All language subtitles for VIDEO NASTIES THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE VOLUME 1 DISK3

The following 33 videos were
successfully prosecuted under the

Publications Act 1959.

However, following a series of
acquittals, they were no longer deemed

result in a successful prosecution.

Therefore, they were eventually removed
from the official Video Nasties list.

However, in the period before they were
dropped, dealers could be prosecuted for

renting them.

Lucia Fulci's The Beyond.

This film was obviously banned because
it is full of visceral gore and it has

lots of different baroque
interpretations of the body and ways in

configure it. Things like melting flesh
and of course the famous eyeless scene

where Sarah Keller gets her throat
ripped out by her lovely dog Dickie. The

Beyond is one of my personal favourites.
Obviously you can see I have a tattoo

of The Beyond.

And I think that one of the reasons The
Beyond is

very important film in terms of art
cinema, dare I say it, from Italian

is that Lucio Fulci said that he wanted
to make an Arto film, which is a film

that reconfigures the body into a body
without organs.

It's very interesting because even
though The Beyond is very gory, it isn't

necessarily a violent film. There's not
a lot of aggressive violence. It's

simply that when something happens to a
body, it starts to metamorphose and

change.

And perhaps because it was incoherent in
its narrative and in the way in which

the body was reconfigured, the BBFC were
okay with it being at the cinema, but

then when it came out as a video, it was
deemed a video nasty and it was cut by

1 minute and 34 before it was then
banned.

The Beyond is, in general, a relatively
incoherent film and one of the most

interesting elements is the final scene
which has no narrative resolution and

Lucio Fulci's films often have no
narrative resolution.

Another of his Italian horror films was
City of the Living Dead and this has a

very ambiguous ending where a little
child just runs out of a catacomb

screaming. Well, in The Beyond we have
the two main characters and they come

into a wasteland that was created in a
picture and what they find is...

no colour, no horizon, just a few
generic bodies lying on the ground,

Lucio Fulci said in an interview that he
went outside Paoli Studios in Rome and

he found some homeless people who were
all drunk and he said, come inside and

we're going to put you on the floor and
put you in a film. And so all of those

people there are not traditional actors.
They are obviously special kinds of

homeless people actors from Rome. One of
the main actresses in the film is

Catriona McColl and she was used by
Lucio Fulci.

in another of the banned films, House by
the Cemetery, and she was also used in

City of the Living Dead. So she became
like his muse, and it's very interesting

because she's very prim, she's very
blonde, and she's very British.

Yes. So she obviously took her
Britishness and infiltrated the video

and maybe that's one of the reasons why
we don't like to look at our thespians

doing such dirty, revolting things to
themselves.

Who else is here?

Nobody here.

At the same time, she takes it very
seriously, and I think that one

underestimate that Lucia Fulci's films
are very serious in terms of their

artistic merit. They're not camp in any
way. However, I think that you can

experience them as camp because they are
high gore and high horror, and so one

has to wonder why, even after all the
gore was cut out, the BBFC still found

this film too much for them to bear.

One can only imagine what people must
have experienced when they found out

The Beyond was banned with the cuts and
I'm sure that people diligently sourced

this copy and then they would still be
faced with a film that...

didn't make sense because there would be
huge leaps and montage gaps.

And so I think that people would
probably imagine that the gore was quite

However, I don't think you can be
prepared for the kind of gore that Lucio

creates because he really does show you
what you think you're not going to see.

He never pulls away. And I think that
his beautiful use of cinematography is

you're waiting for the camera to pull
away and then go back so you can see

the... post -violence element, but
actually the camera stays there and you

there with it. And it's very much a
visceral romance between you and these

really heady gore scenes. So much blood,
so much melting flesh, so many

violations of the eye, of the face, of
the body. And these are really very

enigmatic things that people must have
joyfully experienced when they first

discovered this marvellous little gem.

You are Liza, aren't you? Yes.

My name is Emily.

I've been looking for you.

Go back to where you came from and
hurry.

Leave this place.

Sixty years ago, everybody in this hotel
disappeared.

Every last person.

A painter called Spike,

who lived here, closeted in his room,
had found a key.

All those accidents, you think you'll
give it up now?

I couldn't do that if I wanted to.

Well,

I won't give in.

There's nobody here.

I can feel a presence. Somebody else is
in here.

Oh, some weird story that Emily told me
about room 36.

Emily?

Who is Emily?

The blind girl that lives in the old
house by the crossroads.

This house was constructed on one of
these...

Woe

be unto him who opens one of the seven
gateways to hell, because through that

gateway, evil will invade the world.

What was the trend of the time in the
early 80s? Halloween clones.

John Carpenter's landmark movie to
influence so many of those calendar day

horrors. And here's one of the best.

The Bogeyman.

Directed by Uli Lommel.

When you were a child, did they warn you
about the bogeyman?

The bogeyman.

He was from Germany. He directed
Tenderness of the Wolves for Rainer

Fassbinder. And he moved to America when
he married his wife, Susanna Love,

who's actually the star of The Bogeyman.
He told me at the time, because I

actually did go to Los Angeles to
interview him on this movie, that he saw

a cross between the arthouse horror of
Europe and the American stalking

He hurt bad children and did terrible
things to their mommies.

But you can't kill the boogeyman.

That's one of the reasons why it has a
supernatural factor with the fact that

the maniac's soul is trapped in the
mirror.

He felt the shard of glass and
everything to do with the mirror would

a great cinematic image.

By the time they believe in him...

DPP failed to get a conviction on this
movie because the BBFC had already

it as an ex -certificate, so they were
on very dodgy ground with this one.

Despite the repeated scissor stabbing,
the screwdriver through the head, the

pitchfork killing, these were all very
well done. The murder set pieces, I

thought, were terrific.

Great style about this movie. It didn't
deserve to be on the Video Nasties list,

and it's one of my favourites.

When you were a child...

Did they warn you about the Boogeyman?

The Boogeyman.

He hurt bad children.

And did terrible things to their
mommies.

But you can't kill the Boogeyman.

Now, the most terrifying nightmare of
childhood returns.

The Boogeyman.

The Boogeyman is going to get you.

And you.

And you.

It didn't scare me.

Had its own power.

The Boogeyman.

You can't hide from him.

By the time they believe in him, it'll
be too late.

The Boogeyman.

He's going to get you.

Here we have Cannibal Terror.

which is regarded by those that have
actually managed to sit through it all

one of the very worst examples of the
cannibal genre. And you know what?

not wrong.

So who directed this film?

Well, it's a bit of a mystery, actually.

It would seem there could be several
people to blame for this French -Spanish

-financed Eurocine travesty. Credited on
most prints is a guy called Alan W.

Steve, which may be a pseudonym for
Alain Durel, a former porno director who

also hides under the name of Alain
Thierry.

Spanish prints credit a guy called Julio
Perez Tabanero with direction, so it's

possible he's also partly to blame.

And to add to the confusion, actor
Olivier Matho may also have had some

since he's also credited in some
sources.

True small -time hoodlum.

They meet in the bar and plan
kidnapping.

What we have here is a pair of thieves
who abduct the young daughter of a

wealthy couple and, with busty babe in
tow, hide out in the jungle and await

ransom fee.

Only the jungle is obviously woodland in
Benidorm of some sort. Yes, it's that

bad. And to add a bit of ambience, we
have loop jungle sounds which repeats

and over to the point of irritation,
with the occasional shot of some badly

inserted stock footage of exotic birds
and an alligator.

And it could have been an everyday
story.

If it weren't for cannibal terror.

One of the trio is caught spying on
their host wife and after a chase he

her upright in between two trees and
rapes her. Only this scene is so badly

you can tell she isn't really tied up at
all.

When her husband discovers what has
happened, he tracks him down, ties him

tree and whistles for his cannibal chums
to come over.

Family is devoured off -camera, although
we do get to see what's left of it

later, which isn't much. And then we
have the so -called cannibals, who look

more like a group of Europeans to me,
fresh from an amateur face -painting

contest. Death lies in a horrifying wait
for them all.

More horrible than anything you can
imagine.

So cruel.

You can hardly bear it. They really are
hilariously unconvincing.

All they think to do is hold spears and
jump up and down. And in one shot of

them, someone leaps up, revealing a G
-string hidden under his loincloth. Now,

not that I wasn't looking at that, you
know.

And the gore, well, that's laughable
too. Every time someone is captured by

cannibals, the following gut -munching
scene cuts to a chowing down scene,

features an obvious pig carcass stuffed
with all sorts of offal of some sort.

and in one shot you can even see its
trotters.

Towards the end of the film, during
another cannibal sequence, you get to

what is obviously the arm of a mannequin
with the end covered in fake blood and

gore. It was shot in French and the
English dubbing must have been done on

cheap because they've actually made no
effort to sync it up to the lip

movements.

There's also a scene where a guy plays
an acoustic guitar later in the film

which is also woefully dubbed. It's just
ridiculous.

Rather surprisingly, though, it made its
way onto the DPP's very first list of

17 nasties back in July 1983, only to be
dropped in January of 1985 when it was

unsuccessfully prosecuted. Are you
surprised?

I rather like the cover art on this one.
It sums it up, up its trashiness quite

well. It even describes it as a fast
-moving action film, so Christ knows

people thought when they watched this.

So is it worth a watch? Well, not
really. It depends on your trash

levels.

Here's the trailer.

Cannibal terror

Lena,

a kind -hearted prostitute

True small -time hoodlums.

They meet in the bar and plan
kidnapping.

What they want is money.

And it could have been an everyday story
if it weren't for

cannibal terror.

Here.

a horrifying wait for them all. More
horrible than anything you can imagine.

So cruel you can hardly bear it.

Cannibal terror.

We will never forget it.

Well, the Italians are expert at ripping
off bigger budget Hollywood movies, and

contamination is actually an Italian rip
-off of Alien, and it's also known as

Alien Contamination in some places.

Jim, they come from outer space.

Why not?

The film was directed by Luigi Cozzi, a
protege of Dario Argento, who

unfortunately hasn't inherited the great
maestro's directorial talent.

Anyway, the movie starts with a boat
steaming into New York Harbor laden with

alien eggs.

I think this opening is a bit similar to
the opening of Lucia Fulci's Zombie

Flesh Eaters. When these eggs burst,
they cause people, anyone standing near

them, their stomach explodes.

But the effect is somewhat spoiled by
the fact these eggs are just obviously

balloons. And when they pop, you know,
the people just next to them pop as well

and in just as equally unconvincing
fashion.

The plot of the movie concerns the alien
invasion of Earth with all these eggs,

which seems to be run from a coffee
factory somewhere in Colombia.

These were found here, on Earth.

Thousands of them.

Investigating this are sexy scientist
Louise Marlowe.

You were telling the truth all along.

And good old Ian McCulloch, who of
course was also the star of Lucia

Zombie Flesh Eaters, who plays a boozy
astronaut.

There was absolutely nothing in there.
My favourite scene in the film.

is when there's an alien egg placed in
the shower with Louise Marlowe, and she

just seems to stand there and stare at
it for ages, and you think, well, come

on, just step past it. That's what you
or I would do.

But it's an amusing film, and really,
looking at it nowadays, although it has

this one effect of people's stomachs
popping open, which it uses to the

It just overuses too much. And because
the whole thing is really so silly plot

-wise, it's hardly surprising that when
it was reissued a few years ago by

Anchor Bay in the UK, the film was put
out uncut and downgraded to a 15

certificate, which pretty much shows a
sign of the times.

Not a soul in sight. Really weird.

They come from outer space.

Why not?

How many worlds are there in the
universe?

Billions. Perhaps billions.

Unless they come from much closer,
but...

Mars

has always stimulated man's imagination.
But as far as that cave was concerned,

there was absolutely nothing in there.

You were telling the truth, all in all.

But these are photographs.

But there hasn't been another expedition
to Mars. No.

These were found here, on Earth.

Thousands of them.

The woman is Stella Holmes, a first
-class mind.

This gentleman and lady would like
information about our coffee.

All your questions will be answered
here.

It's too late.

Hamilton has got your friend.

Dead and Buried.

Dead and Buried is an odd film. I mean,
it seems too glossy a production to be

on a video nasties list somehow.

There are scenes of violence in it,
particularly one memorable scene of a

hypodermic being forced into a hospital
patient's eye, which didn't do it any

favours in terms of its legal status.

But other than that, there are a number
of key talents working on this movie,

which shift it out of the domain of mere
exploitation movie.

This movie is blessed with three very
creative talents working on it. First of

all, screenwriter Dan O 'Bannon, fresh
from his genre -busting success with

Alien. And alongside him, a very, very
underrated director, Gary Sherman, who

did the wonderful Brit 70s horror movie
Deathline.

And Stan Winston is the third
participant who provided the film with

major special effects.

They terrified you with the movie Alien.

Now the creators of Alien take you along
the strangest road you've ever

travelled. A road with only one way in
and no way out.

The terrors of Alien have come down to
Earth. Dead and buried will take your

breath away.

All of it.

Dead and buried.

Now showing at a cinema near you. Check
newspapers for details.

The film is in many respects very, very
old -fashioned as a horror movie. It

concerns strangers or outsiders who are
being brutally slaughtered in this

idyllic rural location of Potter's
Bluff. Potter's Bluff.

A nice place to visit.

There's a number of startling scenes in
the movie where outsiders are literally

courted and then ritually butchered. The
opening is very, very startling where a

wandering photographer is first asked to
seduce a young woman on the beach

before a group of residents appear,
assault him and torch him with a petrol

And into this kind of maelstrom of
violence wanders a hapless local

played by James Farentino. And we really
get a sense of pervading paranoia that

he becomes increasingly aware that his
residents, his townsfolk and even his

wife are involved with the violence and
chaos that takes place.

