Just How Nasty Were the Video Nasties? Identifying Contributors of the Video Nasty Moral Panic

Home , Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit on Your Grave, Mary Whitehouse, Nazi exploitation, Tim Sainsbury, Video nasty

Stephen Gerard Doheny

Just how nasty were the video nasties? Identifying contributors of the video nasty moral panic

in the 1980s

DIPLOMA THESIS

submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Magister der Philosophie

Programme: Teacher Training Programme Subject: English Subject: Geography and Economics

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt

Evaluator Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jörg Helbig, M.A. Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Klagenfurt, May 2019

Affidavit

I hereby declare in lieu of an oath that

- the submitted academic paper is entirely my own work and that no auxiliary materials have been used other than those indicated, - I have fully disclosed all assistance received from third parties during the process of writing the thesis, including any significant advice from supervisors, - any contents taken from the works of third parties or my own works that have been included either literally or in spirit have been appropriately marked and the respective source of the information has been clearly identified with precise bibliographical references (e.g. in footnotes), - to date, I have not submitted this paper to an examining authority either in Austria or abroad and that - when passing on copies of the academic thesis (e.g. in bound, printed or digital form), I will ensure that each copy is fully consistent with the submitted digital version.

I understand that the digital version of the academic thesis submitted will be used for the purpose of conducting a plagiarism assessment.

I am aware that a declaration contrary to the facts will have legal consequences.

Stephen G. Doheny “m.p.” Köttmannsdorf: 1st May 2019

Dedication I I would like to dedicate this work to my wife and children, for their support and understanding over the last six years. I would like to extend special thanks to Professor Jörg Helbig for allowing me to pursue my research interests, and for evaluating this work. I would also like to thank the professors and tutors from the faculties of English, Geography and the School of Education for guiding me through my teacher training studies.

Table of Contents:

Affidavit / Dedication ii

List of Abbreviations iv

1) Introduction………………………………………………………………………….…...…1

What is a video nasty? ...... ………...….. …1

2) The video nasty as moral panic: a theoretical approach ...... …..2

3) British Censorship: Historical repitition ...... …..6

3.1 The troubled birth of cinema…..…………………………………....………………..8

3.2 Lady Chatterley’s Lover ………………..…………………………………………..10

3.3 The same rules don’t apply …………………………………....………………18

4) Video Violence and Children Report 1983...... …..21

5) Marketing the video nasties ...... …..31

5.1 SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) Synopsis …………………………………………..33

5.2 CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) Synopsis …………………………………………..34

5.3 Go Video & Des Dolan ……………………………………………………………..35

5.4 The stunt that started it all………………………...……………………..………….41

5.5 The media gets nasty ……………………………………………………………..43

6) Mary Whitehouse ...... …..44

7) Video cover artwork: The AIDA rental experience ...... …..52

8) I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) Case study & Defense……………………………………..67

8.1 Synopsis ……………………………………..…..…………………………..………... 67

8.2 History …..………………………………………………………………….….. 70 8.3 Reception ...... ….. 73 8.4 Analysis ...... ….. 75 8.5 No means No!: Destroying the myths of male sexual violence ...... ….. 77 8.6 Headless women ...... ….. 78

8.7 Accusing THE ACCUSED (1988) ...... ….. 82

8.8 North, not South: DELIVERANCE (1972) ...... ….. 84

8.9 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE as Anti-cinema ...... ….. 84 8.10 Remakes and Sequels ...... ….. 87 9) Conclusion ...... ….. 90

Bibliography ...... 91

iii

List of Abbreviations

AIDA Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (marketing model)

ASA Advertising Standards Authority

BBFC British Board of Film Classification (after 1984)

BVA British Video Association

CARE Christian Action Research Education

DPP Director of Public Prosecutions

GLC Greater London Council

MP Member of Parliament

NVALA National Viewer’s and Listener’s Association

OPA Obscene Publications Act 1959

PGVE Parliamentary Group Video Enquiry

TRU Television Research Unit

VCR Video Cassette Recorder

VRA Video Recordings Act

1. Introduction

Home video came onto the market in the late 1970s, and quickly became very popular. It was treated with the same disdain and abhorrence as literature, cinema and comics when they were first made widely available to working class audiences. The Video Recordings Act of 1984 demanded all video content be submitted to the BBFC for classification and censorship. Those who did not comply faced hefty fines and or custodial sentences. The VRA was the result of the video nasty moral panic, a panic that was nurtured by moralists and amplified by tabloid newspapers. This paper focuses its attention on the chain of events and contributors that manufactured the video nasty moral panic. It also examines historical panics in attempting to identify recurring themes and investigate why moral panics are quite common in Britain. After first defining the term video nasty, Chapter 2 considers moral panics from a theoretical perspective and identifies the video nasty era as a moral panic. Chapter 3 examines historical panics and censorship, and identifies the notion of class, and its role in moral panic production. Chapter 4 presents the people and events that contributed to the release of the Video Violence and Children report in 1983; the document that paved the way for censorship legislation to pass through the House of Commons uncontested. Chapter 5 examines how the video nasties were marketed and chronicles the exploits of Des Dolan of Go Video and the stunt that started it all. Chapter 6 is devoted to Mary Whitehouse, who was a powerhouse of British moralism in the 1970s and 80s. She campaigned relentlessly to see distributors prosecuted and video nasty titles banned. Chapter 7 applies the AIDA model of marketing to the video rental experience, which analyses the video cover artwork used to promote the video nasties, artwork that moralists found so abhorrent and depraved. Chapter 8 presents a detailed analysis and defense of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978), perhaps the most notorious of all the video nasties. The analysis shows that some of the nasties were misunderstood and unfairly treated by critics when compared with more polished Hollywood releases. I begin by defining the term video nasty.

What is a video nasty?

I shall adopt the definition of a video nasty as defined in 2010 by Phelim O’Neill. The definition appeared in the Guardian newspaper and suggests that

“In a nutshell, [a video nasty] was most likely to be a low-budget horror film, produced in the US or Italy, that exploited the lack of a rigorous regulatory system for how rental video cassettes were circulated in the UK… They were everywhere,

and the most popular (thanks to some incredibly lurid and wonderfully provocative cover artwork), and conspicuous were the horror films” (O'Neill 2010).

Describing the home entertainment market in 1980 O’Neill continues,

“The home video market had just exploded, almost everyone, in the space of a few years, had a video recorder in their home and as far as retailers and distributors were concerned, it was frontier territory. There was no censorship, classification or regulation. Videos could be bought or rented from almost anywhere: newsagents, garages, even butchers and barbers” (Ibid).

Video recorders went on sale in Britain in 1978 (Walker 2017, 631), and video content remained unregulated until the passing of the VRA six years later (Walker 2017, 630). Cinema releases were obliged to be submitted to the BBFC for censoring and classification, but no such requirements were in place to police video content (Ibid). This allowed distributors to release uncut versions of films that had previously been heavily edited or even rejected by the censors. It also meant that a wave of violent sexploitation and horror films that had not previously been submitted to the (BBFC) could be rented from video rental stores up and down the UK. 72 of these titles were listed by the DPP for obscenity and would become the infamous video nasties.

