Oh yeah, I know. I was just saying for anyone that hasn't seen it.
And actually, I think the version of Possession that was circulated during the Video Nasty era was a horribly edited one that cut out a lot of the plot between Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani; it mainly focused on her [spoiler] seducing men and feeding them to the creature. [/spoiler] Which is a shame.

I'd definitely recommend that one, too, and like you said with the caveat that some of the content is rough. Despite the nature of Bob's life, the film is actually quite touching and intimate, and the ending is really intensely affecting.

Yah, Fraulein Docktor!!

Can ya recommend me any of them

I recently watched The Corpse Grinders, really campy, but a fun movie nonetheless.

Ok here goes***

Despite me being a big fan of the genre 90% of the films are pretty shit.

The best of the bunch by a mile is of course Ilsa She wolf of the SS. (you should have course check out its sequals Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil sheiks, Greta the Mad Butcher and Ilsa Tigress of Siberia - though the latter is the weakest in the series). There is an ok rip off called 'Helga, She Wolf of Spilberg'.

Now the standards drop a lot..LOL.

Personally, I like The Gestapo's Last Orgy. Its a bit artier than the others and trys to rip off 'Night Porter'. 'SS Experiment Camp' is worth checking out for the cheesey dialogue (though its pretty tame).

You should watch LOVE CAMP 7 for historical purposes - its (to my knowledge) the first of the genre. Its pretty dull but does have David Friedman as the very camp comander :-)

There were 3 of the genre banned in the UK as part of the Video Nasty witch hunt. The already mentioned 'SS Experiment Camp' as well as 'The Beast in Heat' and 'Deported Women of the SS Special Section'. Beast has some great scenes mostly envolving Sal Boris - a pussy eating caged cannibal. Unfortunelly the rest of the movie is like watching paint dry. Deported Women is slightly better especially to those with a showering/shaving fetish :-).

Prolly the last of the Camp genre should should see is SS Camp 5 and Womans Camp 119 (by Bruno Mattei). As far as I remember the latter was pretty meant spirited. Can't remember much of Holocaust 2 - so that says a lot. I have never seen 'Nathalie, Fugitive from Hell' but its another Camp film. Also never see 'SS Cutthroats'.

Unless desperate avoid 'Achtung! The Desert Tigers' and 'Fraunleins in Uniform'.

Now there is a kinda subgenre of this genre inspired by Salon Kitty - a brothel in Berlin during WW2 that ws used to spy on the Nazi brass. So there is a dozen or so Brothel/Joy Divison type films. And boy are they the dregs.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kR9bqbCvge...+Gestapo+3.jpg

The only one I can really recommend is Tinto Brass' film Salon Kitty. This followed with a ton of crap like:


Elsa: Fraulein SS (Salon kitty on a on a train)
SS Helltrain (damn Nazi Brothel Trains should be a sub genre)
The Red Nights of the Gestapo
Nazi Love Camp 27
SS Girls


I was considering getting a Tshirt of this ( i dunno if I'd get away with it though):

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Aw1eqlUQqd...nne-1976-1.jpg

*** its kinda hard to keep track of all these film as they kinda all melt into one. Also keep in mind lots of these films have been released under a few different titles...

I haven't seen all of the ones that Ferox mentioned, but I would second recommendations on Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS and Salon Kitty. Those are probably the two easiest to find, anyway. I know Blue Underground just re-released Salon Kitty on Blu-ray and DVD. Ilsa, well, you might have to acquire that through other means.

Deported Women Of The SS isn't on the Nasties list. Gestapo's Last Orgy is (and will likely remain banned in the UK for a long time from what I've seen and heard of it.)

I do have an interest in films around Nazis, although purely in historical and non-exploitative terms (Das Boot and Downfall are two of my favourite war films and from a non-German perspective I'm an Indiana Jones fan and loved Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, big budget but with a pure explotation ethos). But I've never seen a Nazisploitation film. I remember a few years ago (before I was that much into horror) coming across a copy of SS Experiment Camp and thinking how violent and disturbing a film called that would be. I wasn't alone, as there were a few articles in the news a couple of years ago about films with those sorts of names.

However, from what I've seen, it's remarkably tame. The violence seems almost lacking in gore and there's crazy Dirty Dozen-esque battle sequences. Like TCM, it's a film who's title is far more shocking than what is shown...or rather not shown.