Unlike many video nasties that were
prosecuted in the 1980s, Dead and Buried

a real sense of plotting and character
development.

We learn far before the central
character does that the actual residents

idyllic rural town are actually dead and
reanimated and are under the power of a

dark mortician named Dodd. So we really
get a sense of pervading helplessness.

and fatality that will eventually catch
up with us here. And I think that really

helps our engagement with Dead and
Buried.

What makes Dead and Buried so underrated
and so

influential is that it actually contains
many of the features that we associate

with so -called postmodern horror that
swept America in the 1990s. This idea of

referencing other horror movies. So
there's clear nods to both Invasion of

Body Snatchers and Night of the Living
Dead, particularly in the finale of the

film where all of the undead townsfolk
surround Farentino's character and he

himself finds out that he's dead too.

Alongside this, the use of location is
very interesting. It seems as though you

have 1940s film noir.

right up against contemporary 1980s
American rural locations, which is very,

very interesting, something that Sherman
explored in his earlier movie, Death

Line, where you get Victorian London
meeting 1970s swing in London.

Dead and buried.

The movie you'll want to see.

If you dare to look.

Bury me!

So far from being just a minor video
nasty.

I think dead and buried is both infamous
and influential

From the creators of alien terror

brought down to earth Fear so intense

it will stay with you to the grave and
beyond

Welcome to Potter's Bluff

Yeah, what are you doing?

Two murders, Dobbs. Both strangers.

Two murders in a town no bigger than a
poster stand.

When you die in Potter's Bluff, expect
the unexpected.

Why just lie still?

I'm going to give you something.

It's going to make you feel even better.

What the hell is going on in this town?

My caromaniac is loose up there. First
murderous, now body snatching. My God, I

can't believe it.

Potter's Bluff.

A nice place to visit.

whatsoever to reanimate people after
they have died.

Oh, so lovely.

So frail. So young. How could anyone mar
such loveliness?

Yeah.

I will make you beautiful again.

Even more beautiful than before.

You can only make me dead.

Go on.

Pull the trigger.

Perhaps you need a little more
motivation.

Dad, I'm dead.

Please bury me.

Dead and Buried.

The movie you'll want to see.

If you dare to look.

Hi, my name's Brad Stevens, and I'm
going to be talking about Toby Hooper's

Death Trap, one of the more curious
entries on the Video Nasties list.

Here you see the cover of the VIPCO
video release.

It had originally been released by a
company called VCL.

The VCL version was the version cut, I
think, by the BBFC.

But this release was almost uncut. It
certainly contained all the violent

scenes. I say it's one of the more
curious entries on the list, because you

to remember, Toby Hooper had made the
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is

absolutely notorious, and it was banned
by the British censor.

Death Rap was almost completely
uncontroversial. It was released in

There were some minor censor cuts.

And yet it was Death Rap and not the
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which ended up

the Video Nasties list.

And also another even less controversial
Toby Hooper film called The Funhouse

ended up on the list.

Death Trap is known by a number of
titles. In America, it's called Eaten

which presumably leads to a lot of
confusion with the Umberto Lenzi film

the same title. It's also called
Starlight Slaughter and a whole variety

other titles. I don't even know how many
of these titles actually ended up on a

print. Get ready for Starlight
Slaughter.

Hello?

No guest has ever checked out of the
Starlight Hotel, a house of terror.

This girl doesn't know it yet, but she
is headed for Horror Hotel.

Marty Rustin presents Horror Hotel, the
new classic in screen fright.

A very interesting cast, in fact one of
the best casts for any film that was

included on the Video Narcissist list.
Neville Brand, who was not only a well

-known actor, but was one of the most
heavily decorated soldiers in World War

II.

plays the serial killer, quite
appropriately, given the themes that

exploring.

Stuart Whitman appears in a small role
as a sheriff.

The film is actually, in a way, a
variation on Psycho, and Whitman was one

the runners -up for, I think it was
Martin Balsam's role in Psycho.

Marilyn Burns, who was in The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, turns up again in

And very interestingly, Robert Englund,
who would of course go on to play Freddy

Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street
films, has a small but quite prominent

role in the film.

Hooper would later work with Englund
again on a couple of films, including

Mangler and the very underrated Night
Terrors, in which Englund played the

Marquis de Sade.

Created by Toby Hooper, the maker of
that horror classic, The Texas Chainsaw

Massacre. One thing this film has in
common with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

that, relatively, it's the monster, the
villain, who is the center of sympathy,

or at least the center of interest.

The various victims are almost
completely uncharacterized.

The exception in Texas Chainsaw is the
crippled Franklin, who, in a way, ends

becoming the mirror image of
Leatherface.

This pattern is repeated in Death Trap
with actually greater coherence in the

character of Roy, the character played
by William Finlay, who is ostensibly a

representative of the world of
normality, and yet who is clearly every

insane as Judd, the serial killer played
by Neville Brand.

Job is in many ways connected to the
pioneers of America's past, living by

himself in the modern version of a log
cabin, decorated with an American flag,

and very much an inheritor of those
rugged He -Man traditions.

But also, of course, as I say, he's a
serial killer.

Horror hotel, you check in alive, but
check out dead.

And one of the most splendid moments in
the film has him walking around his

living room striking heroic poses, while
a country and western song with the

lyric, a cowboy is true to his word,
plays on the soundtrack.

And this idea that horror can be traced
to America's pioneer past is something

we see very often in Toby Hooper's work.
In Poltergeist, we're told that the

house is being haunted because it's
buried on the site of an Indian burial

ground. And most interestingly, in Texas
Chainsaw Massacre 2, The cannibal

family of the first film have moved into
an abandoned amusement park, which is

decorated with images of heroic cowboys
from American mythology.

And the family, in fact, depend their
activities by reference to standard

capitalist practice.

If you were one of the millions of
moviegoers who were electrified by the

unbearable suspense and sheer terror of
Jaws, get ready for a death trap.

Death Rats presence on the video Nazis
list is rather mysterious.

It is more violent than the Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, but frankly, that

saying very much.

There are several scenes in which a
child is placed in peril.

And I know some people have speculated
that that may be the reason that it

up on the list.

That's quite possible.

I think at a certain point, titles were
being added to the list at random

because they were in a certain genre.

I think quite possibly because the film
was released by Vipco, who were already

notorious for several of their other
titles, most particularly The Driller

Killer.

I think it's worth pointing out as well
that, as with their release of The

Driller Killer, Vipco's tape of Death
Trap was uncut in terms of violent

content, but was missing several minutes
of dialogue.

The missing scene focuses on William
Finley's character, Roy, and shows him

coming close to strangling his wife.

It's actually a very important scene
because it shows just how close the

normality represented by Roy is to the
insanity of the serial killing Judd.

What happens to these people in Eaten
Alive will give you the most chilling,

terrifying 90 minutes you've ever spent
in a theatre. The trailer of the film

that you'll see on this DVD does not
actually have the title as Death Track.

has it as Eaten Alive, which is, of
course, the American title, and quite

prominently mentions the producer, Marty
Rustam.

Marty Rustam presents a new horror
classic, Eaten Alive.

Hooper had had a falling out with Rustam
at some point during the production, so

that may explain why his name appears so
prominently on the trailer.

If you were one of the millions of
moviegoers who were electrified by the

unbearable suspense and pure terror of
Jaws, get ready for Eaten Alive.

Eaten Alive!

Created by Toby Hooper.

maker of the screen sensation The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre.

Marty Rushton presents a new horror
classic, Eaten Alive.

Into this house of terror comes a
handful of unsuspecting innocents.

Hello?

What happens to these people in Eaten
Alive will give you the most chilling,

terrifying 90 minutes you've ever spent
in a theater.

So here's the 1972 movie that started
the whole exploitation cannibal craze in

Italy. Deep River Savages by Umberto
Lenzi. It says here, from the makers of

chart -topping film Cannibal, not true.
That, of course, was Ruggero Diodato,

and this one, as I said, is by Umberto
Lenzi. Lenzi would return to the

genre later on in his career with
Cannibal Ferox and Eaten Alive. And at

time, cannibalism didn't really feature
that much in this movie, also known as

Man From Deep River.

That man is Ivan Rasimov, who plays a
photographer who's adopted by the local

cannibal tribe.

They didn't know what kind of animal he
was.

They'd never seen a white man before.

And he had never seen such brutality.

Part of his initiation rite is to eat
monkey brains from a just -sliced -off

head of a monkey.

Also, there's another scene in the movie
where he's sort of strung up, very much

like that scene in A Man Called Horse
and uses a human dartboard.

His tribal bride was played by Mimi Lai,
famous in Britain for being a hostess

on Bob Monkhouse's quiz show The Golden
Shot.

Apart from the monkey scene, there was
an alligator being gutted for real,

was a mongoose attacking a snake, all
which sort of led the DPP to really come

down heavily on this movie. It was
rejected outright in 1975 when it was

submitted under the title The Man From
Deep River. But apart from that... came

out completely uncut on Duran video,
standing for Derek and Anne.

Thailand.

A country where two -thirds of the
jungle is still unexplored.

Here, death reigns.

They didn't know what kind of animal he
was. They'd never seen a white man

before.

And he had never seen such brutality.

You murderers!

Murderers!

Barbaric violence was the law they lived
by.

A long series of bloodthirsty tortures
had begun.

human being like you.

I'm a man, not a fish.

Just help me to find a canoe.

No, along the river.

Kukuru tribe live there.

Cannibal tribe.

This world, civilization, became no more
than a memory.

In the jungle, only the strongest
survived.

Here we have Delirium, another sort of
bewildering entry on this title. It's no

different from dozens of other kind of
cop, psycho pictures. It's not even

particularly well represented.

I mean, there is a psycho killer in it,
but that's a subplot. It's basically a

vigilante story about an organization of
mad Vietnam vets punishing criminals

who've escaped justice.

But I think its problem can be discerned
from the back jacket coffee, presumably

written by somebody who, apart from
anything else, gets most of the names of

actors wrong.

The description concludes with this
sentence.

Unfortunately, Charlie is out of
control, killing wherever he finds a

Included are drowning a hitchhiker,
running a pitchfork through the neck of

young farm girl, and hacking to death a
delivery man with a meat cleaver. Now...

All of those things do happen in this
film. However, they don't happen in

the lurid, gloating, last house on the
left way that would otherwise land

it on the video nasties list. I mean,
they're all brief, bloodless,

suspenseless, not terribly well
-directed ridiculousness sequences

than hard -driving, upsetting horror.

But I think the whole point of The
Nasties was to crack down on the

the cover images, and here I think the
sleeve copy.

There's a sort of footnote to this film
which actually rendered it unworkable as

a British release, and that's that the
evil vigilante group's signature tune is

a library track called Approaching
Menace.

which here is better known as the theme
from the quiz show Mastermind.

So every time the villains are plotting
to go out and commit their vigilante

acts, that ba -ba -ba -ba theme is
playing. And, of course, everybody in

started doing our started -so -I'll
-finish jokes while watching this.

And I imagine watch the rest of the film
through a haze of beer -induced

giggling.

The idea that this was ever
confrontational or upsetting is kind of

You sort of wonder who watched this
film, who made this complaint.

It was on the nasties list for quite a
while, although it did disappear.

Delirium. Coming soon to a theatre or
drive -in near you.

There were two sleeves for this. This
is... just stills with some writing on

there was one which was artwork inspired
by the film which is to say artwork

misrepresenting is a much more exciting
and gruesome film than it is the thing

is this is the actual psycho killer in
the film that's not the bald guy is the

the psycho killer's boss

If you took 16 seconds out of it and re
-released it as Psycho Puppet, which did

happen, then it became a completely
inoffensive ordinary horror picture,

is what, frankly, it always was.

And it did come out again, but it
actually didn't make any waves. It

completely twice.

On the 27th, 1973, the United States and
North Vietnam signed a peace treaty,

bringing to an end the senseless
killing.

But for some, the war didn't end.

The battlefields may have changed, but
the killing continued.

Not about Vietnam, but about some of the
men who survived.

And the point of stress that the human
mind can...

an innocent girl.

This organization was formed to protect
the innocent.

Friends?

Delirium. Coming soon to a theater or
drive -in near you.

Don't Go In The House.

In a steel room built for revenge, they
die burning in chains.

Now, that's a come -on, if ever there
was one. Don't Go In The House, one of

favourite American horror films from the
late 70s, early 80s era, when there

were so many of them being made. Also
one of the most reviled.

So many bad reviews.

I interviewed the director, Joseph
Ellison, and he said when it came out,

could count the good reviews on one hand
easily.

And he said that the bad reviews were
vehement. They were so anti the film.

I think Robin Wood, you know, the
esteemed Robin Wood, said, don't go in

house, can be said to represent the
slasher cycle at its most debased.

Well, that's catnip, isn't it? You've
got to see it.

Whatever you do, don't go in the house.

Now, this played in British cinemas with
its most shocking scene gone.

And it's a shocking scene that the movie
builds up to with a great deal of

emphasis and a lot of skill.

And it's gone. So it's an incredibly
frustrating experience in British

I did see it. Fortunately, I'd already
seen it on video from arcade video

in its uncut form.

Now, this is a film that has not
attracted a lot of defenders.

But I've always been very passionate
about this film. I think it's a really

great film.

It's about a disturbed young man, rather
kind of Norman Bates -ish.

He's been tormented by an extremely
abusive mother in his childhood.

He was raised in isolation.

You're a bad boy.

Instructed in fear.

You're evil and you must be punished.