2. The Video Nasty era as moral panic: A theoretical approach.

This section applies a theoretical approach to the phenomenon of the video nasty scare of the early 1980s and identifies it as a moral panic. Indeed, this entire paper works towards identifying the major contributors and their motivations. This section also serves as a brief chronology of the events that led to the enactment of the VRA in 1984. The interaction and communication between moralists, public servants and the press fueled a panic seen nowhere else in Western Europe in the early days of home video entertainment. In his paper “Are We Insane?” The “Video Nasty” Moral Panic (2012), Julian Petley ponders as to why Britain was the only EU country (except for Éire) to introduce “wholesale state censorship” on the medium of home video (Petley 2012, 35). Petley attempts to answer the question by presenting the notion of a moral panic, and suggests that events prior to the enactment of the VRA

“need to be understood as a process of communication involving a defiance- defining elite of politicians, moral entrepreneurs and censorious newspapers, a process from which the public itself was largely absent” (Petley 2012, 35).

Petley adopts Stanley Cohen’s (2002) definition of moral panic as a framework to support his own thesis, that the video nasty scare in the early 1980s was the product of an orchestrated and connected chain of events. He identifies examples of the features that Cohen proposes in his definition. It shows that the British print media was a significant contributor to the video nasty panic and the legislation that was passed to combat its alleged attack on British morality. In the third revised edition of his 1972 seminal work Folk Devils and Moral Panics (2012), Stanley Cohen offers the following description of a moral panic.

“Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible. Sometimes the object of the panic is quite novel and at other times it is something which has been in existence long enough, but suddenly appears in the limelight. Sometimes the panic passes over and is forgotten, except in folk-lore and collective memory; at other times it has more serious and long- lasting repercussions and might produce such changes in legal and social policy or even in the way society conceives itself” (Cohen 2002, 1).

Petley (2012), proceeds to show how events in the early 1980s follow the path mapped out in Cohen’s lengthy description. The “threat to societal values and interests” during the panic was uncensored home video, which grew rapidly in popularity from the end of the 1970s (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 7). Video also posed a threat to TV and cinema, as the British box office sold 15 million fewer tickets in 1981 than it had in 1980. Moral guardians like the police and customs officers had for decades fought to keep the violent and gory imagery available on home video out of Britain (Petley 2012, 37).

The next ingredient in Cohen’s recipe for moral panic is the mass media. The Advertising Standards Authority received complaints about how video nasties were being promoted as early as 1981 and the tabloid newspaper the Mail ran a story on the 12th May 1982 titled The Secret Video Show, which informed the British public that

“children, well used to video recorders in school, are catching on to the fact that their parents’ machine can give them the opportunity to watch the worst excesses of cinema sex and violence” (Petley 2012, 38).

The British tabloids were fervent in their campaign to stir public opinion and its calls “for statutory control of the new medium” (Ibid), while the more liberal papers were strangely silent in denouncing censorship or in their defense of home video as a form

3 of entertainment. The same article also provided the perfect platform for people who were as Cohen describes, “manning the barricades”. A concerned teacher felt that “video the gives children access to something that the parents may not be able to control” (Ibid). The Sunday Times published a piece by Peter Chippendale titled How High Street Horror is Invading the Home on the 23rd of May (Martin 2007,14). This was the first time that the term “video nasty” appeared in print. In his article Chippendale warned an unsuspecting British public that the graphic horror found in video nasties was

“far removed from the suspense of the traditional horror film, dwelling on murder, multiple rape, butchery, sado-masochism, mutilation of women, cannibalism and Nazi atrocities” (McKenna 2016, 121).

Petley identifies Cohen’s “stylized and stereotypical fashion” in the way that specific video nasty titles such as SNUFF (1976) and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) are described in article” as “horrifyingly convincing” (Petley 2012, 39). Less than a week later, the Express newspaper printed a story titled “This Poison Being Peddled as Home ‘Entertainment’”. The article follows Chippendale’s lead, and Petley also claims that it also introduces the next ingredient; the “socially accredited experts”, in the form of the BBFC. The full-page article informed its readers that Board were looking into the possibility of introducing certifications for video releases (Ibid).

Petley locates Cohen’s “ways of coping” through the suggestion in the article that video rental stores should adhere to the same control as sex shops, meaning that they would have to be granted a license from local councils. The Obscene Publication’s Squad’s way of dealing with the video nasty attack was to seize a copy of SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) and send it to the DPP in a combined effort to bring prosecution charges against the film’s distributors under provisions of the Obscene Publications Act (Petley 2012, 39-40). Prosecutions were successful, but only under section 3 of the OPA which meant that those found guilty received hefty fines. The police had hoped that the DPP would evoke section 2 of the act, meaning that successful prosecutions would lead to lengthy prison sentences (Petley 2012, 57). Someone else manning the barricades was “moral entrepreneur” Mary Whitehouse. She became a regular feature in tabloid articles and openly called for the firing of the DPP because of his initial tepid response to the threat of the video nasties. With ever more articles appearing in the papers, the DPP reconsidered, and decided that the films could be prosecuted under section 2, leading to nationwide seizures and prosecution proceedings. These decisions and events are identified by Petley as the “extension of the law”, as laid out in Cohen’s

4 roadmap to moral panic. Petley also opines that by prosecuting the films under Section 2 of the OPA, after originally prosecuting distributors under Section 3 demonstrates the factor of “escalation” that Cohen lists in his definition. Such escalation needs to be justified, and this was achieved in the same way that Cohen had observed during the Mods and Rockers clashes in the 1960s. The press escalated the panic through its rhetoric of exaggeration and continuous negative depiction of subcultures (Cohen 2002, 67).

Taking the public’s voice.

Petley contends that the position taken by the press; that they represented the opinions and concerns of the public was never validated through research. Indeed, the findings of some surveys that were conducted at the time of the panic would seem to indicate that the views and demands made by journalists did not reflect public opinion. 92% of those questioned in a MORI poll in 1983 admitted that “they had never been offended by the contents of a pre-recorded video cassette”, while a later poll in early 1984 unearthed that 65% of respondents “were opposed to the government deciding which videos were available for home viewing” (Petley 2002, 53). The British press laid claim to knowing and representing the mood, opinions and fears of the public during the video nasty era, a coup that Hall et al. (1978) equates to “taking the public voice”. Assuming such a position then allowed the press to further its own agenda under the guise of mirroring public sentiment (Hall et al. 1978, 63). The opinions presented by the press jolted politicians into action and adopt such opinions as their own (Petley 2012 ,54). Politically driven events do not always require public support, as was proven by events in 1983 and the uninhibited passing of the Video Recordings Bill through the British House of Commons. The bill had been proposed by an unknown backbench MP by the name of Graham Bright. The British public did not call to be heard or that their demands be met, like the press or evangelical moralists. The public, as Ericson et al. (1987) suggests, did not belong to Cohen’s “deviance-defining elite”, and could only follow events as they were reported in the media (Ericson et al 1987, 351). The British public and its opinions were not given any true agency during the panic, and even they had, there was no real paths of discourse or forums for debate. The TV debates that pitted defenders of the video nasties and anti-censorship sensitivities like Martin Barker against moral opportunists like Mary Whitehouse or Malcolm Muggeridge only served to give the media savvy moralists a platform to bash and accuse their articulate opponents of being evil and depraved. The VRA completes Cohen’s checklist as it exemplifies a “changes in legal policy”. 5

Based on Cohen’s definition and Petley’s observations, one could argue that the legislation that was introduced to censor home video in 1984 was the result of a moral panic, which was realized through the combined efforts of moralists, the media and politicians. The following chapter will identify and examine historical examples of the same phenomena. This will unearth aspects of British society and culture.