Thanks alot guys, I've been meaning to pick up the SS triple features released by Shriek Show, but sadly they are pretty hard to come by in my neck of the woods :(

On the topic of tame Video Nasties, Lenzi's 'cannibal film', Man From Deep River is a great adventure film. However, there is hardly enough cannibalism to satisfy Gorehounds. I'm guessing the film was banned mostly due to the frequent scenes of animal cruelty. Nonetheless, still a great movie that led to even greater movies. (Cannibal and Jungle Holocaust)

Stupid question time, aren't video nasties a list of movies that were banned in the UK at some time or is this a horror genre? I've only seen a few of the films that have been mentioned. I've seen video nasties mentioned here several times but I've never been totally clear on what they are.:confused:

Yeah, the "Video Nasties" were a list of films that were banned by the Video Recordings Act of 1984 in England. It was another instance of mass "witch hunt" mentality, similar to what was seen here in the States in the 1950s, with the horror/crime comics. The big difference here is that while the Comics Code was merely self-imposed by the industry, the Video Recordings Act was enforced by law, and people were actually imprisoned. Some proprietors of video rental stores that had maybe one of these on their shelves were put out of business. If you can get your hands on it, you should check out the documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship, & Videotape. I believe it's only had an R2 release, but you might be able to find it somewhere online.

I know people always bring up Cannibal Holocaust when talking about this type of movie, but I thought that one went a little too far. The animal killing just made the film too disgusting, even for me.

Here's the list of films:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_nasty#DPP_list

Cool, thanks for the link! I bookmarked that page and i'm going to see what I can find on Netflix. I've only seen a few of these:

Cannibal Holocaust
Dead & Buried
Evil Dead
Faces Of Death
I Spit On Your Grave
The Funhouse
The Last House On The Left

Animals are kept in poor conditions and slaughtered for food all the time and though I cannot condone the killing of a turtle, a pig and muskrat for the purposes of a film I think its a small drop compared to supermarkets filled with veal, foi gras and battery chickens.

Cannibal Holocaust is an amazing film and though the killing of a few beasts is regrettable. As least the turtle and pig were eaten by cast and crew which I can't see as any worse than buying a battery chicken from Walmart. But peace out to the (fake)muskrat, spider and snake who might have died in vein.

My personal recommendations would be:

Axe, Don't Look in the Basement, Flesh for Frankenstein, The House by the Cemetery, Inferno, Possession, Tenebre, Blood Feast, The Beyond, and Bay of Blood.

Those are all great movies. I recommend The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (Let Sleeping Corpses Lie), Don't go into the Woods Alone (for hilarity mostly), Maniac, Fulci's zombie movies (City of the Living Dead, House by the Cemetery, The Beyond, and Zombi 2) as well as some of his other films like The New York Ripper and Touch of Death.

Wow, I never heard of anyone liking Axe...

I wonder how Forest of Fear ended up on the list.

I wonder that with Dead & Buried...and Inferno...and The Beyond...

It was considered a public menace because it bored nearly everyone who watched it to DEATH.

I've never understood why this became one of the nasties. It's well made, produced and acted - everything the nasties aren't. I can understand it having some censoring to the first murder, but nothing more.

Couple of nasty kill scenes did it I'm guessing.... like the one with the syringe.

I know this isn't a video nasty but it almost seemed like a tribute to me:

Isle Of The Damned....It seems the story kind of parodied Cannibal Holocaust and is more comedy than exploitation...Its currently available on Netflix instant queue...:cool:

Haha, yeah. Me neither, except me. I probably shouldn't have recommended it, because no one that I've shown it to enjoyed it. I don't know why, I just always liked it. It has a strange, understated rhythm to it that I've always been able to get into. I know a lot of people find it boring, and I guess not much happens, but it's just always gotten to me for some reason.

I loved that one. Check out my review for it HERE.

Yes, forgot about the syringe. But as i say, you think those couple of seens would have been censored rather than baning the whole film.

The video nasty list wasn't anything to do with the censorship board. It was made by Director of Public Prosecutions under the Obscene Publications Act. There a number of films on the list that were already censored (by the BBFC for a cinema release) or self censored by the distibution company.

Cannibal Holocaust, Faces of Death and Nightmares in a Damaged Brain among others were all banned despite being cut. The poor UK distributor of Nightmares got 6 months in prison for supplying a censored print.

It was a crap shoot essentially. I feel that virtually any horror film made past-1960 could've potentially crossed the line.

I relate it to the DPP's attitude towards Tobe Hooper.

Hooper had two films in the list, I believe. He's by no means the only director to have more than one film on the list. Dario Argento had 2 (Inferno, Tenebre) so did Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust, House On The Edge Of The Park) Lucio Fulci had 3 (The Beyond, House By The Cemetery, Zombie Flesh Eaters) Jess Franco had god knows how many.