He still lives with her in this rambling
old house, and when she dies, he has

the house to himself, and he turns it
over to his thick little games, which

involve abducting women.

and taking them up to a room which is
purpose -built upstairs, which is

clad in steel sheets, where he ties them
up naked and sets fire to them with a

flamethrower.

Well, they do call them horror films.

It's meant to be horrific, and by God,
it is. This has got things that, even

people who've watched a lot of
exploitation movies, rather take you

particular, the one...

standout scene involving the burning of
a naked woman, the one scene that you

see it from beginning to end, is
absolutely jaw -dropping. It's

the effects are so good that at the time
it was a puzzle to see how it was done.

It was actually done using a prism, I
believe, and it was done in camera.

So you had the fire there and the victim
there, and then the camera would sort

of superimpose the two via some sort of
mirrored device.

Joseph Ellison, the director, said that
even on set, when they were shooting

this scene, he was there, he'd written
the scene, the actress was there, they

were chit -chatting, then it became time
to prepare the shot, they got the fire

going, and he looked down the viewfinder
of the camera and went...

It looked convincing even in the room.
With all of the mechanics of cinema

around to reduce the impact, he said,
when I looked down the viewfinder, he

it was quite shocking to see how
convincing that image was.

And when you shout action and the
actress starts screaming and writhing,

the whole impact obviously goes up
another notch.

And soon he'll share the terrifying
secret behind this door in the Room of

Steel. Apart from that one scene,
though, the rest of the horror in the

more suggestive. It's more to do with
mood. It's a very melancholic film.

And something really interesting about
it as well is that it's a film about a

serial killer that presents the killer
as a pathetic, lonely

failure in life.

Now he has come of age.

His suffering has ended.

And ours?

It's about to begin.

No way can you watch the film and think,
yes, I love serial killers, they're

great.

He's a cluck, and he manages to abduct
women more by good luck and

kind of wheedling persistence rather
than having some sort of Hannibal Lecter

master plan. So quite a responsible
treatment of the character, I think.

It's also a lot more artful than people
give it credit for.

In a film where the killer is burning
people, it's interesting that the

predominant colour in the film is blue,
frequently dark blue. And the colour

scheme and the lighting all kind of work
to create this contrast.

So, you know, you've got a... It's a
simple aesthetic, but it's an aesthetic.

It's about, you know, in a film about a
person who murders people by burning

them to death, it's fascinating that the
rest of the film feels like it was shot

in a fridge.

Don't go in the house, because the
people who live there aren't people

So, you know, the film has a very strong
visual aesthetic, and this is partly

due to Ellison's intentions for the
film, and he had worked it out in

but it's also down to the fact that he
had a very good DP called Oliver Wood,

who had shot The Honeymoon Killers for
Leonard Castle. It was a great film, a

black -and -white film.

and who has now gone on to mega
productions such as The Bourne Automatum

Bourne Conspiracy, I think. He worked on
two of the Bourne films.

So he's now one of the top -flight DPs
in Hollywood, and he got his start, or

least in his early days, he was shooting
films like Don't Go In The House.

So it's not making too extravagant a
claim for Don't Go In The House to say

the visual side of it and the
photography is actually of note. Now, it

originally going to be called The
Burning.

That was the original title, and in fact
it got as far as having some stills

made for release under that title. But
then the filmmakers found out that

another movie was about to be released
that was going to get onto the market

first, already using the title Burning,
which, interestingly enough, also ended

up on the banned list.

I think it was made by an early version
of Miramax.

It was actually shot, I think, as The
Burning Man. The original script was

called The Burning Man, and there are
some photographs.

taken on set, where the clapperboard and
the film canisters have the title of

the burning man on the side.

Don't go in the house.

But if you do, don't say we didn't warn
you.

Now, Ellison also tells a story that
gives you some idea of the kind of

reception that this film had, which
involves a trip that Ellison took to the

cinema to go and see...

his own movie with an audience.

And it was released exactly around the
same time as Friday the 13th.

And Ellison said he went to a cinema in
New York, a two -screen cinema, Friday

the 13th, ducked in the house.

I thought, great, market research, go
and see how the film's going down. So he

said he went into Friday the 13th, stood
at the back, and said...

Going down gangbusters, you know,
couples screaming and clutching each

cheering, yelling, kind of cries and,
you know, punching the air, you know,

name it. You know, a really good, lively
response from the audience. And the

film was obviously very, very popular.

Went into Don't Go In The House.

Visible audience, still plenty of people
in there.

Not a peep, not a fan.

He said, you realise immediately that
he'd made sort of like a completely

different horror.

film to the one that he'd been thinking
he might have made. It was not going to

have the kind of brash, energetic sort
of vibe that something like Friday the

13th had. He'd made essentially a real
downer, you know, a kind of very

downbeat, you know, really kind of
sobering movie.

When the violent scenes turned up in
Don't Go In The House, it was dead

silence, not a sound, no one cheering.

No girls clutching their dates, you
know, it was all just like... So he knew

that he'd made something that was a
little bit unusual, perhaps.

In this house, 25 years ago, a child was
given life.

Donald, come here!

He was raised in isolation.

You're a bad boy.

Instructed in fear.

You're evil and you must be punished.

Imprisoned by a tormented mind.

Your father let you do things like that,
but he's gone now!

and baptized in flame.

Now he has come of age.

His suffering has ended, and ours is
about to begin.

You hear that, old lady?

I'll punish you again!

If you would be spared from the fury of
his vengeance, whatever you do...

Don't go in the house.

Stairway by stairway, he draws you
closer to madness.

Oh, God!

And soon, he'll share the terrifying
secret behind this door

in the Room of Steel.

Don't make me do anything bad, Mother.

Don't go in the house, because the
people who live there are...

Don't go in the house.

But if you do, don't say we didn't warn
you.

Don't go in the house.

Well, Don't Go Near the Park, you can't
say they didn't warn you. This is a very

unmemorable vampire flick. This is a
movie which opens with the quote, This

is fiction, but is based on actual
occurrences that have happened over the

centuries. So, whatever that means.

Don't go near the park.

Any film with don't in the title seemed
to automatically flag itself up as a

video nasty back in the day anyway.
There was like, don't go in the house,

go in the woods, or...

Don't bother to waste your money renting
this film.

There were plenty of them. And in fact,
of course, it was spoofed by Edgar

Wright in his Grindhouse trailer of a
couple of years back.

Since the dawn of time, man has been
plagued by the evil curse of the lusting

vampires. As for the plot, well, after a
prologue in which a curse of eternal

damnation is placed on some annoying
kids, we move forward.

some 12 000 years or so to find the kids
are still around and they're surviving

on a diet of ripped open stomachs but
unfortunately the centuries have done

little to sharpen up their acting skills
this part

is not for play most of the gore in here
is centered around disemboweling scenes

which seem to be the things that got the
DPP all worked up into a lather. But

unfortunately, the effects are so poor
that it doesn't really seem to matter

anyway. I mean, it's just ridiculous.

It's very, very cheaply made, and it's
probably... The main claim to fame now

it features a very early role for Linnea
Quigley, the famous Scream Queen star

of films like Return of the Living Dead
and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

Linnea Quigley plays this brat called
Bondi who's got an amulet which makes...

Rapists explode.

So, with a plot like that, you probably
need to be on some kind of medication to

enjoy this, but I know some of you out
there are, so enjoy.

Since the dawn of time, man has been
plagued by the evil curse of the lusting

vampires.

The living dead have risen again.

Don't go near the park.

Keep out.

This part is not for playing.

The horrible truth will curdle your
blood.

They rise from the grave to wreck their
ritualistic vengeance on the living.

Zombies on a rampage of blood and
terror.

Don't go near the park.

The gruesome reality more shocking than
your most horrifying nightmares.

There is no escape from the supernatural
fiend and stop yourself.

Beware. You have been warned.

Keep out.

This park is not for playing.

Don't go near the park.

Coming soon.

Don't look in the basement.

One of the ubiquitous don't films.

I love this movie.

I love this filmmaker. He made four
movies.

I think they're all fantastic.

This is the only really gory one of the
four.

It's a cut version, so it's not as gory
as the full version, which we didn't see

for many, many years, but finally turned
up.

Advertised with a strapline so casual
and so subtle that you just have to love

it. A feeling of unease crept over her.
What a great ad line.

Don't.

Don't look in the basement.

Don't Look in the Basement was directed
by a Texas -based director called S .F.

Brownrigg.

And he'd got his start working with
Larry Buchanan in the 60s as a sound

And then in the early 1970s, he made
four movies, as it turns out, within

less than two years of each other.

Now, the reason I sound so surprised by
that is that for many years, we accepted

different dates for the films he made,
which were spread between 1972 and 1979

in one case.

So research has indicated that... In
actual fact, they were all made in a

short space of time and then kind of
dribbled out over several years because

they had trouble finding a distributor,
the later ones.

Even though this is the only one that
touched the video nasty list, I strongly

recommend to anyone that they check out
the others as well. Poor White Trash

Part 2, or Scum of the Earth, I think,
is the other title.

Don't Open the Door and Keep My Grave
Open. All strange, moody.

very atmospheric and well worth seeking
out. Don't Look in the Basement is the

only one that has got a real strong
exploitation element to it. The violence

quite OTT.

And the setup is great. It's a very,
very progressive asylum which believes

in no boundaries between the mentally
ill who are being

incarcerated and the staff.

mentally ill are allowed to, say, for
instance, work out their frustrations by

laying into a giant log with an axe, you
know, whilst their therapist stands

and coos approvingly on the sidelines.

And, well, you can see where that's
going, can't you?

So it doesn't take long before this
radical therapeutic regime goes off the

rails rather drastically.

On the day the insane took over the
asylum.

But then it turns into a sort of a
mystery because it moves on from this

axe killing and a pretty girl arrives at
the asylum

as a new staff member and she's
interviewed by the head of the asylum

informs her of the progressive regime.

But there's something a little odd about
everyone, not just the people

incarcerated there, but also the staff
seem a little odd as well.

Dr Masters, who has her own idea of the
gentle art of healing.

What makes it interesting, beyond the
fact that it's quite gory, is the fact

that it's also very well acted. And this
is something that you find in all of

Branwick's films. He was drawing on a
repertory cast who were theatre actors.

And he worked with the same actors in
all four of his films, turning up over

over again.

And they're all very good. And there's a
tone, a tonal

style to his films which unites them,
which always makes the director

interesting, obviously, if you can
unite, if they seem to have a united

focus to their work.

Don't look in the basement.

from Hallmark Releasing Corporation.

This is another one of the films that
was distributed by the company Hallmark

who had, you know, a huge sort of
exploitation hit with Last House on the

Last House on the Left, of course, now
has been rehabilitated and it's a film

that even people who normally wouldn't
go near graphic horror have kind of

decided... It's entered the pantheon.

You're now allowed to like Last House on
the Left, whereas, you know...

Back in 1982, when these films were on
the shelves, you were a thick -twitted

pervert for even arguing that there was
anything valuable in Last House on the

Left.

Stephen King, no less, referred to Last
House on the Left as the work of morons

with cameras, I think he said.

So even the horror people didn't
necessarily like it. Anyway, Hallmark

the ad line from Last House on the Left
several times for various films.

Because it was such a successful
marketing campaign to avoid fainting,

repeating, it's only a movie, it's only
a movie, it's only a movie.

That's the classic advertising campaign
for Last House on the Left, which worked

so well that they used it on about
another ten films.

And this is one of the beneficiaries of
that recycling.

So, you know, just in case you'd
forgotten that it was all just a movie,

reminded you again.

Don't look in the basement.

The makers of Last House on the left
warn you again.

To avoid fainting, keep repeating.

It's only a movie.

Only a movie.

Only a movie.

The line between sanity and madness can
be crossed.

In a single step.

And with this step, you enter the
nightmare world of terror.

On the day the insane took over the
asylum.

Judge Caban, whose iron self -control
hides the urge to kill.

Harriet, a mother's love, twisted into
the malignant shape of evil.

The sergeant.

living in the hell of an aimless war,
fighting a battle within himself that he

lost long ago.

Allison, in a desperate need for love,
an obsession that could drive her to

murder.

Danny, whose sense of humor triggers a
violent act of revenge.

Dr. Masters.

who has her own idea of the gentle art
of healing.

Aunt Charlotte, who left the world of
sanity and security only to be trapped

the nightmare world of madness, a
nightmare she cannot escape.

They all met on the day the insane took
over the asylum.

Don't look in the basement.

From Hallmark Releasing Corporation
Rated R

The

Evil Dead The Evil Dead got a release
Cinematically and on video on the same

day, which is a very interesting element
of the times that were happening with

video, that people were taking the
personal and the public very

It is an unusual case, The Evil Dead,
not just because it was the debut

of somebody who was a really important
filmmaker, Sam Raimi, but because it was

distributed by Palace, who were a young,
up -and -coming company.

backing Neil Jordan's films and about to
become a bit of a player on the British

film scene. And also because, basically,
Steve Woolley was bloody minded enough

to fight this through the court. It
became a sort of a test case. And so,

therefore, The Evil Dead, which is
plainly a horror comedy. It goes a bit

far sometimes, but that's sort of its
job. But it became a kind of totemic.

video nasty and actually it may well be
one of the few films that delivers that

kind of relentless grueling onslaught of
terror promised by the ad campaigns of

video nasties stephen king author of
carrie said evil dead is the most

ferociously original horror film of the
year if you think he's kidding see for

yourself

My first experience of Evil Dead was
based on the phenomenon, which was, have

you seen Evil Dead? Evil Dead.

They got up on the wrong side of the
grave.

And for my 12th birthday, I had a
slumber party with 15 girls and we

video machine, top loading, of course,
and we rented the Evil Dead and we all

sat around terrified.