3. British censorship: Historical repetition

This chapter charts notable and relevant examples of mass entertainment media censorship in Britain through the ages. In doing so, I hope to expose recurring themes and opinions that can help to explain the reactions of British politicians and moralists during the video nasty panic of the 1980s. The examples will illustrate how the class system that has existed in Britain for many hundreds of years has nurtured a belief that those in positions of wealth and power are the right people to oversee and dictate how the lower and poorer classes entertained and distracted themselves. It will also show how moral panics have been used on numerous occasions in Britain to further conservative interests.

There have been numerous occasions throughout British history where the so-called establishment have sought to censor and control the paths of access and consumption of entertainment to uneducated and working-class people. The wealthy and powerful felt that these social groups would be depraved or corrupted from exposure to content of a sexual, violent or rebellious nature, while they would remain immune. The specific demographics most traditionally cited as those most under threat have been women and the young. Politicians and wealthy influencers have repeatedly positioned themselves as pillars of morality and have censored how and even if the working classes have entertained themselves. As Enid Wistrich (1978) writes

“The desire to control the entertainment of the young, the poor, and those thought to be socially inferior (including women) has been persistently strong over the centuries” (Wistrich 1978, 9).

In the 1690s, the founders and members of the Societies for the Reformation of Manners were concerned with the increase of lewd and disorderly behaviour as well as profanity among the young and poor people of London. They sought to stem the trend by bringing offenders before magistrates on the charge of breaking the Sabbath laws (Roberts 1983, 160). The notion of executive government was still unpopular in England at the time, as most Englishmen viewed such systems of government as

6 tyrannical. This led to establishment of small and Independent policing groups and evangelical societies who took it upon themselves to police the poor and impressionable (Ibid). A later example of such an independent policing force is the Proclamation Society which was founded by William Wilberforce. Wilberforce, who a popular politician at the time, managed to convince King George III to issue a Royal Proclamation in 1787 which carried the title of For the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue, and for the Preventing and Punishing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality. The proclamation called for the suppression of all

“loose and licentious prints, books, and publications, dispersing poison to the minds of the young and unwary and to punish the publishers and vendors thereof”.

With the King’s blessing, Wilberforce and other society members went about enacting the royal decree. The society was deeply concerned with the way in which the “lower classes” were neglecting and disrespecting the Sabbath. Sundays were the only days that most working-class people did not have to work, and many partook in leisure activities and behaviour that was unacceptable to evangelicals. Charges were brought against people on the grounds of disrespecting the Lord’s day (Ibid).

The 1780s witnessed the birth and immediate popularity of a new form of entertainment, the Sunday newspaper. Wilberforce and his evangelical followers were opposed to such publications being made available on the Sabbath and sought to control the content. They were fearful that immoral content would corrupt a population that was slowly becoming more literate. One way in which the society hoped to curtail the dissemination of ideas was to prosecute the publisher of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason (1794), under the conditions of the Royal Proclamation. The legal proceedings were intended to act as a warning to anyone who felt inspired by Paine’s arguments. The book that was addressed to the proletariat of Britain questioned and attacked the notion of institutionalized Christianity (Roberts 1983, 161). These moral groups and societies had no legal authority to destroy books and were also met with varying forms of resistance from entrepreneurs who were making money supplying content to emerging markets, like female and younger readers.

From the beginning of the 19th century, The Society for the Suppression of Vice also sought to rid British society of vice and to

“check the spread of open vice and immorality, and more especially to preserve the minds of the young from contamination by exposure to the corrupting influence of impure and licentious books, prints, and other publications” (Roberts 1983, 160).

It claimed the existence of “a truth too evident to be denied ... that vice has of late advanced upon us with almost unexampled rapidity” (Ibid). The society was founded by William Wilberforce and other evangelical leaders in 1802 (Roberts 1983, 159). Wilberforce successfully initiated over 620 prosecution proceedings in the first year of the society’s existence. Most of the prosecutions included charges brought against younger people and actions that ignored or contravened Sabbath laws. The list of vile behaviour included bathing while naked, the possession of obscene pictures, frequenting or performing as a fair entertainer and dancing (Thompson 1968, 442). The society continued to grow in membership over the next couple of years and boasted a membership of over 1,200 concerned and influential members by the end of 1804 (Roberts 1983, 163).

3.1 The troubled birth of cinema

The birth of cinema in the United States induced reactions and events that were remarkably similar to those of the video nasty era and the birth of home video entertainment. Evangelicals for the medium to be heavily censored and even banned. The accessibility of cinema to the lower classes, and the location of consumption was also of concern to moralists (Lewis 2008, 24).

Some of the earliest motion pictures caused members of the wealthy white protestant class serious worry, including Thomas Edison’s DOROLITA’S PASSION DANCE (1894). Numerous complaints and consistent pressure finally led to the film’s withdrawal from public exhibition in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a popular entertainment destination among the working class at the turn of the 20th century. The main cause for the concern was the potential influence of questionable film content on simple and uneducated folk. It was feared that any depictions of crime might lead to mimicry, and that any violent or erotic content might corrupt or debase the weak-minded and poor.

Cinema was from its earliest days very popular with the lower classes, as it offered an escape from the drudgery of hard work and everyday life. Film producers and exhibitors were keen to tap into this potentially huge market. The growth and popularity of cinema relied on its continued appeal to the proletariat, which included many thousands of immigrants who flocked to marvel at and experience the technological wonder of cinema (Lewis 2008, 25). Going to the movies was not expensive and the cinema was the natural successor to the music halls and cabarets, as people were free to express their emotions with boisterous laughter and sobbing tears. This was a stark contrast to the decorum and etiquette expected in opera halls and at dinner parties. Many newly 8 arrived immigrants were not able to speak English, and numerous others were illiterate. This, however, but this was not an issue, as the storytelling and acting styles in early cinema were easy to follow and understand, making cinema accessible.

As recorded by the increase in video recorder ownership and video rental market in Britain from the late 1970s (Walker 2017, 631), it was also the speed at which the recreational activity of cinema was becoming so popular and widespread with audiences that drove fear into the hearts of politicians and the wealthy elite. Another similarity between the would-be censors of the 1890s and the real censors in the 1980s was in the way they feared that the stylized depiction of crime, violence, and passion in films was forging subliminal connections between “commercial leisure and antisocial behaviour” (Ibid). They felt that the exposure of violent and lurid content in relaxed surroundings would encourage spectators to emulate and repeat the behaviour they were exposed to on-screen. The controversy that erupted over Edison’s THE KISS (1896) is worth mentioning, as the protests and disdain it garnered from moralists only served to make the film even more popular with audiences, eager to see what all the fuss was about. Some called for the film, and indeed cinema itself to be banned, prolonging the film’s run for well over a year. This introduced exhibitors to the notion that protests and panic, if properly channeled, might serve to successfully market films to wider audiences and increase box office returns. This tactic was employed by video distributors in the 1980s, as much time was spent creating gory and horrifying video covers to be displayed on rental shelves.