Anyway, the two films that Hooper had on the list were Death Trap and Funhouse. The story behind Funhouse ending up on the list (so far as I've heard) was that there were two films circulating around that time with the title, Funhouse. One was Hooper's film, the other was also known as Last House On Dead End Street. I believe that the the DPP looked at these two films and thought that it was obviously the film by the man who made such "obscene" films as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre...they banned the wrong film.

The hysteria around TCM is also considered the reason why they also banned The Toolbox Murders, Axe, Pranks and Driller Killer for their use of home implements as weapons in the film or in advertising (I'm sure if you were going to kill someone with something you could find in the home, you wouldn't wait for a film to give you the idea).

The odd thing is, is that whilst it was technically banned, TCM was never officially a "Nasty" and as such was perfectly legal to be circulated in it's un-certificated VHS release...madness.

Heaven knows, had the craze held out a little longer perhaps Poltergeist would've been a Nasty.

I read this on Melon Farmers too and i always confused me as Last House didn't have a UK release back then. Maybe they were refering to a bootleg tape or film release but they should have known that there was no version of the film available in UK video shops at the time...

That being said they did confiscate 'innocent' films all the time based on title alone.

Some of the Nasties were even banned due to their UK VHS artwork.

Thank all of you, not only did I discover the meaning of "video nasty" but I also got an excellent list of movies to search for.:) Sorry for sounding cheesy but my meds just kicked in and I'm a happy fella....:D

Really? Some did come to the attention of the authorites but I can't think of a single film that was banned because of the case cover. What ones are you thinking of?

driller killer was one of the covers that got alot of attention.

According to Video Nasties:Moral Panic, Censorship....when the Uk police raided video stores-they had no idea what films were actually on the list so they would confiscate and put out of business sellers who had things like "The Last Little Whorehouse In Texas" an anodyne Dolly Parton flick on their shelves. I think it was more of a case of the authorities not liking independant business owners and distributors making so much money.

Anyway my faves on the list:

The Beyond
House By The Cemetary
Dead and Buried
Possession
The New York Ripper
Inferno
Tenebrae
The House On The Edge Of The Park
Nightmares In A Damaged Brain
The Funhouse (I think at the beginning when the teens were smoking pot while driving was what upset the censors as well as it being a Tobe Hooper film as already mentioned)
Death Trap
Evil Dead
The Hills Have Eyes
Exploitation:

Salo
Last House On Dead End Street
Ilsa:She Wolf Of The SS (thanks ferox for the info on the sequals me and mate are gonna watch them back to back soon)
The Devils (I know there;s more to it than exploitation)
The Killer Nun (also a video nasty)

The Driller Killer was one of the films that authorities banned due to the overly gory and misleading cover art (the guy getting the drill pushed into his head)

There were a few more but I'm not at my house this week so I'm unable to give you the full list as I left the article at home.

Really, are you sure about that?

What 'authorities' are you talking about?

I do know that the film Driller Killer was sent to the DPP and was banned but it was nothing to do with the cover.

...Well there was certainly some controversy with the cover when it was advertised in various trade magazines (it was one of the controversies that got the Nasties ball rolling) but I've never heard officially that any film was banned just for the art. However, I think that it may have been the case for a few films, such was the hysteria that was brewing.

Keep in mind that Mary Whitehouse herself, without any shame, once voiced in an interview that she'd never seen a Video Nasty and that she didn't have to see that something was obscene to know it was...which I think completely undermines her argument but c'est la vie.

It certainly did undermine her argument, but it didn't matter; the mindset was already in place. In fact, there were so many inconsistencies and contradictions on the part of all the advocates, but it didn't seem to matter. One of the things I loved about the Video Nasties documentary was how they gathered a bunch of clips illustrating this.

A lot of people mentioned Ken Russell's The Devils in this thread, so just in case you didn't see it in the Upcoming DVDs thread:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/143

BFI will be releasing the UK X certificate version on DVD on March 19 with a bunch of extras. Bad news, it may not be entirely uncut from Russell's original print and WB (the assholes) won't let BFI use the 2004 restoration either. But it's something, I guess.

The correspondence between Russell and James Ferman over the cutting of The Devils was hilarious. Ii was mentioned in some old documentry I saw and just recently in the Timeshift episode, Dear Censor.

Yes we are very lucky that some of the correspondances were made public-sadly we will never see them all.

I finally managed to see a Teruo Ishii film, The Joy Of Torture 2 Oxen Split Torture.

The movie certainly delivers on its promise. I guess there were a couple of scenes that made me wince and look away, but overall it had a surprisingly humorous tone and didn't take itself too seriously. A really good exploitation film.

I dare say, if it had come to the attention of the Mary Whitehouse clan, it would have made the nasty list for sure.