But it was more about a kind of...

a passing over into adulthood of gore
film because one always had to say, have

you seen Evil Dead?

And when Demons came out, the front
cover in Australia said, leave Evil Dead

dead.

Evil Dead is a strange film because it
meshes zombies and the occult and it

has a beautiful take on the shiny,
shiny, all -American little group of

that go into the cabin to do things they
obviously shouldn't be doing. Your

girlfriend, you take care of her.

However, the people, the characters in
the film are very naive and the

relationships they have with each other
are intensely romantic and quite sweet.

And so it's a very different kind of
teenagers go into the woods to get up to

shenanigans than, say, Friday the 13th.

There is a beauty in Evil Dead based
purely on things like the

and Sam Raimi has continued to show that
in films such as Drag Me to Hell and

Spider -Man, in that the use of the
camera becomes the most important

It's not so much about what you're
seeing, but how you see it. So he

things like sped -up camera, like still
-framing camera, like extraordinary

shots that go through houses and up and
down trees and so forth, and also the

use of stop -motion when the zombies all
explode. at the end is much more

reminiscent of a Ray Harryhauser film
than of something that is a bucket of

blood.

And I think it may well be one of the
films that sort of united the

fans and the film art fans.

Because I remember it was another one of
the early films I reviewed.

So it was a sort of film that...

Yeah, young alternative type critics
really got behind in a way that they

couldn't get behind. Don't go in the
woods.

No, it was the woods themselves.

They're alive, Ashley.

Probably the scene that most people
remember is when Ellen Sandweiss runs

the bushes and she is raped by a tree.

And, of course, this relates to the
hilarious concept of one getting a root.

The tree pulls apart her leg.

..and trails up vaguely, and one has to
wonder what the tree is thinking and

why, indeed, we are having an image
where a tree is raping a woman. And I

what Sam Raimi has done is he's invested
this kind of notion of possession into

things that are both alive and dead,
things that are animate and reanimate,

organic and inorganic, and it all comes
from this notion of the book as the

word.

Bruce Campbell, of course, has gone on
to become an intensely famous icon in

horror cinema, and he became this way
through a shift from being a so -called

actor, one could argue, to the high
-camp, almost slapstick actor that he

became in Evil Dead 2, which is
essentially a more elaborate, comedic

Evil Dead than an actual sequel.

It seems ironic that Sam Raimi is, of
course, now one of the most famous

directors in Hollywood, and he is the
person that is sought to do very, very

budget and also big conceptual films
such as Spider -Man. And he has created

lot of superhero films, and indeed he's
made Bruce Campbell a kind of superhero.

Whereas back in 1983, this film was
considered a grotty little piece of...

awful work and it also reminds me
because Sam Raimi was very resourceful

this film on little money because he
liked to create things and do things

independently

And it makes me think of resonances
between another very famous big

director now, Peter Jackson, who his
first film, Bad Taste, was also an

individual with very little money who
was using very creative resources in

to make a vision of a film that is
essentially about the artistry as much

about the content.

I think Steve Woolley did the industry a
service by actually fighting for his

films. Most distributors didn't. Most
distributors dropped them like hot

potatoes or were willing to... accept
whatever cuts the BBFC were willing to

offer and shove them out on the market
again.

Most video distributors, frankly, didn't
care what they had.

The thing about Palace is that it was a
company run by movie buffs and, God

bless them, they saw the Evil Dead early
on for what it was. They recognized

that Sam Raimi was a really talented guy
and they were willing to stand up in

court and defend them. I mean, the court
transcripts and those court cases are

just... hilarious when you get to them.
I mean, Sam Raimi practically does a

stand -up act about what it was like
going through the British courts.

He'd rehearsed his speech, which he said
couldn't help but come out like William

Shatner as Captain Kirk.

What is freedom of expression?

What is that artistic?

And by the time it got to them, the
judges just weren't interested in

that anymore.

She's your girlfriend. You take care of
her.

Frozen Scream. This is one of those
movies I've no idea why this, of dozens

other similar titles, got on the Video
Nasties list.

You have to say, well, there are some
scenes in which women are menaced by a

killer.

But, hey, how many films can you think
of that don't feature women being

by a killer? It was produced by Renee
Harmon, who also played the peculiarly

accented... mad scientist sidekick who
has a complicated character arc.

You'll feel a little cold for a while,
but no pain, I promise.

So, yeah, she obviously insisted on
getting a bit of acting work. It has the

same droning, dreadful music score
that's in Don't Go Into the Woods. So if

watch them back to back, I imagine your
head will explode from the musical

atrocity inflicted on you.

It's one of the... This was quite common
in the...

the early video era.

The back sleeve has a complete synopsis
of the film. I mean spoilers,

everything. The German version of the
movie apparently has a voiceover because

nobody could follow the plot.

Here you just had to read the back of
the sleeve and you would be able to

the plot such as it is, which is to do
with cryogenics making people immortal

but also

stripping them of their souls.

There's a Wes Craven TV movie later
called Chiller which has a very similar

idea, but it's basically just an excuse
for turning people into killer zombies.

There's some bizarre ritual chanting on
a beach by robed maniacs and there's a

lengthy party scene in which a band who
are presumably friends of the

production, you know, do several numbers
to pad out the running time. Otherwise

I can't believe anybody is even
interested in this film all these years

If it had not been on the Video Nasties
list I think it would be utterly

forgotten. As it is, it's mostly
forgotten.

Frozen Scream was actually on the Video
Nasty's list for two whole months.

And you know what? It doesn't even hold
the record there, because Unhinged was

on the list for only a month.

So this is the second briefest banned
horror film of the Video Nasty era.

It's not even the briefest banned horror
film. It didn't even take that title.

It is the most Frozen Screamiest Frozen
Scream movie ever made, but that's it.

Tell him it's urgent.

Life and death.

Judgment day. Time to pay your dues.

And... And... One sound and you've had
it.

a message from Tom.

He says that hell is very cold and
lonely.

All men are mortal. All men must die.

The Greek letter theta stands for
thanatos, the word for death.

The bar above it cancels its meaning.

Potentially, each one of us is a
thanatos, immortal.

Death is a stage we can conquer. It is
curable.

We can live forever.

The Fun House was Universal's first big
-budget horror movie in years. They

entrusted it to the director of The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which probably

wasn't the wisest thing to do because it
promptly ended up on the Nazis list.

In fact, Toby Hooper, because he was
making The Fun House, he missed out on

chance of directing E .T., which was
offered to him by Steven Spielberg. So

Spielberg thought, oh, well, I'll go and
do that instead. No doubt his

accountant, Toby Hooper's accountant,
wasn't too happy about that because the

film didn't do that well.

Who will dare deface the challenge?

It's set in a funhouse, a carnival
funhouse, where a bunch of teens, led by

Elizabeth Berridge, get trapped after
witnessing the murder of fortune teller

Sylvia Miles by a cleft -headed albino
who dresses himself in a Frankenstein

mask. Something is alive in the
funhouse.

Something not alive like its father.

Something better dead.

There's some confusion as to why...

Funhouse ended up on the list anyway
because it was released at Cinemas Uncut

and from a major studio whereas most of
the video nasties are very low budget

movies I think the possibility is that
the DPP thought well this is by the guy

who did the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and
it was advertised that way and they

figured it was yet another Texas
Chainsaw -type movie. The Funhouse. It's

carnival of terror from Toby Hooper, the
director who terrified you with the

Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But the ironic
thing is, of course, that Texas Chainsaw

Massacre itself was never actually on
the Video Nasties list.

A lot of people seem to forget that.

It's also been confused, in some places
it's been confused with a film called

The Last House on Dead End Street, which
was also known as The Fun House.

Although this film got very, very small
release, it certainly would have been on

the nasties list if it had been more
widely seen, because it had a lot of

slaughterhouse footage in it.

But as it is, The Fun House is a good
old -fashioned horror romp, which you'll

see from the trailer.

To face the challenge of the monster.

Who is mad enough to enter that world of
darkness?

Something is alive in the funhouse.

Something not alive like its father.
Something better dead.

Something that has the form of a human,
but not the face.

This better be good. It's going to be
great.

Something that feeds off the flesh and
blood.

Come on, here we go. This is it.

Something that tonight will turn the
funhouse into a carnival of terror.

I don't know what that's going to be.

I just want to get the hell out of here.

The Fun House, coming soon from
Universal Pictures. The Fun House, it's

carnival of terror from Toby Hooper, the
director who terrified you with the

Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Well, there's not actually much to say
about Human Experiments. It got on the

list. I would suspect, because it was
hauled in with the big net that was set

out to trap SS Experiment Camp, and it
had experiment on the label.

Actually, it's a women in prison picture
with a kind of very minor mad science

subplot. Somewhere between medicine and
witchcraft, somewhere between justice

and vengeance, someone is performing
human experiments.

It's not particularly terrible. It's not
particularly great either.

Looking at the cover, I think that bit
of clip art comes from the 1956 version

of 1984.

Those are, in fact, big brother's eyes
who are watching this woman here, who is

one of the human experiments.

The trailer has that great line, you
know, somebody is watching human

experiments. In fact, not many people
were.

It notionally had a theatrical release.

came out it was around as a title for a
while in the early days of video if it

hadn't been on the video nastiest list i
doubt if anybody would ever remember it

now the only looking at it there's one
one

It's got some quite interesting people
in it.

Aldo Ray is in it.

Jackie Coogan, Uncle Fester, is in it.

Ellen Travolta, sister of the more
famous John.

And Geoffrey Lewis, father of the more
famous Juliet, are in it. These things

happen, even in the best of prisons.

What happened to Rachel Foster was the
ultimate fear.

Human experiments.

Geoffrey Lewis and John Travolta, those
famous Scientologists. I don't know if

that has anything to do with this.

There is a conspiracy theory actually
that says that one of the things that

Scientology really hates is psychiatry
because they see it as a rival.

And so there's lots of thought.

talk about the quackery of psychiatry.
And this is, of course, about mad

psychiatrists. So if you believe that L.
Ron Hubbard is out there influencing

films, you could perhaps argue that this
is expressing a deep and rather

sinister belief system. However, the
notion that this is expressing anything

serious is sort of laughable.

In six months, you'll be a different
human being.

This is a film that was on the very
first video nasties list and it stayed

for the next four iterations of the
list. I assume then somebody watched it

because it was dropped thereafter and
never resurfaced again.

This is Rachel Foster.

Dazzling.

Defiant. Sheriff, he's trying to cheat
me.

Destined to be free.

But somewhere up ahead, someone was
waiting.

Mom?

Anybody home?

Summer and Edwin Brown present

A W. Goodell film.

Human experiments.

This just might be what we've been
waiting for.

Came in to use the phone. My car got
stuck.

See your stay here rather as a short
stop along the road,

a place to heal and rebuild.

On the table, please.

In six months, she'll be a different
human being.

These things happen, even in the best of
prisons.

What happened to Rachel Foster was the
ultimate fear.

Human experiments.

It began as a venture and became a
nightmare of unrelenting terror.

Who's there?

Toughly called for them down there.

Rita's dead.

He can't tell anyone.

God, baby.

Somewhere between medicine and
witchcraft.

Somewhere between justice and vengeance.

Somewhere between progress and the
unthinkable.

Someone is performing human experiments.

Human experiments.

Well back in the days when Mr. Plod and
his pals were raiding every single video

shop and building up a healthy library
down at the precinct They generally went

for movies with cannibal or zombie in
the title because that was fairly

wasn't it?

In some cases, of course, they got a bit
overzealous. One of the most famous

cases being when they seized a copy of
Samuel Fuller's film The Big Red One

because they thought, a big red what?
That must be something rude.

But one of the weirdest films on the
list for titles, as far as titles goes

anyway, is I Miss You Hugs and Kisses,
which doesn't sound at all like a nasty.

In fact, it was also known as Drop Dead
Dearest.

but it was based on a true life story of
a toronto real estate agent who

supposedly murdered his wife and in this
instance the wife was played by elka

summer the lovely german actress who was
in mario barbara's lisa and the devil

and also was in one of the carry -ons
and uh i didn't want to see what what

makes this film a nasty to be honest
because the murder itself is you know

gets a big building block dropped on her
head the screen goes red

and she gets electrocuted in the
swimming pool.

But it's a strange little movie, and not
one that you'd automatically think of

as being on the list, and I don't know
why it hasn't been seen since, really,

because I'm sure if it was reclassified
today, it'd probably get a PD or

something.

On a trivia note, the film I Miss You,
Hugs and Kisses is also both the very

first feature film score written by
Howard Shaw, who of course later went on

do the Lord of the Rings trilogy and a
lot of work for David Cronenberg.

Anyway, I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses.

Two months ago, Charles Christian,
millionaire husband of former model

Christian, offered a $10 ,000 reward for
information leading to the capture of

his wife's murder.

Today, through a dramatic turn of
events, Christian himself has been

with the brutal slaying of his wife,
Magdalene Christian, who was found

bludgeoned to death in her home.

Charles Christian, her husband, was
charged with the murder and later

on a $100 ,000 bond.

Why would I want to kill her when,
obviously, divorce is the sensible

way out? All she is, is a money
-grubbing little nothing.

It's not 24, it's $27 ,000 with all the
extras in it.

God damn little whore.

I just don't give a shit. You were once
the best friend of the accused.

We planned to get a divorce.

And then I would come over and we'd get
married.

How long have you known about the
murder?

Nothing to say. How long have you and
Charles Cushon been lovers?

I found myself thinking of ways of
killing Mac.

How?

Actually planning it.