Moralists were also very concerned in how and where the medium of cinema was being consumed, particularly among the poor and working class. They were worried by what Lewis calls the “theatrical-film experience”. (Lewis 2008, 25). Cinemas were public spaces, yet these darkened arenas afforded people the opportunity and anonymity to express their emotions communally as a group laughing loudly at physical comedy, or more intimately in pairs. Taking a date to the cinema became popular among teenagers and single adults, as it provided an intimate and somehow private environment, which facilitated amorous activities. Such romantic maneuvers could be triggered by erotic imagery on the movie screen (Ibid). This fear was mirrored during the video nasty panic in the 1980s, as the location of consumption became central to the video nasty scare, only now the location was the living room. Moralists were scared not only that children may have access to such lurid material, but that the home would provide an impenetrable environment that could not be controlled or monitored by the state.

The Well of Loneliness 1928

Women were seen to be in great danger of becoming sexually depraved in 1928 when copies of The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall were destroyed by magistrates after the book had been successfully prosecuted. The book had already received several damming reviews from noted critics, including one in the Sunday Express by the self- proclaimed purist James Douglas which carried the title “A Book That Must be Suppressed”. Shortly thereafter, Hall and her work were dragged before the magistrate on grounds of obscenity (Seekford 2016). This mirrors what happened to video distributors in the 1980s after the British tabloid media’s constant berating. Headlines called for video nasties to be banned, leading politicians to take note and align themselves with campaigners and moralists in ridding Britain of what they considered to be potentially corruptive content.

Literature in the 1930s was strictly monitored throughout the 1930s, and the censorship of references of a sexual nature “was pervasive” (Ibid). Lawmakers and censors quickly played down the news when an ornately bound edition of James Joyce’s sexually riddled masterpiece Ulysses was discovered among the papers of a Lord Chancellor, while trustees were bringing his estate in order (Ibid). This illustrates the consistent opinion held by the elite; that it is necessary that they view potentially corrupting content to judge upon it, yet there is no fear that they might be affected by it because of their education and class. It is only the working classes and the poor that must be protected from depraved content.

Fig. 1: Douglas’ column calling for The Well of Loneliness to be banned. (19th Aug. 1928).1

3.2 Lady Chatterley’s lover

Literature was again the battlefield in 1960 during the Lady Chatterley trial. Robertson (2010) opines that the Lady Chatterley trial was the

“first symbolic moral battle between the humanitarian force of English liberalism and the dead hand of those described by George Orwell as ‘the stripped-treasured ones who rule’” (Robertson 2010).

In 1959, owing to the vigorous efforts of campaigners such as the Society of Authors, the British Parliament passed an updated version of the original Obscene Publications Act of 1857, with included a preamble that promised to "to provide for the protection of literature and to strengthen the law concerning pornography". This protection and promise was obviously lost on Reginald Manningham-Buller, who was the attorney general in 1960. Having read the opening chapters of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Manningham-Buller wrote to the DPP urging the director to prosecute Penguin Books for printing the work. In his letter he included the sentence "I hope you get a conviction" (Robertson 2010).

The prosecution’s files were made public years later, and they revealed that the main reason why the publisher was being prosecuted was because of the price of the book. Penguin had decided to charge 3 shillings and six pence for an unexpurgated copy of the book. The same amount would have bought a box of 10 cigarettes at the time, meaning that working class women, keen to see what all the commotion was about could afford their own copy. Politicians and the wealthy upper classes were ardent in their resolve to keep such pornographic filth off British bookshelves. Renting a video was also not expensive in the 1980s. Titles could be rented for between £2 to £4 per night (Petley 2011, 18), making them affordable to the working class, single women, the unemployed, and most worryingly for moral guardians, children.

Before the Lady Chatterley case, publishers had been vulnerable, and publishing books that were deemed to have a "tendency to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences" could result in custodial sentences for publishers. Robertson describes how

“Literary standards were set at what was deemed acceptable reading for 14-year-old schoolgirls – whether or not they could, or would want to, read it” (Robertson 2010).

Britons had to travel to Amsterdam or Paris up to the end of the 1950s if they wanted to acquire unexpurgated copies of books by internationally renowned authors such as Cyril Connolly or Henry Miller, while the sexually enlightening Kinsey Report was seized by British police before it could be gorged upon by easily impressionable women and feebly minded young men (Robertson 2010).

Fig. 2: Unexpurgated 1960 edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover costing 3’6.2

The crown was not intending to hold back during the Lady Chatterley case, and prosecutors were so arrogant as to ask the all-male jury if they would be happy if their young children, wives or even their servants were to read the book (Wistrich 1978, 9). The exact wording used by the crown’s barristers was

“You may think that one of the best ways you can test this book….is to ask yourself the question…would you approve of your young sons, young daughters – because girls can read as well as boys – reading this book. Is it a book that you wish your wife or your servants to read?” (Rolph 1961, 17).

This question is a product of its age, and in British society’s perception of young women. It also exhibits once again the infatuation of a ruling establishment in its concern for the moral well-being of the nation’s youth and female contingent. It also exposes concerns in relation to the working classes gaining access to Lawrence’s infamous book. The ruling classes were yet again completely convinced that the young, female and servile class would not be able to process and consume the sexually explicit content that Lawrence had penned.

The British prosecutors ignored signs that opinions were changing in their stubborn attempt to keep the book out of Britain. A year before the British trial, an appeals court in New York had overturned a ban on Lawrence’s book with the explanation that the book was a work of literary merit and had been written with "a power and tenderness which was compelling" which also justified the authors decision to include profanity in describing sexual acts. The prosecution was sure that the inclusion of such for letter words would tilt the case in their favour. They were sure that a jury made up of 12 God- fearing, middle-class men would disapprove of such depraved and lurid passages. To observe transparency, the prosecution requested that a clerk from the DPP should comb the book and note all examples of swear words. Having acquired the list, the 12 prosecution read it aloud for all to hear during its opening arguments. The prosecuting barrister noted that

“The word 'fuck' or 'fucking' appears no less than 30 times . . . 'cunt' 14 times; 'balls' 13 times; 'shit' and 'arse' six times apiece; 'cock' four times; 'piss' three times, and so on.” (Robertson 2010).

Considering the unshakeable evidence that the prosecution was only too willing to present to the jury, one might wonder how the defendants were finally acquitted. The new Obscene Publications Act (1959) retained its sensitivity in relation to a book’s "tendency to deprave and corrupt” but the updated act called for literary works to be judged “taken as a whole”. Books were no longer to be judged on isolated words or even lengthy passages. Juries were also to consider the likely audience that a book might attract, and not the 14-year old girls who had been the industry standard up to that point. The new act also included a section that provided that even if a book was deemed by a jury to have corruptive potential, it could still acquit if it believed that the work "is justified in the interests of science, literature, art and learning or any other object of general concern". In a lame attempt to explain how the prosecution had lost the case attorney general Manningham-Buller claimed that lead prosecutor Mervyn Griffith-Jones had not wanted to sink to the level of the defence and exchange "bishop for bishop and don for don", but this was far from the truth. The Crown’s prosecutors had combed British literary circles but couldn’t find anyone willing to testify and support the cause to see the book banned, while writers were lining up for the defence such as Helen Gardner from Oxford University, who informed the court that in her humble opinion “the book was the work of a writer of genius and complete integrity” (Robertson 2010).

