Written by: Jonny T
Posted by: Root Rot
My Short Tale of the Great UK Video Nasties Era by Jonny T
It was during the late 80′s/early 90′s that it all really kicked off in the UK. We have a board of censors in the UK B.B.F.C, and the head of this used to be a guy called “James Ferman” he’s dead now, oh well.
This man single hand idly helped turn the UK video market into something akin to Stalinist Russia’s police state as far as the video collectors such as me were concerned. A few examples I remember were things like, if blood was shown to be on a woman’s breast in any film that was seen as a rape trigger. The home VHS artwork for “Enter the Dragon” had Bruce Lee’s nun-chuck’s replaced by him holding a long stick and the classic scene entirely cut from the film. The Exorcist was never banned, but pulled from the shelves by Warner themselves, but I did manage to see it as the guy at our local video store use to do under the counter stuff, so that way I did get to see it. He also used to save me all the horror posters, and to this day I still even have my “Day of the Dead” huge standee. If he ever got caught though he would have been looking at a hefty fine, and possibly even a jail term. God bless him where ever he is now days. The most extreme case I heard of was when some unfortunate chap was arrested and locked up for selling a copy o f “Guinea pig” at a film fair as police were told and believed that this was a genuine “Snuff” movie. He was detained in police custody for 3 days until they could produce evidence of the films authenticity as regards actors/directors, as this was the days before the internet, and took a while. Luckily to say the guy got released, and no charges were ever brought against him. This brings me on to a story of my own battle (I’ve had many) against the BBFC and uncertified videos.
It started one night around 10.30pm when I got a phone call from my friends mother saying that the police had been to his house, arrested him, and taken his entire video collection (around 300 tapes, including BBFC certified ones). 4 police officers and 1 detective turned up, handcuffed him, put him in a van, and took him down to the station.
The reason she had rang me was back in those days before e-mail/internet etc., we all used to have like a little notebook in which we would keep addresses and phone numbers of people all over the UK and Europe we used to trade tapes with and they had also taken his book. Oh I forgot to mention they also took all the Fangoria’s and Gore Zone magazines as well. Within this book was my address, panic stations!!
This resulted in me at around 11PM loading up a van with all my tapes, magazines, and most importantly my address book and taking them around to my mothers house. She wasn’t best pleased to see me at that time of night especially with about 20 box’s of VHS tapes and magazines, but I was safe from any raids if it happened.
The following day they released my friend without charge pending inquiries, and they kept his tapes. I met up with him for a drink and he basically said that’s it I’m not collecting anymore, which was sad because he used to get some great stuff, but that was probably a little selfishness on my part!
He did eventually get all his tapes back some 6 weeks later and never charged. Bizarrely they even returned the banned stuff, and his copies. They were all returned by the police in bread crates. Now he as I did and probably most of you did, used to keep them in mint condition. Any stickers on the box’s were carefully wiped off with nail varnish remover (ah those were the days!!). But sad to say when they were returned most of the box’s were battered and squashed, which was really annoying as titles such as “Zombie flesh eaters” uncut UK release used to set you back around £50. Some had been watched half way through some not rewound (that used to annoy the hell out of me). So basically I think, they must have had some jolly good nights viewing to the old police station. I never heard a thing from the police, but refused to stop collecting just because of them and subsequently went and got my stuff back to my mums relief.
I don’t see my friend that much these days but did see him at a comic fair in Nottingham recently where a guy sells DVDs of everything not out in the UK and I asked him is he still collecting and he said no, just rents films now. Which again is a shame.
Me and another friend started up a regular stall about 3 years later at films fairs across the UK selling imported Something Weird Videos, all was going great we were making some cash (spending more than we made though on the day). Then the police and the BBFC started another massive wave of raids on film fairs,and on us. But that story I’ll save until next time,
Jonny T http://jonnyscultfilms.blogspot.com/
Related Witch’s Hat links
TWH discussion board at Killer Reviews
Question or comments
The Witch’s Hat Voice Mail 313 444 2611
thewitchshatblog@gmail.com
Great tale. I remember those days. I used to be into trading import horror movies and bootleg concerts. Believe it or not, the bootleg videos are actually fine, but I used to always hear stories about people’s houses being raided (even in the States). Turns out that it looks like that was all false for bootleg videos.
Okay, my story is nowhere near as interesting, but I just wanted to say great work.
Thanks man,it was indeed crazy times,I’ll be doing a follow up soon about more raids at the film fairs I used to do.