Dario Argento's 1980s sequel to
Suspiria, Inferno, about the Mother of

is probably one of the most lunatic
additions to the video nasty list there

was.

Not only is it a beautiful film, it's
one of my all -time favourites. In fact,

you can't see, but I've actually got it
tattooed on my arm here.

The photography by Romano Albani was
stunning, made it look like a live comic

book to me. I loved it.

Keith Emerson did the music, absolutely
wonderful, and it contains some of

Argento's best set pieces, mainly The
Underwater.

haunted house sequence, which of course
Mario Bava helped out on special

effects.

Dario saw it as like his version of
Hansel and Gretel.

If the Spiria was Snow White, the Hansel
and Gretel characters in Inferno were

Lee McCloskey and Irene Miracle. Many
people on the film have told me that

was very, very ill when he made it and
would often direct Lying Down, a reason

why they often couldn't hear him, why it
has that sort of ethereal feel about

it, I think.

My favourite story about Inferno
concerns the Kazanian rat sequence.

They filmed this at DePaolo Studios on
the outskirts of Rome and Dario didn't

really think the Italian rats they had
were any good so he asked for some

Chinese fighting rats to be imported.

They got loose in the studio after the
scene and interbred with the native

species and created this sort of super
breed of rat that infested the studio

years afterwards.

And any director who ever went in there
after that always called up Dario and

said, we blame you for this, you're
ruining our shots.

Help me!

Oh my God!

Why was it on the list? Mainly because
there's a scene where a cat eats a

No big deal. Doesn't this thing happen
in real life? But no, that's the reason

why it was pounced on by the DPP.

I do not know what price I shall have to
pay for breaking what we alchemists

call Selenium.

The life experiences of our colleagues
should warn us not to upset laymen by

imposing our knowledge upon them.

The book. What?

There are mysterious parts in that book.

But the only true mystery is that our
very lives are governed by dead people.

In the beginning, there were three
mothers, the same as there were three

and three Furies.

Man has always mistakenly called them by
one terrifying name.

I'm afraid.

I'm afraid to be left alone.

My

sister.

Where is my sister?

I'm constantly being watched.

And at times I think I actually feel
present.

The Killer Nun is an Italian
nunsploitation movie set in a retirement

where a number of the poor old residents
are being randomly bumped off.

First, let me tell you a little bit
about nunsploitation movies.

In its simplest term, it was a genre of
film that emerged across Europe during

the 60s and 70s, in which sexually
repressed nuns find pleasure, not

God, but through other means, usually
other nuns, random men or even inanimate

objects.

Probably the most famous example is Ken
Russell's The Devils from 1971.

Anyway, back to this film.

Director Giulio Berruti, a former altar
boy, had previously worked as an

assistant director and writer before
trying his hand at directing.

Alas, he has only one notable feature to
his credit, and that's this one, which

I think is something of a Euro cult gem.

May his soul burn in hell.

Just the thought of what he did to me
makes me want to take revenge on all

Just snuff them out like he snuffed out
my happiness. No, sister.

Verruti had made some good friends in
the industry and was able to persuade

decent talent to appear in his film for
little money.

After reading her the script, Anita
Ekberg, famous for her role in Fellini's

Dolce Vita, agreed to play Sister
Gertrude. And former Warhol star Joe D

'Alessandro was cast as a doctor, who's
hilariously dubbed.

Alida Vali, just off the set of Dario
Argento's Suspiria, was cast as the

Superior.

Rather surprisingly, the film was
actually based on a true event, which

in Belgium in the 1970s, in which a
nasty nun was found to be finishing off

residents of a retirement home and
stealing all their jewellery.

Please take Sister Gertrude to her cell.

However, this version adds plenty of sex
and morphine addiction to the mix.

My favourite scene?

Well, there's actually quite a few to be
found here.

OK, well my first one is when Sister
Gertrude snatches an old lady's false

out of the glass standing by her dinner
plate and throws the dentures on the

floor and stamps them to pieces.

This gives the poor old dear a heart
attack.

There's another great moment when Sister
Gertrude ditches her habit and goes out

to pick up a bloke and ends up getting
bonked standing up against a wall.

Classy. You want another one?

Well, how about the scene where she's
preparing her morphine injection and

it up like a chalice?

Or how about the scene where another old
deer is gagged and has a series of pins

pushed into her face?

Ouch. It's probably this scene that got
the film onto the DPP's list of

forbidden fruits.

It was banned on video in August 1984
and remained banned until July 1985 when

it was eventually removed from the list
altogether.

What's even more bizarre is the fact
that a lot of the film was shot at an

actual convent and the crew had to make
sure nobody saw what kind of film they

were making.

Naughty, naughty.

To cap things off, it was doing
phenomenal business at the Italian box

until the Vatican had it pulled.

The advertising campaign obviously upset
some official there. What did they

expect with a tagline that screamed from
the secret file of the Vatican?

I strongly suggest you make a habit out
of watching The Killer Nun.

May his soul burn in hell.

Just the thought of what he did to me
makes me want to take revenge on all

To snuff them out like he snuffed out my
happiness. No, sister.

That's enough.

That's who you are.

You've been rolling your eyes at me ever
since you were transferred here.

Then we'll help him. Won't you, Doctor?

I promise I'll make it very nice.

Sister Gertrude.

It is a nun's vocation to suffer.

Life has always been difficult.

I'm sorry, Mother. What did you say?
Nothing.

I agree, Sister Mathieu.

I'm innocent.

Please take Sister Gertrude to her cell.

Give her a sedative, Sister Louise.

I think Sister Gertrude could freak out
any second.

Why did you kill Jeannot, sister?

Don't you have any faith in the police,
huh?

You're wrong to be so pessimistic.

The police solve crimes.

It's their job.

The police look out for their own
interests.

This is to the scalpel.

What's wrong with you this morning?

You know what's wrong, doctor.

She discovered certain discrepancies in
the drug register. My son was

responsible. He was addicted to it.

It was morphine.

Of course, I should have reported it.

The international popularity of Last
House on the Left really impacted on the

exploitation film industry.

And here's the Italian rip -off, Late
Night Trains, or Don't Ride on Late

Trains, it says on the video.

But actually, the title when it comes up
is actually Night Train Murders. And

here's the mythical alternative release,
one of the holy grails of video nasty

collectors, and it's this, the Cine
Hollywood Night Train Murders release.

Aldo Lardo was the director.

He was Dario Argento's assistant
director on Burb of the Crystal Plumage.

says he never saw Last House on the
Left. It was completely new to him. And

actually added a lot more into the
script. For example, he says the whole

deflowering of the main murder in the
film was based on something that

to one of his wife's best friends at the
doctor's, amazingly.

Masha Merrill, Flavio Bucchi.

Enrica, Maria Salerno and Irene Miracle,
these are all past, present and future

Dario Argento stars anyway.

Thematically, it fits in with Aldo
Lardo's Jallo movie, Short Night of the

Dolls. The theme of Late Night Trains is
all about the upper classes exploiting.

the proletariat.

This is seen in Masha Merrill's upper
-class bitch character.

The moment she raises the veil on her
hat means that she lets all her

respectability go, and that's why she
can indulge in egging on the two, well,

crazed psycho nutters into doing the
violence they do on the train. In fact,

when she's confronted by the father of
the daughter that she's responsible for

helping kill, she puts her veil back
down, which means that she completely

closes off again.

That's how Aldo Lardo... represented
anyway. It's shot in a very nice blue

because Lardo, when he was a child, when
he actually travelled on late night

trains himself, always remembered the
blue light coming in through the window

and so that's something he actually
wanted to put in the movie himself.

This is one film I really do believe
should be on the Video Nasties list,

because of the awful Dennis Rufus theme
song.

Morning, Margaret. Staying here for
Christmas?

No, I'm going to Italy with Lisa to stay
with her family.

That'll be nice. She'll be warmer down
there. Sure hope so.

Bye. Goodbye, girls. Have a good
Christmas. Bye. Thank you. Same to you.

They'll be leaving at 1, and it gets in
tomorrow morning at around 7 .30.

Oh, so they're coming down by train.

Wouldn't it have been easier for them to
fly instead?

Yes, but I'm so scared when they're
flying. And besides, planes are never on

time these days.

Has Lisa been behaving well?

Oh, of course.

She's always sweet. She's never behaved
badly. Not when she stayed here with us.

She's no angel here with us.

Society must try and find a preventative
to violence. I agree. I think it should

start with children. A better rapport
between teachers and parents.

Violence is bred by things like boredom
and lack of exercise, if you ask me.

One of the better rip -offs of George
Romero's classic Night of the Living

is Jorge Grau's The Living Dead at the
Manchester Morgue.

As in this one, just using the Living
Dead title. In fact, Don't Open the

here is actually another retitling of
it. I think this film's had more titles

and more versions than you could
possibly imagine.

Just so you know, I actually attended a
press show of this movie, and here is

the actual vomit bag from that press
show.

unused as you'll notice because i was
just so amazed by what we were seeing on

the screen i didn't have enough time to
throw up why

was it shot in manchester mainly because
producer edmondo amati thought

manchester sounded quite exotic and
glamorous of course the reality of that

they got to sheffield which is where
they mostly filmed the film not

is quite an important one to note um

Anti -establishment is a bit laughable
now when you see the hippie stuff, but

that's one of the reasons why people
really took to it at the time. Listen,

you keep getting on my nerves and I'm
going to give you another kind of house

look after, one with lots of bars in the
windows.

They saw that whole anti -establishment
message as being quite important and

ecologically sound.

Very violent for its time, very gory.
One of the very first films pre -Dawn of

the Dead to feature things like
disemboweling, breasts being ripped off.

gut -spilling, quite shocking in a way.

Raymond Lovelock was the star, and he
starred in Autopsy and Fulci's Murder

Rock. In fact, he's still an Italian TV
star to this day. Arthur Kennedy was the

American star of it. He took the money,
came over, thought he was doing another

job for hire, and actually...

ended up quite liking Jorge Graham, what
he was trying to do, so he really threw

himself behind it.

Bear a thought for Christina Galbo,
who's the lead girl in it. Her husband

two days before the film was about to
start, and so her shell -shocked look is

actually quite authentic.

Why she didn't just sort of give up,
I've no idea, but she's there and she

really good as a result of it.

But is it possible? I mean, could a film
fail to catch an image for any reason?

Well, a ghost, maybe.

This is one of the better films to
feature.

on the video Nazis list and it sort of
weathers well today.

Not my fault, Sergeant. Christ and
saints are out of fashion.

Satan's all the rage these days. Listen,
boy.

You keep getting on my nerves and I'm
going to give you another kind of house

look after. One with lots of bars in the
windows.

We'd better reinforce that door. Take
the lamp.

I can just imagine the sergeant's face
when he finds out. Craig, can you hear

me?

Sergeant, they're dead people trying to
kill me.

Message for you.

Look, I know it sounds silly, but is it
possible? I mean, could a film fail to

catch an image for any reason?

Well, a ghost, maybe.

Nightmare Maker was apparently named
Best Horror Film of 1982 by the Academy

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, but
it wasn't quite so popular with the

folks at the DPP.

The film itself was directed by a guy
called William Asher, who was a very

capable director of TV shows like I Love
Lucy, and he also did the A .I .P.

movie How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.

It's actually one of the best movies on
the list, I think, quality -wise,

anyway. It stars Jimmy McNichol, who's
the brother of actress Christie.

And he plays a 17 -year -old who's
orphaned in a car crash. Very well shot

sequences.

And he finds himself lingering with his
Dottie aunt, who's played by the

excellent Susan Tyrrell.

And they get into a kind of incestuous
relationship.

And the film goes very much into the
whatever -happened -to -baby -Jane,

-type territory.

It has some very good sequences,
including a decapitation sequence, which

shot uncredited by Jan de Bont, who, of
course, went on to direct movies like

Twister and Speed.

And here's a rarer alternative sleeve
for the film. And the trailer you're

to see is under its original American
title of Night Warning.

So shocking. So terrifying.

So powerful.

Night Warning has been named Best Horror
Film of the Year by the Academy of

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.

Billy and Julie.

Young. Innocence. In love.

It was all a mistake.

They didn't go looking for trouble. They
were just too curious.

Without knowing, they've uncovered a
deadly secret.

By accident, they've stumbled onto a
grisly murder.

Now they know too much to live.

A chilling tale of a young boy and girl.
Innocent victims. Now targets of a

frenzied obsession with murder.

See the award -winning Night Warning.

OK, well, we have Possession by Andrzej
Jouaski.

What should it be?

Possession.

It's a very perplexing cover.

It was produced like this, apparently
back to front.

No -one seems to quite know why.

Some people speculate that it was a
printing error and they just had to go

it. I always imagine that perhaps
because the film is very strange and

weird and unusual,

Somebody in the design department
thought that would be a strange, arty,

and unusual way of presenting the cover
possibility.

So, yeah, it's a perplexing one, but
it's a perplexing film. This is one of

films on the banned list that didn't
spend very long on the list. It was kind

on and off, I believe.

Goodness knows why it was on in the
first place, but eventually somebody saw

reason. I think a case was dropped
against it and it was given a re

VTC sometime afterwards with a different
design using a different artwork,

which... It was rather more conventional
than this, but more attractive as well.

One of the difficulties with this
artwork, of course, is that it's all

around an image which the film builds
for about 90 minutes to show you. The

cover kind of blows that central image.

But having said that, I saw Possession
as a result of seeing it on a shelf and

thinking, good grief, what's that? So it
worked.

Inhuman. So what you're doing must be
human.

It's made by a Polish director, Andrzej
Joachimski, who moved to France in the

1970s when the Polish authorities
started to interfere with the content of

films.