As with the video nasties and other case brought against literary or dramatic works, it was affluent and middle-class lawmakers who were debating over the value and merit of artistic works, not artists or experts in literary criticism. These white men had controlled how the working class could entertain themselves for centuries and were not about to let go of such power. The establishment were not interested in the talent and craft that Lawrence had woven into the pages of his book, they were merely concerned with the harmful potential of the book to British social order. Robertson is adamant that Griffith-Jones’ question to the male members of the jury about how they would feel if their wives or savants were to read the book was posed “rhetorically and with utter sincerity” (Robertson 2010). The British middle and upper classes were not

13 about to stand by as a book that was easily available to working class women spread the notion of romantic and sexual relations between men and women of different class.

Before allowing the jury to retire and consider all the evidence and testimony Justice Byrne, as the custodian of moral virtue urged the members to consider whether the work "portrays the life of an immoral woman". He also asked the jury to consider the meaning of "lawful marriage in a Christian country” and to reflect that "the gamekeeper, incidentally, had a wife also”. The jury deliberated over the book as a whole, and the publisher was acquitted.

The verdict was as Robertson claims a “victory for moral relativism and sexual tolerance, as well as for literary freedom” (Robertson 2010). The trial also backfired in that the media attention and controversy ensured that curious readers would be lining up to get their copy. In the three months after the trial three million paperback copies of the book were sold in Britain. The state’s failed attempt to punish Penguin and ban the book only served to ensure the book’s commercial success, having survived prosecution charges. When the impending ban of certain video nasty titles was rumoured, hordes of horror fans rushed to video stores to find out what was so terrible in the eyes of the state and judge for themselves. The Lady Chatterley verdict came at a time when attitudes were slowly changing in Britain. Sexual expression and experimentation were embraced by artists, writers and filmmakers, and profanity and the vernacular became more common in cinema and even on the BBC. People looking to divorce were no longer obliged to provide proof of adultery. Britain, and particularly London would soon become home to the swinging sixties, where all kinds of experimentation, fashions and entertainment would be on offer to all. Labelled permissive and morally polluted by evangelical organizations such as the Festival of Light, the liberalism, anti-war sentiment and egalitarian beliefs that were widely shared in the 1960s would trigger a reactionary wave of conservativism in the 1970s and 1980s, where the old establishment sought to re-establish moral order and decency.

The OZ trial of 1971

The events surrounding the trial brought against the chief editors of Oz magazine are also worth mentioning as they show that children were yet again the hair that broke the camel’s back, and the trigger for moral panic induced by the British ruling establishment. Originally founded by Richard Neville while studying at university in Australia (Brown 2017), the underground and counterculture publication Oz went on

14 sale in Britain in February 1967. The magazine became notorious after the uproar and trail following the release of the Oz 'School Kids Issue' in 1971 (British Library 2019).

The editors came up with the idea of allowing teenagers to assume editorial responsibility for one of the magazines issues. They wanted to see what interested young people at the start of the 1970s and hoped that the stunt would attract some media attention and new readers. Go Media devised a similar stunt in 1980 when Des

Dolan sent a VHS copy of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) to evangelical campaigner Mary Whitehouse with a fake letter of complaint. The result of that prank kickstarted the video nasty scare and resulted in the passing of the Video Recordings Act in 1984.

Fig. 3: Editors posing with Issue 28, London, 1970.3

In an open invitation where the editors promised that ‘you will enjoy almost complete editorial freedom. Oz belongs to you’, twenty teenagers, all under 18, were given total editorial freedom on issue 28, which was released in May of 1970 (Brown 2017). The content of the issue reflected the views of Britain’s youth and the articles and artwork focused on topics of political hypocrisy, drug use and addiction, sexuality and sexual freedom, employment, music, punishment, and education (British Library 2019).

The issue’s release led to Oz’s London offices being raided by the Obscene Publications Squad. All copies were seized, and the editors were arrested and charged under the provisions of the Obscene Publications Act with obscenity and conspiring to 'debauch and corrupt the morals of young children'. During the longest obscenity trial in British history, the prosecution focused on the cover of the magazine, and a comic strip that had been created by a 15-year old contributor. The cover image was a drawing by Raymond Bertrand, depicting naked lesbian women, which appalled Judge Argyle. The comic strip depicted the much-loved British cartoon icon Rupert the Bear sexually assaulting an old granny. The cartoon had been originally drawn by underground legend Robert Crumb with the head of Rupert the Bear being substituted for the British release (Brown 2017). 15

Fig. 4: The cover of Oz, issue 28.4 Rupert ravages the Gypsy Granny.5

The defendants were not convicted of conspiring to corrupt, but the three were all convicted for having published obscene articles and for having sent obscene articles by British post. Neville, as founder of the magazine was given a 15-month sentence and Judge Michael Argyle believed Neville should be deported back to Australia after serving his sentence. The verdict was met with protests from anti-censorship campaigners and overturned on appeal after it was alleged that Judge Argyle had misled the jury on no fewer than 78 occasions (Brown 2017). The stunt helped circulation of Oz to rise to almost 80,000 copies, a huge number for an underground counterculture magazine in the early 1970s or indeed any time, but this had been achieved at a high cost. Moral crusader Mary Whitehouse was so incensed by Issue 28 of Oz, that she took the unusual step of taking a copy of the School Kids Issue to the Vatican, to discuss the matter with the Pope (Ibid). My research was unable to find and written documentation on the Pope’s opinion of the magazine.

Commenting on the trial in 2017, Geoffrey Marsh, who is the director of the Department of Theatre and Performance at the Victoria & Albert museum claimed that

‘The Oz trial marks the last time that the state threw the full weight of the obscenity laws against an artistic enterprise,’ and that ‘It really marks the end of that era of the Establishment knowing what was best for you.’ (Marsh cited in Brown 2017).

I would argue that Marsh has overlooked the events that surrounded the video nasties panic in the early 80s, where the tabloid media were instrumental in whipping up a moral panic, where police regularly raided and confiscated VHS films, and where the DPP successfully prosecuted film distributors under the provisions of the OPA for simply providing poorly made horror films to the British public, resulting in hefty fines and custodial sentences. The events surrounding the Oz trial illustrate how the British establishment rallied to suppress the freedom of speech and expression among young people. It sought to erase any trace of sexual deviance from the public arena and saw itself as the protector of people who could not be allowed to be exposed to such 16 incendiary content. The jailed editors later claimed that they felt that the trial had been politically motivated and had more to do with the magazines anti-Vietnam stance and opinions relating to psychedelic drug (Brown 2017). As with the video nasty scare, it was the distributors that were targeted and successfully prosecuted.

