these machines off the standard mains”
Black market mailing list
Sources: Bibliography | Periodicals | Websites
Notes
Index
Title: CANNIBAL ERROR
Subtitle: Anti-Film Propaganda and the ‘Video Nasties’ Panic of the 1980s
Author: David Kerekes & David Slater
ISBN: 978-1-909394-95-7
Street Date: March 7, 2024
Category: Film / Popular Culture / Social Studies
Retail Price: UK £25.99 / US $32.95
Binding: Paperback
Size: 240mm x 171mm
Pages: 596
Illos: 450+ B&W stills and ads
As the trade paperback, except this special NO-ISBN hardback is exclusive to this website. Because it carries No ISBN number, this edition of the book is off the grid in as much as it doesn’t appear on any database, in any library, cannot be ordered through mainstream bookshops or online retailers.
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A social history of the ‘video nasty’. By David Kerekes and David Slater.
“I thought I was desensitized. I’m not. No hope for humanity… I feel like my quest is over.” — Comment online in reaction to the video, 3 Guys 1 Hammer
Think you know British cinema? Think again.
For fans of old Times Square and midnight, cult, horror, and exploitation movies.
One opinion; 8,000 reviews (or thereabouts).
A collection of candid interviews spanning 24 years with unique and free-thinking artists.
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