He sought greater artistic freedom in
Paris, which he obviously attained.

Possession was a film he made in 1981,
which was shot in Berlin, made with

French and German money, with Sam Neill,
an Australian actor, very famous now

for the Jurassic Park films.

in the male lead, and Isabella Jani, a
very highly regarded French actress, as

the female lead.

In this country, back in the day, when
it was reviewed in various genre

magazines at the time, it was treated
as, at best, a kind of a bizarre

that no one quite knew what to make of,
and at worst, as a pretentious pile of

gibberish, which rubbed up a lot of
viewers the wrong way because they

really know how to take it.

And the fact is that the film goes out
of its way to perplex and to confuse and

to refuse, I suppose, not so much
confuse, but to refuse to answer certain

questions. There's a schism in the film
to do with what's real and what's not

real. The director, Jouafsky, said that
he made it because he wanted to make a

film about the collapse of a marriage,
which is part of the story of

But having seen Ingmar Bergman's films,
Scenes from a Marriage, which is a

naturalistic attempt to convey the
collapse of a relationship.

He felt, although he was a great admirer
of Bergman's, that somehow the film had

not caught what it needed to catch, that
there was something lost, that it

wasn't getting to where it needed to get
to, and that the naturalistic quality

of Bergman's style, or his approach in
that film, fell short of what Iwaski

thought it should have attained.

And he decided that there was a symbolic
dimension, really, that needed to be

added. And so in a strange, very strange
kind of way, it becomes a monster

movie.

The monster is a symbolic enticement
that could drive many a

critic wild, either with excitement at
the many, many manifold different ways

interpreting it, or with annoyance at
the film's refusal to really come down.

and explain exactly what it's doing.

But it's that decision not to explain
that suggests that there are certain

things that are ineffable, that you
cannot reach with rational thought, that

makes the film so special.

The relationship between the two lead
characters is incredibly fraught. and

performances are pitched at a level of
hysteria that starts here and then just

goes through the roof. And that's
another one of the factors about the

people find hard to take.

If you like your dramas to be measured
and you're a

fan of the acting of John Gielgud, this
movie is going to drive you...

Fucking batshit because people are at a
kabuki level of intensity immediately,

and they just go to take it from there
He

said to me when I interviewed him a few
years ago

And I asked him about this the what's
commonly called the hysterical quality

the acting in his films he said When
people criticise my films for hysteria,

just shows me what's missing in their
lives, because anyone can whisper.

Go and shriek. It's very hard.

Meaning, you know, people can't let go.

You know, it's very hard for people to
kind of really give vent to, you know,

primal, extreme emotions.

And that's what this film is dealing
with, and that's where the film takes

Perhaps the people who find it
unrealistic...

I've never been to those kinds of
places, but, you know, it's certainly

It doesn't strike me as dishonest or
untruthful. It strikes me very truthful,

fact, as a film.

You are not different from anyone else.

We are all the same.

This is, I believe, the only video
nasty, so to speak, where one of the

Best Actress at Cannes.

There are times when you watch her face
in possession and you can barely keep up

with the movement of emotion, the kind
of mercurial quality of her performance.

You know, you could literally freeze
frame every few seconds and catch a

different demon, if you like, a
different kind of presence kind of

through her face just in the course of
like one short scene.

Brilliant performance.

Isabella Gianni won.

the award in 1981 for Best Actress,
gives you some idea of the difference in

reception in continental Europe for this
film and in this country, where it was

regarded as, you know, a bunch of
melodramatic, shrieking nonsense,

When you read the reviews, the
contemporary reviews, no -one was taking

seriously at all.

Which drove me fucking crazy, because I
saw it and loved it and couldn't

understand why it was getting these
terrible reviews.

What is it?

Another really prominent, famous name in
the credits is Carlo Rambaldi, who

designed the monster effects, and I
believe it was around the same time or

before he did E .T., because I think it
was late 80, early 81 when he was

designing the Possession monster, and he
must have been working on E .T. by the

end of 1981.

So he probably went straight from the
one to the other, so there's an

interesting comparison as well.

It's an incredibly complex film, and it
was made by very committed and talented

craftsmen and artists.

And I'm very pleased to say that over
the years, whereas I used to feel a bit

like you were screaming in the
wilderness if you tried to claim that

good movie in this country, finally, I
think gradually, people have started to

realise that it is actually a special
film. There's something quite unique

it, and it's...

credibility and its reputation have
increased in this country now, so that's

good.

As to why this was ever banned in the
first place, well, it is, again, another

one of those mysteries. You just have to
surmise that somebody somewhere watched

it, was offended by something, and wrote
a letter down to the police station

with it. Oh, God knows what, I don't
really know how these people work.

These people!

Complainers. How do they do it?

How do you complain about a video?
Nasty. You write to your MP, I suppose.

Yeah.

Oh, Mark.

Your wife keeps her own secrets.

Make her talk to me. It'll be the way
that she wants.

Tell me.

Well, I think what you want to do to
Bob... Inhuman.

So what you're doing must be human.

you can hate me as much as you like but
it's you who wants to know things for me

so please make it possible

You've hardened.

For the first time, you look vulgar to
me.

You are not different from anyone else.
We are all the

same. But in different words.

Different bodies.

Different versions.

Like insects.

Me?

What is it?

This is Pranks, a 1981 slasher movie,
officially directed by Geoffrey Obrow,

probably co -directed by Stephen
Carpenter.

They were around in the 80s and made a
trickle of other, slightly more

mainstream horror pictures.

The Power was one, The Kindred, and more
recently Legend of the Mummy. This is

one of those things that's completely
mystifying, why this of all slasher

ended on the Video Nasties list.

Looking at the box, I just... expect it
was this image here because there was a

feeling that immutable violence was bad
so the baseball bat with the spikes in

which is the main murder weapon may well
have been thought to be the kind of

thing that football hooligans could use
if they found out what a baseball bat

was the film itself is very mild as
slasher pictures go it has one idea

kids love to play tricks certain tricks
are called pranks like a lot of really

annoying genre movies that have nothing
else going for it. There's one tiny

moment of creativity that makes you
think, well, why didn't they make the

about that? Because it's really good.
And that is that almost all student

slasher movies include a character who
is basically, he's usually called the

asshole or the dickhead. He's the guy
who plays the stupid practical jokes

get you those fake shocks in the first
20 minutes before the real murders.

start so he's the guy who puts on the
scary mask and jumps out just to spook

friends and so later when the murders
start there's a sort of an excuse for

people not reacting as they would this
isn't funny anymore

pranks but In pranks, this character
actually turns out to

be the killer.

So he escalates from playing harmless
pranks to playing serious pranks. When

kidding stops.

And you think, well, that's great,
there's a real character arc there,

an idea for a movie there, but it's just
completely thrown away.

The killer turns out to be the last
character who's left walking around

everyone else has died. There's no real
thought that's gone into it. It was also

re -released as The Dorm That Dripped
Blood.

The end credits call it...

blood dorm or death dorm, so it has
multiple incarnations. It's the dorm

dripped blood when it's referred to in
the long list of campus flashes in

2 by Randy the Film Nerd, which may well
be its lone shot at film immortality.

I watched it again for the first time in
30 years the other week, and I've

already forgotten most of it, just as
its details had dimmed from my one time

viewing in the 80s. to my one -time
viewing last week.

I doubt if this is anybody's favourite
film.

Kids love to play tricks.

Certain tricks are called pranks.

P R A

N

The phone's dead.

K.

A great S.

You've got to trust me.

Pranks is this year's most terrifying
motion picture.

You're all alone?

I mean, is anybody else helping you out?

Yes, there's a group of us here.

Did you hear anything up on the roof?

Do you think we need to go up there?

Need to and we don't need to do anything

When the kidding stops, the killing
starts.

Pranks. It's a killer.

Prisoner of the Cannibal God.

Oh, hey, Prisoner of the Cannibal God. I
think in America it was... Slave of the

Cannibal God, and in Italy, Mountain of
the Cannibal God. In their language,

Rarami means Mountain of the Cannibal
God.

All of which was the same movie directed
by Sergio Martino.

Now, it's interesting, by the time
Martino made this movie, which was 78,

central features of what we know as that
short -lived but controversial cycle,

the Italian cannibal film, were well
established.

So we're thinking of elements like...

panoramic viewpoints of this hostile
third world environment, an ill -fated

expedition by colonial explorers that
often reveal moral or morally ambiguous

motives, scenes of real life animal
slaughter, a variety of homemade booby

used to repel colonial invaders, and a
distinction of friendly and barbaric

tribes. All of these features were well
established and I think Martino

certainly draws on them in Prisoner of
the Cannibal God. The island is covered

by a very dense jungle which surrounds
and protects the sacred mountain of

Rarami. Sacred because the natives
believe that the mountain is cursed.

I think it's interesting to note that
Martino's earlier directorial debut was

the documentary Mondo Sex and for many,
many critics the so -called Mondo or

sensational documentary film of the 60s
is the clear...

precursor to the Italian cannibal film,
mainly because it fused fact and fiction

alongside animal atrocity. And I think
that Martino is clearly drawing on these

traits in Prisoner of the Cannibal God.

As well as directing an earlier Mondo
movie, it's interesting to note that

Martino's company, Dania Film, actually
produced not only Prisoner of the

Cannibal God, but also that most extreme
of Italian cannibal films, Umberto

Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox.

So clearly he had an interest in the
genre, but it's interesting to note how

unlike other cannibal films, Prisoner of
the Cannibal God is.

Let's remember that Martino's main
career in the 1970s was producing

jello thrillers, which were often
defined by their troubled male

black male and family plots, as well as
very glossy camera work. And I think he

brings this element of swishness, if you
like, to the cannibal genre.

When you're watching Prisoner of the
Cannibal God, you feel that it's more

an adventure movie than a kind of down
-and -dirty cannibal film, although it

claims to have a kind of real estate.
This is clearly due to casting.

I mean, it has supposedly big stars in
it, or relatively big stars in it, such

as Ursula Andress and Stacey Keach. And
most of the movies...

He's given over to plot and character
development. It's actually quite

-lite in the way that it deals with
third -world savagery. The cannibals

really appear in the final moments of
the film to distribute justice to kind

greedy Westerners who are trying to kind
of poach uranium mines in this kind of

non -Western environment.

Your husband knew that Raoul Armé
possessed resources that could bring him

wealth beyond imagination.

All of this so -called Euro -glossiness
was clearly lost on the British censor,

who fixated on the scenes of quite
distressing animal cruelty that the film

dwells on. And that's the reason it fell
foul as a video nasty during the 1980s.

And it has to be said, there are some
very, very distressing scenes in the

movie.

scenes of a crocodile and a turtle kind
of doing battle, and also an eagle and a

python, which clearly have been put in
just to maximise entertainment value.

So it is distressing. Also what was cut
in the British release was a fairly

energetic and quite racy cannibal orgy
at the end of the movie, which was added

to maximise a kind of grindhouse appeal.

One of the more shocking things I have
to say alongside these scenes is just

seeing kind of supposedly big budget
stars appearing in what is essentially

a gratuitous exploitation movie.

And I have to say hats off to Ursula
Andress in particular who really does

of give a fairly energetic performance
as the wife of a lost explorer.

She has to go through various...

tortures and trials to appease Martino's
kind of creative edge.

Not only does she have to get smothered
in the jelly -like remains of her

husband, but she's also smothered in
what appears to be honey for a ritual

ceremony, as well as having to eat the
remains of her cannibalised brother.

So I think what is more shocking about
this movie is just it's one of those

examples where Euro -chic and Euro
-trash meet.

You don't forget the taste of human
flesh!

The other interesting thing about
Prisoner of the Cannibal God is we

it with Streatham -based indie company
Hacutian, but they actually sub

it from the then -small company
Entertainment, who subsequently have

great movies like the Lord of the Rings
trilogy. So from small exploitation

titles, great big budgets clearly
evolve.

I don't know if Henry's still alive.

But until I'm certain that he's dead,
I'll keep on looking for him.

Even if I have to do it alone.

I think the only person who could help
you is Professor Edward Foster.

This is the Marabata jungle.

It's the area where they say Henry
disappeared.

Five miles offshore is the island of
Roca. The island is covered by a very

jungle which surrounds and protects the
sacred mountain of Rarami.

Sacred because the natives believe that
the mountain is cursed.

Animal crap.

She was attacked by a native.

She'll be all right.

He was a member of a tribe called the
Puka.

Why is everybody so scared of the Puka?

They were the ancient inhabitants of
Rarami.

In their language, Rarami means mountain
of the cannibal god.

Burning up. It was crazy to let him
come.

If he insisted on coming along, it means
he has his own very good reason.

That's right. I have mine, you have
yours. Just as Henry had his.

What's yours?

You want the truth?

Your husband knew that round army
possessed resources that could bring him

wealth beyond imagination.

We will reach our reach.

We don't forget the taste of human
flesh.

Those cannibals forced you to partake in
their rituals.

Yes, it was horrible.

This is Uli Lommel's Boogie Man 2.

Remember the original Boogie Man?

Well, he's back, more terrifying than
ever, in revenge of the Boogie Man.

This film is very much something that
uses the first film in order to extend

and pad it out, so one can only imagine
it didn't cost very much. However, this

is a kind of example of a lovely self
-referential post -structural, if you

like. in that it is a film that uses its
former film as part of its footage, but

it is also a film about making a film.
And so there are some quite interesting

examples of a film being aware of its
own conditions of possibility and of the

structure of its own creation.

And that comes about very well because
Lommel manages to integrate the

supernatural with the actual
supernatural nature of making a film

Under the Hollywood sky, a filmmaker's
dream becomes a nightmare.