Theatres Act 1968. “Literacy is not required for comprehension”

Writing in 1978, Enid Wistrich believed that although the medium of film was not socially exclusive, it was still looked down upon by many as an artform in Britain. It was viewed as the poor relative of opera and theatre, artistic mediums with long and colourful histories (Wistrich 1978, 7). As a nation and society, Britain has always been obsessed with class and hierarchy. Wistrich notes that for many middle- and upper- class Britons, theatre, as an artform and experience, needed to be appreciated and studied, while film was cheap fodder, appealing to the working-class masses (Ibid).

Playwrights were aware of the appeal and competitive potential of cinema. Gifted and visionary filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ken Russell and Alfred Hitchcock to name but only a few, had shown by the late 1960s that film could be exploited through image and sound to weave aesthetically beautiful and emotionally jarring narratives that were appreciated by critics and audiences that were slowly becoming more cineliterate. In response, and to the credit and power of film, playwrights began to experiment in all areas of theatre to “confront and involve their audiences by various techniques” (Wistrich 1978, 7).

Theatre was granted a massive reprieve in 1968 with the passing into law of the Theatres Act (1968), which put an end to all prior theatre censorship virtually overnight. The contents of the act led to the redundancy of the Office of the Lord Chamberlain, which had been hitherto charged with the duty of censoring plays and theatrical works since the 16th century. The act coated the theatre with a glaze of immunity, as private persons could no longer bring liable action against a playwright or playhouse on the grounds of obscenity or impropriety (Wistrich 1978, 8). From now on, only the Attorney General could initiate proceedings, and the final decision was placed in the democratic lap of a jury, on whether they believed a theatrical work to have the potential to “deprave or corrupt” (Ibid) The act had been passed Wistrich claims because “theatre had become accepted in establishment circles as a respected artistic medium”.

Peerages and titles were dispensed to theatre actors at the time in Britain with alarming ease and regularity. Producers once considered to be shady and greedy entrepreneurs were the toast of socialite parties. As with all proposed bills, a parliamentary committee 17 was summoned to investigate its plausibility and merit. During its investigations, the committee found that the respected British establishment, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Arts Council had no objections whatsoever to the bill. These institutions believed that owing to the urban location of theaters and the inherent cost patronizing the theatre, most of those attending the theatre were middle class. The theatre could be freed from the shackles of censorship as its audience was refined, adult, and educated. Urbanite theatre goers could be trusted to consume theatrical entertainment and not be corrupted by the images and narratives on stage. (Ibid). The same opinion was not held about the audiences that cinema attracted to its doors. The uneducated masses could should be exposed to overtly sexual or violent content, as they would not be able to digest such content, running the risk of depravity or repetition. Similar worries would be voiced in the corridors of power and influence during the video nasty panic. Cinema, comic books and home video were so popular and easily accessible to working class audiences immediately after their introduction that it led deviance defining voices in British society to call for the mediums to be censored and even banned. Before the Theatres Act, playwrights had often been embroiled in long and heated discussions at the Lord Chamberlain’s Office as to the amount of bad language or naked flesh that could be included in their works (Wistrich 1978, 15). Wistrich recalls that the British stage was not swamped in sex or profanity after the passing of the act (Ibid).

3.3 The same rules do not apply.

Here, I show how unfairly cinema was treated when compared with other art forms such as literature and theatre. Film versions of successful stage musicals and books were regularly ridiculed and banned, which would seem to support the argument of the power of cinema, but also in the way that the elite establishment sought to hinder the growth of an artform that not only threatened the future of culturally robust forms of entertainment such as theatre, but in how the cultured elite looked down upon cinema as inferior and working-class distraction. It also shows that British lawmakers were accustomed to treating entertainment media quite differently by the time of the video nasty panic. After the VRA was enacted in1984, both cinema and video content had to submitted to the BBFC for censoring and classification. The classifications awarded to video content carried “legal force”, making it a criminal offence to supply video titles to people under the age of the film’s classification. There were an estimated 3,400 convictions relating to VRA infringements between 1984 and 2007 (Petley 2012,36).

British dramatist Kenneth Tynan wrote Oh! Calcutta! in 1968, where it debuted on Broadway, and opened in London a year later. The work is a collection of sexually charged comedic sketches and has enjoyed prolific runs and revivals in Britain and in the United States since the 1970s. The play’s popularity stemmed from Tynan’s humorous treatment of sex (Wistrich 1978, 37). The sketches poke fun at the wave of interest and research into sexual behaviour, sexual fantasies and fetishes. Men and women appear nude at various stages throughout the play and as Wistrich notes, “it was one of the few films we saw which put men and women on an equal footing in the sex relationship” (Ibid). I would argue that part of the reason why the film version of the work was banned was not because of the nudity, but because the film promoted the notion that men and women were equal in matters relating to sex. The unusual title was inspired by Clovis Trouville’s painting "Oh Calcutta, Calcutta!", which depicts a nude woman from behind. The title is a pun on the French “oh quel cul t'as" which translates in English to "oh what a lovely arse you have" (see fig.5). Owing to the success of the stage version, producers inevitably decided to release the work as a film.

Not adverse to saving money on production costs, the producers decided to simply record a stage performance for the cinema release. After some minor editing delays, the film version of Oh! Calcutta! was submitted to the BBFC, who subsequently banned the film (BBFC). The stage show was protected from censorship by the Theatres Act, while the film, which was nothing more than a filmed stage performance was deemed to have the potential to corrupt. (Wistrich 1978 10).

The sacrosanct institutions that had welcomed the passing of the Theatres Act in 1968, had done so with the conviction that theatre was consumed by refined and educated urbanite audiences that would not be easily corrupted by risky material. The reality was however, that coachloads of fans from all over the country travelled to see the famously saucy revue, particularly from smaller towns and rural areas. These same fans could not enjoy Oh! Calcutta! on film at their local cinema (Wistrich 1978 10).

Fig. 5: Oh! Calcutta! Calcutta! Clovis Touville (1960).6 Oh! Calcutta! stage cast (1969).7 19

Works of erotic literature also have fared better than their cinematic versions. Anne Desclos’ Story of O (1954), had been condemned by religious moralists for its erotic content, but the book was freely available in Britain in print after opinions and laws had become more relaxed in the 1960s, particularly after the Lady Chatterley verdict in 1960. Fans of the work had to wait for over 20 years for a film adaptation which came out in 1975. The film was immediately banned by the BBFC, although the celluloid version was far tamer than Declos’ novel in its allusions to the sexual act.

Attempts were made to prosecute Linda Lovelace’s book Inside Linda Lovelace (1974) in 1976, under the provisions of the updated Obscene Publications Act (1959), but the charges were dropped as the jury decided that the book, when considered “as a whole work” did not possess the ability to deprave and corrupt (Utley 2002). The film adaptation of the book DEEP THROAT (1972) which would go on to gross over $400 million worldwide (Ibid), was never submitted to the BBFC, as it never made it to British shores. British customs officers prevented the film from entering Britain under their powers to prevent the import of “indecent articles” to Britain (Wistrich 1978, 10). Some copies of the film did manage to make their way into the country and were shown at private screen shows. Charges were brought against a chain of London clubs known to be exhibiting the film, but the all-male jury decided to acquit the club owners (Wistrich 1978, 49).