And the story concerns an evil mirror
that comes from a childhood trauma

incident very much reminiscent of
Halloween.

And this piece of mirror becomes like a
fetish or totem object.

And then she finds herself in Hollywood,
of all places, as the friend of someone

who happens to be an actress and who is
married to a director.

And the majority of the action in the
film happens at a Hollywood pool party.

Each of the guests represents a
different kind of stereotype of the

industry person. So you have the...

You have the bimbo and you have the
sleazy producer and so forth and so on.

as this woman relegates the story of
what has happened to her, which was in

first film, but of course, which is
being negotiated as an actuality, we get

different interpretations. Some people
say, oh, it's a metaphor for something

that happened to you or it's a resonance
with a story of my life or something

like that. So the whole nature of
reality and of the difference between

film, the fictive, the facts and those
kinds of things becomes a key, an

in this film and then the supernatural
events of course begin to take place

more and I think that the reason they
can is because the people at the party

longer understand the discrepancies and
the differences between what is actual

and what is virtual what is supernatural
and what is natural and most

importantly what is real and what is
constructed and so as the murders happen

Nobody actually understands that murders
are happening because they don't

understand the reality of the situation.

And I think for that reason, even though
the film in many ways is a traditional

slasher movie, it is also a very
interesting lamentation and

contemplation of Hollywood's breakdown
of reality and fantasy and of the co

-opting of the experiences of people by
other people to make money, to make art

and to make film itself.

Once released, no one can halt the
relentless revenge of the bogeyman.

The film was co -directed by Bruce Starr
and of course this adds to the whole

idea of the self -referential Hollywood
because the name Starr with two R's

is...

incredibly constructed and Uli Lommel
appears in the film as an actor as well

being the writer and co -director of the
film. The film was only banned for 10

months however Boogeyman 1 was banned
for an extensive period.

One can not really imagine why Boogeyman
1 was banned because it seems not

necessarily particularly gory it was
pretty much a halloween ripoff and i

that one could suggest that boogeyman 2
was only banned because its parents film

was banned and so

the censors obviously thought that any
subsequent bogeymen that were spawned

from the original bogeyman were going to
be equally as offensive.

And this also becomes quite ironic
because there is no bogeyman in the

kept waiting for a bogeyman, and indeed
you will keep waiting for a bogeyman,

and the bogeyman actually is revealed as
a little shard of a mirror.

Remember the original bogeyman? Well,
he's back, more terrifying than ever, in

revenge of the bogeyman.

A spirit of evil captured forever in the
glass of a mirror.

Under the Hollywood sky, a filmmaker's
dream becomes a nightmare.

At least no one can halt the relentless
revenge of the bogeyman.

The Slayer is actually quite a good
little stalk and slash movie.

It's set on a remote island off the
coast of Georgia where a bunch of

for a weekend break.

One of them, the star of the movie, is
played by Sarah Kendall and she's...

has recurring nightmares about a
character called the slayer who appears

dreams it's only a man horrifying
nightmare or is it well

in this respect the film can be seen as
having parallels with nightmare on elm

street and even invasion of the body
snatchers because our heroine tries so

to stay awake because she knows that
when she falls asleep this character

the slayer will appear and do horrible
things to her friends which she judy

and if it's only a nightmare

why is everybody dead there are some
very good gore effects in this which is

probably why it was seized upon by the
the dpp one of the best is a fisherman

gets bashed over the head and his scalp
lands in a bait bucket and another

sequence involves one of the best
pitchfork murders we've seen where a

stabbed in the back and it exits the
prongs exit through her breast

Writer -director J .S. Cardone has gone
on in recent years to rather blot his

copybook with tired remakes of the
classic horror movies The Stepfather and

Night. But in all respects, The Slayer
is a much slicker package than you'd

expect from most films on the nasties
list.

What you're about to see may shock you.

It may frighten you more than you've
ever been frightened before.

Don't worry.

It's only a maddening, horrifying
nightmare.

Or is it?

What are you gonna do?

Fire some flares.

Did you give her the pills like I told
you?

No.

Maybe it's not a nightmare after all.

There's nothing.

Are they really alone?

Or is there an unwelcome guest?

Is this a nightmare?

Or is it the fear people have when
they're alone in the dark?

And if it's only a nightmare, why is
everybody dead?

Prepare yourself, because you will never
want to be alone again.

Prepare yourself for The Slayer.

Okay, Terrorize.

There's a pun in that. It's quite funny.

I mean, it's one of the wittiest things
about it. Although, oddly enough, it was

made as Night School, which is a
completely nothing title.

It got theatrical release in Britain.

When darkness descends on the city,
something happens to the girls who

Night School.

It was directed by...

Ken Hughes, a good solid British
professional who made Chitty Chitty Bang

In fact, I think the child catcher from
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang probably

traumatized more people than the
motorcycle helmet wearing slasher of

Terrorize.

Which is, on one level, completely
ordinary. It's a really plodding police

movie. But it has actually a genuinely
demented

It's this ritual murder to do with
chopping people's heads off and dumping

in water.

So it's the old head in a fish tank
trick played over and over and over

It was the...

Film debut of Rachel Ward, who, and I'm
giving it away, plays the killer.

Although the very voluptuous Rachel Ward
does not look at all like the flat

-chested biker leather character who
does most of the killing.

I remember being astonished. I actually
remembered Rachel Ward from this film.

One, because even with the terrible 80s
haircut, she's astonishingly beautiful.

But also, she is astonishingly dreadful
in this film. And yet, within a year or

two, she was in Dead Men Don't Wear
Plaid and Thorn Birds and Sharky's

It was actually giving good
performances. At some point, she either

act, or on this film, she deliberately
just didn't do anything.

Otherwise...

There is literally nothing going on
here.

I mean, it's a head in a fish tank film.
What more can you say?

It was rather heavily cut when they
pushed it out again as a certificated

version, but not particularly for gore.
There was a sort of slight craze for

being upset by scenes in which women
were menaced by people with knives.

And so they cut a lot of shots of knives
out.

I think this may well have had something
to do with the Yorkshire Ripper and

sort of the feeling that we were getting
a bit heavy about just merely being

threatening in films.

And I admit that is the sort of thing
that upsets some people, but probably

the kind of people who are going to rent
out a movie with this cover called

Terror Eyes.

There's a sequence in it which is almost
shot for shot, the walking through the

park scene from Cat People.

And it's just not many other video
nasties bothered with scenes like that,

suspense sequences.

But that's because Kenneth Hughes was
trying to make a proper horror film. He

had a rubbish idea, and it was a stupid
script.

But it has at least some sequences that
try and be suspenseful.

Prepare for a lesson in terror.

It's odd to me that this landed on the
list and Eyes of a Stranger, which is

exactly the same kind of movie and in
fact is slightly more uncomfortable to

watch, didn't. So again, luck of the
draw, terrorized, lost.

Ken Hughes, didn't work again.

When darkness descends on the city,

something happens.

To the girls who attend night school.

You're not walking home alone tonight,
are you? After what happened?

We'll be all right.

Something secret.

Modern man has only to take a short step
to wind up in the primeval jungle of

his ancestors.

Something forbidding.

We've had a few kooks in Boston in our
time, but headhunters are too many.

Something terrifying.

Who's there?

a lesson in terror.

Night school.

The Toolbox Murders was actually
released at UK cinemas and also made the

under the name of the Toolbox Murders
for some strange reason which has never

been explained.

Anyway, I figured that, well, you had
Driller Killer and Toolbox, you know,

people might be getting tools out and
drilling people and hammering people and

goodness knows what. They're all victims
of the Toolbox Murders.

What the hell are you doing?

The film itself is a very basic...

sort of stalk and slash type thing with
Cameron Mitchell, a very prolific

western star of the 50s, starring as
this caretaker in an apartment building

goes around murdering his tenants.

The most famous scene probably is the
scene where Kelly Nichols, a well -known

porn star of the time, gets murdered by
a nail gun.

The film also features, in a small role,
Anita Curso, who was one of the stars

of the Steve McQueen film The Blob back
in the 50s, a much milder kind of horror

movie. But The Toolbox Murders, as DIY
horror films go, is quite fun.

The Toolbox Murders was actually remade
in 2003 by director Toby Hooper, of

course, who made Texas Chainsaw Massacre
and The Fun House and Eaten Alive.

It's actually not as good a film as this
one, though.

This man is about to commit the most
atrocious crimes in American history.

Linda Githens, age 22.

Valerie Hoffman, age 24.

Mary Ann Stevens, age 21. These women
have one thing in common.

They are all victims.

of the Toolbox Murders.

Who the hell are you?

On July 23rd, 1977, a hooded killer
terrorized a small suburb of Los

California.

His identity was unknown, but he
committed a series of crimes so fiendish

it shocked the entire country.

He struck with no warning.

He preyed on innocent young women. In
his hands, simple tools became the

instruments of death.

Victims died screaming, but for the ones
still alive, the worst was yet to come.

The Toolbox Murders, a true story.

When you stop screaming, you'll start
talking about it.

Unhinged. What's really odd when you
look back at all the movies that became

notorious video nasties is just the wide
range of differing titles that ended up

on the banned list.

Alongside kind of Italian cannibal
splatter or zombie movies, there are

kind of oddities from American Indian
grindhouse cinema.

And Don Gronquist's Unhinged is one of
those movies.

It began as an idyllic weekend outing.

But something went wrong.

I guess it's fair to say that had it not
been tarred with the video nasty label,

Gronkwest's movie may have just
disappeared. It was a very low -budget

indie production.

The violence in it actually is quite
restrained. There's three specific acts

violence, with an axe and with a scythe
being key examples here. So there's

something about this movie that... The
censor and the authorities found

disturbing. At one level, it begins on
traditional slasher territory.

Three female co -eds are off to a rock
concert when they're involved in a car

crash. And when they awake, they're in a
wonderful Gothic mansion headed up by

two dotty matriarchs, a wayward daughter
and her wheelchair -bound mother.

Stranded, alone, or are they?

I think the girls quickly realise that
something is badly awry in this

when the mother on nightly occasions
repeatedly vents her anger against all

mankind and accuses her own daughter of
being a prostitute who channels male

visitors in and out the house without
her own blessing.

So the girls decide to make an escape as
quickly as possible and all three meet

pretty nasty fates in their endeavours.

I think it's possibly the downbeat tone
rather than the violence that made

Unhinged a candidate for video
nastiedom.

It shares some of the traditional
slasher traits but departs in new

in other respects.

The slasher movie usually has a final
girl or a lone female survivor who

to overthrow the male aggressor that
populates these narratives.

But what Unhinged has is just three
potential female victims.

There's almost a kind of savage glee
with which it picks each of these three

heroines off.

There's also a fantastic gender twist at
the end of the movie, which I think

accounts for some of the disquiet that
the censor had.

Unhinged. The nightmare has begun.

But overall, Unhinged is a sleeper
slasher, and it just points to the wide

of differing movies that became bound up
the whole video nasty phenomenon of the

1980s.

It began as an idyllic weekend outing.

But something went wrong.

Stranded, alone, or are they?

Man, something really weird is going on
around here.

That's weird

Visiting Hours is an effective Canadian
horror thriller in which Michael

Ironside from David Cronenberg's
Scanners plays a convincing woman

psycho on the loose.

After a failed attempt at silencing a
female TV presenter, played by Academy

Award winner Lee Grant, he tracks her
down to her hospital bed, attempting to

carry on where he left off, dispatching
all those who get in his way.

A young nurse played by Linda Pearl,
Ashley Pfister from the TV series Happy

Days, catches a glimpse of him and
becomes another one of his targets.

William Shatner also pops up as a TV
producer and he must have literally

in for the day to do his scenes in
between filming Star Trek II, The Wrath

Khan. It's nowhere near as grim as many
of the other Nazis, and one can only

assume it was momentarily banned due to
its scenes of violence against women,

most of whom happen to be bedridden.
Although there are also plenty of

against men scenes too.

It does have a few unsettling moments,
though. Although the UK video release

contained a pre -cut theatrical version
in which a woman has a knife

suggestively run across her body was cut
out, during the late 80s, London ITV

accidentally broadcast the uncut
version, which led to numerous

shocked viewers.

Director Jean -Claude Lord went on to
direct the 1986 actioner The Vindicator

and continues to work in the Canadian TV
business.

What you're about to see is the rare UK
TV spot.

And by the way, the shots where the
lights are gradually switched off to

skull doesn't appear in the film as this
was done specially for the advertising

campaign. And as you'll also see, it
played as a double bill with John

Carpenter's Escape from New York.

In this hospital, your next visit may be
your last.

All visitors, please leave the hospital.

Visiting hours so frightening you may
never recover.

Together with Escape from New York.

In the West End now and across London
from Sunday.

The witch who came from the sea.

What can I say about this film? It's a
strange coalescence of art house...

of exploitation, of trippiness and of
simply indescribable point. I have no

the reason why this film was made but
I'm glad it was made. Its main star is a

woman called Millie Perkins who plays
Molly.

Millie Perkins appeared in the 1959
Diary of Anne Frank which was nominated

11 Oscars and it won three Oscars and so
I think her appearance in this is

particularly interesting because she is
also playing another kind of victim

however like anne frank she's a
resourceful victim who is she she's a

come out of the sea she's not a witch
she's beautiful

The film has a lot of quite intense
scenes.

Also the video cover uses the words
incest and castration which immediately

bring out warning bells.

The scene of castration however we don't
see in depth but the way that we find

out that Millie has become a killer of
men is...

flashback scene right at the end where
her very large very hairy very brutal

father is on top of her and it's
possibly one of the most explicit incest

I have ever seen however I wouldn't say
that it was exploitative it simply seems

to be quite harrowing without being
titillating which is something that the

said they presumed that scenes of
violence and sex were often titillating

they should be harrowing The film has
pretensions to arthouse.