Up until the mid-1970s, British lawmakers did not consider the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 or the Theatres act of 1968 applicable to film, except for those films exhibited in “private houses” (Wistrich 1978, 18-19). Numerous attempts to prosecute some critically acclaimed films had failed in the early 1970s, including proceeding brought against BLOW UP (1966) and LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972) under the Vagrancy Act and the OPA. From the mid-70s, owing to pressure, cinema was deemed to fall under the remit of the (OPA) “but the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions is required before actions can be taken” (Ibid). This reading of the law would soon have far reaching ramifications for the home video entertainment industry in the early 1980s, with an over ambitious DPP prosecuting numerous video nasties.

Cinematograph and Indecent Display Bill 1973

The Cinematograph and Indecent Display Bill was presented to Parliament in 1973. The bill’s backers sought to bring cinema clubs under the jurisdiction and control of local councils. Cinema clubs were exempt from cinema censorship and this created a 20 loophole where commercially run cinema clubs could function as sex cinemas in Britain. The bill failed to pass. Prostitution and its related establishments and services were tolerated far more by the establishment than permissiveness and promiscuity. Seedy sex cinemas were acceptable while “sexually frank films” or sexual satire intended for general audiences were not (Wistrich 1978, 19). This episode shows that moralists were already looking to affect legal change in their quest to control entertainment media content.

4. Video Violence and Children report

If there is one incident that exemplifies the dogged determination of moralist conservatives in getting legislation passed to facilitate the banning of the video nasties from rental store shelves and British living rooms, it is that of the actions of the Parliamentary Group Video Enquiry (PGVE), and the release of the Video Violence and Children Report in late 1983. Politicians colluded with theologians and other influential members of British society to commit theft and fraud, and presented contrived findings to the media, parliament and British public, which was instrumental in pushing Graham Bright’s Video Recordings Bill through the House of Commons and onto the statute books. Bright’s bill became the Video Recordings Act (1984), requiring all future video material to be submitted to the BBFC for classification and censorship. It was the legislation that enabled the BBFC to place a ban on 39 films, films that would be collectively remembered as the video nasties.

In a 1983 TV interview, while highlighting yet again his abhorrence for gruesome and gory horror films and his intentions to put forward a bill intended to regulate video entertainment, Graham Bright MP uttered the following bewildering statement;

“I believe that research is taking place and it will show that these films not only affect young people, but I believe that they affect dogs as well” (Graham Bright quoted in West 2010, my emphasis).

It is remarkable and highly questionable that the right honorable member for Luton South should have known the outcome of the research months before the findings were released, yet his keen interest in seeking to protect the moral fiber of the British canine population is appreciated. The research Bright was referring to would be released later that year in the form of a rushed and hushed report titled Video Violence and Children (Brown 1984, 69). The timing of the report’s release was hurried to coincide with the committee stage of MP Graham Bright’s private member’s Video Recordings Bill, which sought to censor and outlaw video nasties, scheduled for the

23rd of November 1983 (Brown 1984, 77). The report was published on time, but the data on which the report was based had not been evaluated by the researchers that were originally assigned with the task (Murdock 1984, 58). They had been retroactively dismissed by a hastily appointed Executive the day before the report’s release (Brown 1984, 82).

The enquiry behind the report was comprised of Conservative and Labour MPs, as well as several influential moral activists that collectively called themselves the Parliamentary Group Video Enquiry (PGVE), which was chaired by Lord Nugent and Viscount Ingleby. This impressively titled and entitled ensemble was however, run by the outspoken Christian theologian Dr. Clifford Hill, who was well known in academic circles for his research on race and the church. The panel included octogenarian lords and ladies, including Lady Watherston, head of the Order for Christian Unity, Raymond Johnston, the parliamentary research Director of CARE campaigns, (formerly the Nationwide Festival of Light) and Tim Sainsbury MP, the heir to the Sainsburys Supermarket fortune (ibid). This homogeneous group, with their official sounding title and far reaching influence, had however, no official status or mandate whatsoever (Brown 1984, 86). The group used numerous tricks to give the impression that they were an official entity. MPs and Lords had privy access to parliamentary offices and the self-appointed enquiry held their meetings and press conferences in government buildings which meant that they came with the apparent imprimatur of a parliamentary body.

On the 30th of June 1983, the PGVE commissioned Brian Brown and his research team to conduct empirical research into the effects of video nasties on young people (Brown 1984, 72). The decision was taken after an initial and unofficial meeting between Brown and enquiry members on the 27th of June. The short three-day interim period between his de facto interview and appointment highlight the speed and urgency of the undertaking.

Brown, a Methodist minister, had already been investigating the effects of television on young people and their education at the Television Research Unit (TRU) at Oxford Polytechnic, which qualified him ably for the task. Although hesitant, Brown accepted the commission. He had been reluctant owing to statements that were thrown around by members of the enquiry at the initial meeting on the 27th of June, which was held at the House of Lords. Brown had received an invitation letter, from which he understood he was to represent the Methodist Church at the meeting. The letter of

22 invitation also informed Brown that Dr. Hill “was seeking to gather a group of academics, not enthusiasts, to engage in a serious study of the problem of video nasties and children” Brown 1984, 69). Dr Hill may have originally sought to “engage in serious study” but his later actions and methods would test the meaning of the word engage and cast serious doubt as to the reliability and transparency of the data and its findings.

During the meeting Dr. Hill informed the enquiry that he had called for the meeting in light of conversations he had had with concerned members of the public and senior police officers. The officers had “brought to his attention the problem of the availability of video nasties” and were “pressing for action against these ‘horrific’ ‘dreadful’ videos (Ibid). After Hill’s opening statements, one enquiry member alluded to “an urgent and growing social threat” while another claimed to have access to “police evidence of the damaging effects of video nasties upon children” (Ibid). There were even rumors that a sleazy mafialike underworld controlled the video industry. One contributor opined that “the mass media have pushed the boundaries of acceptability steadily downwards, and successive governments have acquiesced in their activity” (Ibid). This statement sums up the opinions of many moralist campaigners like Mary Whitehouse who believed that television, comics, books and film had dragged British morality into the gutter and turned Britain into a dangerously permissive society. The Conservatives had been swept into power in the seventies and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a good friend of Whitehouse, was looking for a way to appear in control of a Britain that was embroiled in civil unrest (Brown 1984, 78).

The ruling Conservative Party faced a general election in 1983 and were under pressure to control the civil unrest that plagued the nation. Riots on Toxteth and Brixton were physical manifestations of the social and political tension in British society and the Tories sought to position itself as the party that could restore law and order before the upcoming national election.

Fig. 6: Toxteth Riots 1981.8 Michael Heseltine MP pelted with eggs, Croxteth.9

Raymond Johnston came very well prepared to the meeting and presented a paper from which he quoted figures that showed that there had been significant increase in VCR ownership and video rental figures in the UK over the previous 36 months. The home video market had only existed since late 1979, so data that signaled that the burgeoning market was growing was hardly surprising. Johnson stated that

“It is a disturbing fact that children between the ages of 6 to 15 are regularly hiring violent, pornographic and occult horror videos. Serious mental disturbance and behaviour problems have resulted, as many parents and teachers have reported. The police in several cases are deeply concerned” (Brown 1984, 69-70).