It's got incredibly strange music.

And it also has a series of characters
that

are a sort of unification of Fatbinder
characters

meets John Waters characters and they
come from this little town by the sea.

The characters all associate around a
bar where some of them are bartenders

some of them are people who drink in the
bar, one of which is a very famous film

star. And the women in the film are very
strong and particularly Millie Perkins'

character, Molly, is incredibly strong
and not simply in that kind of psychotic

female castrator rape revenge way.

She simply seems to have...

celebrated her psychosis so much that
she has internalized it and everyone

around her kind of enjoys it she's also
um heavily tattooed in one scene which

is quite fascinating i think because she
then tries to tear off the tattoo or

she claims to but actually we find out
later that all the blood is not from her

the film does represent a certain kind
of

imaginary because it has pretensions to
art in that the sound is very

experimental, the camera work is
experimental in terms of the fact that

opening scene where Millie ties two
footballers in a weird kind of

situation to the bed and then she
becomes a kind of masculine figure and

all very slow and one kind of wonders
whether the video is tearing a little

or something like that so perhaps
watching it on DVD is a different

because we know that there's nothing
wrong with the actual tape.

Don't you shame me, you hot,

sweet little bitch.

The main actress in the film, Millie
Perkins, was married to the film's

director, Matt Simba, and she was also
the matron of honour at the wedding of

Jack Nicholson.

I find The Witch Who Came From The Sea
an enigmatic film because, of course, it

insinuates by its title that it's going
to be a supernatural film, and as it was

a video nasty, it also suggests that
it's going to be a very gory film, or at

the very least, it's going to be a
horror film. However, this film, I

to be too trite, is a social commentary
created in a very artistic way of a

woman whose violence comes not from a
need for revenge, but from a certain

of moral and...

cerebral ambiguity and one finds that as
a spectator there is a beautiful sense

of ambiguity in the way we watch. I
mean, certain perverse scenes like her

nephews feeding her pills and booze and
also the analysis of Botticelli's Birth

of Venus as an integral part of the film
really does show that this film will

take you by surprise and I recommend it
simply because of its perverse delights.

Turn on your television set.

Find out what's happening in the real
world.

See it in black and white.

God made all of us perfect. Truly, he
did.

How close do you want to be to the woman
in your life? I don't know if it's true

or not unless it's on television.

Why was Grandpa lost at sea?

I don't know.

Because he was perfect.

Too good to live on land.

Who is she?

She's a witch come out of the sea.

She's not a witch.

She's beautiful.

Every time you turn around, you see him.

What a name.

Women Behind Bars. This is another Jeff
Franco film.

Not one of his best.

It's one of the sad facts that virtually
none of the really great Jeff Franco

movies were available on British Video
around that time.

We got a bit of a dog's dinner, really,
of some of the bottom feeders on his

filmography, things like Oasis of the
Zombies and things like that, which are

not terribly good.

But anyway, Women Behind Bars.

Interesting story about this. It's not a
great Franco film, but the interesting

story about this is that it was made as
a classic example of Franco using the

money that he'd been given to make one
film to make another film for someone

else behind the back of the guy who'd
given him the money. So I think it was

Erwin Dietrich, the producer who ran a
company called Elite Films.

Dietrich gave Franco the money to make a
film which eventually came out in the

US as Barbed Wire Dolls. That's probably
the most famous title.

Hit video in this country, I believe, in
a terribly cut -down version, which

never bothered the video nasty list, is
Caged Women, missing about 20 minutes or

something like that. So it's no wonder
it never got on the list. There's

virtually nothing left of it. Having
completed the film for Dietrich, he then

used the remainder of the money which
he'd kept aside, made a second film,

is Women Behind Bars, and sold that film
to a different distributor.

obviously having sort of like two bites
of the cake from Dietrich's money.

Dietrich knew nothing of this until a
couple of years later when he was in a

cinema and was watching some of the
footage and thinking, is this my film?

It looks awfully familiar because the
cast were from the same film. He'd used

the same cast members, he'd used a
couple of the same sort of story ideas.

They're both women in prison films.

Dietrich, though, was quite
philosophical about it ultimately and

least he gave me the good one.

And he's right.

Women Behind Bars is not a highlight on
Franco's filmography.

The story as it stands, though, is kind
of odd,

because when you hear this story, you
imagine that basically Franco had shot

women in prison movies on the same sets
at almost the same time, the same cast,

and that they would look probably almost
identical. In actual fact, they don't.

Women Behind Bars is a rather tangled
plot about diamond smuggling.

And it takes about 40 minutes before
they actually hit the women in prison

material. And that only lasts for about
30 minutes, and then you've got about

another 10 minutes of stuff at the end.
So he did take the trouble to concoct a

different story. It's not just, you
know, changing the label, but keeping

everything the same.

They are two quite different films.

It's a women -in -prison film where the
prison appears to be, as far as I can

tell, a kind of sports leisure centre,
it looks like.

There's a point where the girls are, you
know, they're having their prison

dinner, and you look out of the window
past them and you can see tennis courts.

They have tennis courts in, like...

barbaric women's prisons. I wasn't aware
of this, but certainly they seem to

hear. And I think there's a drinks
vending machine visible in one shot as

So, you know, Franco has this amazing
knack of not giving a rat's

ass about plausibility.

He will quite happily convene a women in
prison story in a sports leisure centre

where... Sort of like the girls press
themselves up against the high -security

fence, which is just a chain -link fence
overlooking an average car park.

As if a high -security prison has just
dropped into the centre of town with a

mesh fence between them and the outside
world. He just doesn't care.

He's just not concerned with, you know,
is it plausible, is it implausible?

Just like, you know, this is the show. I
don't care.

I really don't care.

You've got that kind of cavalier
disregard for believability that puts

different world. I mean, if you accept
it, if you resist that, then all you're

going to do is just find it annoying.

But if you go with it, you think, well,
this is like a different spin on the

real world. It's like a parallel world.
He's creating his own rules.

And that takes you into a different
place. And it's fascinating to watch a

where, you know, simple things... are
suddenly unfamiliar again, you know,

he's ignored a basic tenet of filmmaking
and just come up with something so odd

that you could never find it anywhere
else. You'd only find it in the films of

Jess Franco.

It's a puzzle, really, quite what it was
that, you know, pulled on anyone's

chain as regards to the content of the
film. It's not one of the more explicit

films on the list.

It does have...

Perhaps I'm just jaded. Perhaps I should
remind myself that it does actually

have a scene of naked flagellation of a
struggling, screaming woman.

So I don't know if that's the kind of
thing that upsets people. Perhaps, I

know.

There it is, yeah, sort of flagellation,
if that's the reason. It's the only

thing I can think of if we're dealing
with content that could possibly have

upset anybody.

And even then, it's not anywhere near as
bad as certain of the Franco films, for

a start.

It's quite possible, of course, as well,
that it's nothing more complicated than

this, which is just the cover.

Naked girls, bars, chains, metal
collars, you know, sort of like

violence against women, you know,
titillation. That's possibly as far as

went. Somebody just looked at the cover
and thought, that looks disgusting,

dodgy and thoroughly reprehensible,
let's yank it in.

Yeah, so they may never have even
watched the film, which is a shame. They

missed at least one treat that they
didn't, because the opening music, at

very least, is worth seeing the film
for.

About five minutes into the film, when
you get to the credits sequence, if

you've seen the film, you know what I
mean. It takes a while to get to the

credits, but there's a shot that lasts
for about three minutes of a train

pulling into a railway station, and you
see it in the distance, and it snakes

round and eventually arrives in shot
down at the front.

The camera doesn't move at all, it just
watches.

But the fan track's going completely
bananas. It's like a sort of a theme for

piano and, you know, Hammond organ.

Or the Arpsalina, actually, I think is
the keyboard. But never mind.

Mainly for piano. It sounds like Richard
Clayderman's just had his first line of

Coke. And, you know, either that or he's
got to finish recording this piece

before he...

flies off somewhere and he's in a hurry
because it's it's kind of a piece of

kind of a tacky sort of lounge music but
played at breakneck speed you know uh

utterly insane piece of music all the
more insane because it's over an image

that's so static you know there's no
actually it doesn't tie in at all so um

i love it i love that moment that's the
best part of the film because it's over

five minutes in but there you go

A violent, current film.

Stop! Surley, get in the car.

As for you, Colonel de Bries, go back to
your fucking prison.

Welcome to this prison, miss.

Come on.

No, you stay here.

Come on, come on.

Good luck, my old woman. You're going to
tell me where the diamonds are hidden

and at what speed.

If I don't believe you, then go.

I don't know anything.

I'll bring you closer to memory.

I don't know anything.

Punishment cells.

Life in a women's prison.

Disputes between prisoners lead to
repression.

Torture.

In fear of sadistic or violent
punishment, the prisoners give in to the

desire of the director of the prison.

So, do you decide to spit it out?

Huh?

Lina Romay and Ronald Weiss are the
protagonists of this true, violent

Where is Laura?

She's at the director's.

It's her day.

Lord, bless our meal. Once again, we
thank you for giving us our daily bread.

Amen. Amen.

Give me that paper.

Give it to me right now, or you'll
regret it.

Guard, take her to a cell of punishment.

Roger D 'Arton and Martine Stedile will
make you live the story of a cell of

punishment.

C 'est une odeur sensationnelle. Je te
veux.

Tu l 'as dit ça à toutes?

Salut, monsieur.

or kill the plant that is the diamond.

This is Bruno Matai's Zombie Creeping
Flesh, also known as Hell of the Living

Dead. This film had a cinema release but
was then released with massive cuts and

eventually became a video nasty.

And it's an extraordinary montage. It's
a Frankenstein of a monster because

Bruno Matai has managed to sew together
a variety of uncredited music and

stock footage and...

It is simply a film that brings together
a lot of different genres that were

very popular in the Italian exploitation
field, and yet I think it's quite a

fun little film. You need to hit their
head! I told you! See? Like this!

It begins with the stereotype, kind of
George Romero -esque idea of

contamination.

creating zombies but then it becomes
quite confused and it can't really

out whether the zombies are going to be
the kind of hoodoo zombies or they're

going to be contamination science
zombies.

And so they are brought together because
the film is set in Papua New Guinea.

The whole village is contaminated.

There have been many deaths.

Now they're celebrating the funeral.

One thing I didn't know because there
are a lot of

stock footage images used of animals in
the same way that they would be found in

films like Cannibal Holocaust and
Cannibal Ferox, is that there are

Papua New Guinea, or perhaps there were
in the 80s, because I'm pretty sure that

there are no elephants in Papua New
Guinea now. The film reminds me a little

of certain films such as Dr Butcher MD,
in that there are lovely images of

native... encrusted zombies emerging
from the jungle and also these wonderful

bunkers that almost look like SS bunkers
that have been destroyed or that

people have fled from.

There's an undertone of a kind of
anthropological, ethnocentric

commentary on the suffering of third
world people as a result of their...

superstitious understandings of death
and burial and so there are certain

elements that are quite complex and also
quite engaging.

One can only imagine how Bruno Madhai
found these or where this commentary

from.

And so for many reasons this film is
also, as well as being a zombie film and

kind of Indio cannibal film, it is very
much a kind of Mondo film. Much of the

footage is stock footage from Mondo
films, but I think that Mattia has

to really bring together those three
very famous genres of Italian

and create something that is unique even
though it is cannibalized from other

images and from other music, primarily
the music of Goblin. However, Mattia

hasn't simply

a goblin soundtrack, he's put together a
kind of greatest hits of goblin in the

film. So in one section, in the opening
scene and the closing scenes, for

example, you get the goblin music from
Zombie. And then in the middle, you get

some music from Buyo Omega.

Indeed, you get the ballad from Buyo
Omega, which is quite fascinating. So

suddenly, instead of seeing a
necrophiliac lovingly preserve his dead

girlfriend, you get some...

Papua New Guineans walking out of the
forest about to eat the face of some

blonde -looking people.

There's a couple of interesting zombies.
There's a very, very small child, and

I'm quite impressed with this child's
acting because he can't be more than

or five.

And there's also a very, very old lady
zombie.

These kind of points in the film are
amusing and they're... Quite delightful,

really. And there's also some serious
gore, such as, of course, the

stereotypes of people randomly
pretending to eat and gnaw on bones and

But also the idea of a little child
zombifying the father and mother, while,

course, it was used in earlier films, is
particularly visceral in this example.

There is some eye gouging, there's some
corrosion.

And I think that...

If one wanted to introduce oneself to
all of the greatest hit elements of

various Italian exploitation in relation
to cannibals and zombies, Mattia has

done a lovely job.

The whole village is contaminated.

There have been many deaths.

Now they're celebrating the funeral.

Bodies have to be cremated.

Thank God I knew what's happening here.

I insist that the most serious situation
we have to deal with is cremating the

bodies.

Cut it out! Stop wasting your damn
bullets, you jerks! You need to hit

head! I told you! Say it like this!

Get away!

Look out!

What's wrong, huh?

You disappointed?

Sorry, boys, I'm not on the menu after
all.

Don't let it worry you. I think you will
all meet again.

In hell!

Who's over there? What happened? I heard
some funny noises in the back there.

Hurry.

Riga, check the coordinates.

Experimental project Operation Sweet
Death must be considered a complete

failure. All these high -powered
installations.

Like a fact. from a future world.

Safely hidden.

You're all doomed to a horrible death.

Doomed to be eaten up.

First they'll kill you.