Johnson’s mention of “occult” horror videos is noteworthy at this point. My research into the video nasties has revealed that only BLOOD RITES (1967) and EVILSPEAK (1981), two of the 39 titles that made up the final list of successfully prosecuted nasties contain any reference to the occult. However, if you had been reading the tabloid newspapers in Britain in the early 1980s, you would have thought that the nasties were full of occult flavored narratives. Perhaps the most overt example of the allusion to black magic and the occult appeared in The Daily Mail newspaper on August 4th, 1983. The article in question was not one of the numerous front-page headlines that openly claimed the video nasties to be evil and depraved, calling from them to banned. It appeared on page 19, nestled beside a longer article titled “The men who grow rich on bloodlust”, part of the paper’s series titled Ban the Sadist Videos. The article carried the cryptic title “‘Taken over’ by something evil from the TV set” and claimed that a young boy had been possessed by a video nasty (Phelan 2014). The article is symptomatic of the falsehoods and outright lies that the tabloids were spreading about the new batch of horror films circulating in Britain. The image which accompanied Vivien Harding’s article was intentionally positioned between the title of the article and the text to make sure that the eyes of the reader came to rest upon it before they could read the details of the story. It shows a TV screen on altar with burning candles on either side and a videotape perched menacingly to one side. The altar is covered in 24 white cloth and a pentagram adorns a circular carpet on the floor below. In front of the TV screen sits a satanic beast, motionless and transfixed, bathing in the glow of the screen. The message that the image wishes to convey in combination with the article’s heading is clear; Videos are evil and expose viewers to the supernatural and incite them to perform acts of devilry. They take over and transform those who watch them into willing followers of Satan. Placing the article on page 19 is also significant. I believe that the editorial significance of the article appearing on page 19 is that by doing so, the article was peddled as perceived as being factual and serious news, far removed from the hype of the front pages. Appearing right next to an article that claimed to expose how sleazy producers and distributors were feeding off depraved bloodthirsty horror fans, becoming stinking rich in the process, added weight to the shorter article.

Fig. 7: The Daily Mail 4th August 1983. Page 19.10/11

Manifestations of the notion that video nasties were vessels of the occult soon followed in the media, the courts and in the public arena. An article written by John Jackson titled “Pony maniac strikes again”, was published in The Daily Mirror in the autumn of 1983. The article reported on some vicious and senseless equine attacks in the Dartford area (Barker cited in West 2010). The report ended with the sentence

“A police spokesman at Margate said the maniac could be affected by video ‘nasties’ or a new moon”.

Later that year, lawyers defending rapist Mark Austin (nicknamed The Video Nasty Killer by the tabloids) claimed that their client’s mind had been possessed and “twisted by exposure to nasties” which led him “to live out his fantasy”. Meir Zarchi’s rape- revenge movie I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978), was named as the film that compelled 25

Austin to rape (Holmes 2019). The nasties were conveniently being used to explain every evil in society. They could explain and be blamed for incidents of rape, deviant behaviour, child abuse, riots and civil unrest. The nasties had, as Barker observes in an interview he gave for the 2010 documentary VIDEO NASTIES, MORAL PANIC

CENSORSHIP AND VIDEOTAPE (2010) “a general-purpose explanation of moral decline” (Barker cited in West 2010). These examples illustrate the extent of the tabloid media’s intentions to have the video nasties banned. Police chiefs and other public servants were openly accusing the video nasties as being the root cause of every evil in British society. Graham Bright regularly referred to the videos as “evil” and Raymond Johnson certainly did his bit to perpetuate the fallacy when he spoke before the enquiry on the 27th of June.

Brown recalls how the atmosphere at the meeting steadily grew more heated with each new contribution and unsubstantiated assertion as to the lurid nature of the nasties (Brown 1984, 69-70). Johnson declared that he had irrefutable proof relating to the corruptive effects of the nasties on Britain’s youth, a claim that Brown was saddened to observe, also went unchallenged. Johnson concluded his diatribe with the proposal “to set up a working party to produce a report within six months”. The resulting report was to be presented to the public, the government and the media and had three main goals. These were to describe “the precise nature of the threat to children posed by exposure to video films, to present “the evidence already available of the harm being done by such exposure, and finally to suggest “ways in which society should respond to this clear and present danger” (Brown 1984, 70). This exemplifies the “ways of coping” as described by Cohen in his definition of a moral panic.

The Obscene Publications Act (OPA) was the legislation that had been used by the DPP to prosecute video nasty distributors in the early 1980s. Some trials had resulted in fines being dished out and one distributor was sent to jail for six months. Many of the lawyers representing the distributors had successfully argued that on the whole, the films did not have the tendency to corrupt or deprave, and numerous decisions that had originally found distributors guilty had been reversed on appeal. The OPA was damned at the meeting as an inadequate piece of legislation and “flawed instrument” (Ibid) in the fight against the onslaught of video filth. Lawmakers present at the meeting on the 27th knew that new legislation was needed and were committed to seeing Graham Bright’s bill become law. From the examples listed, it is transparently clear that the enquiry, not only having no official mandate, was incredibly bias and seemed to have already have made up its mind as to the dangers that home 26 video and the video nasties posed to impressionable young Britons. Something new was needed and the enquiry was on hand to inform, protect and provide solutions.

Brown accepted the task of collecting and evaluating data for the enquiry on the 30th of June, as he hoped that his work could bring neutrality and a scientific approach to the study. Brown and his team at TRU immediately began designing questionnaires and gathering data. Hill made it quite clear to Brown that the entire project was to be kept under wraps and none of the findings should be leaked prematurely to the press, a prerequisite that Brown respected. Hill also began to request and later demand access to data while research was still in progress (Brown 1984, 77). Not satisfied with such irregular intrusions, Hill began to override research decisions. On one occasion, after receiving data from the TRU that did not support the opinions of the enquiry, Hill sent an “illuminating” letter to Brown informing him that “the Prime Minister is taking a personal interest in it”. Thatcher was sent a personal copy of the enquiry’s report by Dr. Hill on its release (Brown 1984, 78). From around the end of October 1983, Hill and his cohorts began drawing up a draft of the report loosely based on the collected data, which they themselves began leaking to selected media sources which included religious journals from the 21th of November 1983 (Brown 1984, 80).

The report was presented to the assembled media and the public as planned at a press conference on the 23rd of November 1983, just in time for use during Bright’s debate in parliament (Brown 1984, 68). The tone and vocabulary used to present the findings are not those commonly found in research papers. The report resembled a campaign pamphlet that moral crusader Mary Whitehouse might have created and been proud of. It was full of hysterical and foreboding assertions (Brown 1984, 79). The lack of academic tone and data evaluation in the report is apparent in passages that Hill himself penned which claimed that

“Boys appear to be more keen on the violent video films than girls. Among many boys from working class backgrounds, watching the nasties has become a test of manliness. To be able to sit through the more violent and gory scenes of horror has become an important status symbol among school children of all ages, from about nine years upwards. There is clear evidence from the survey that their social values are being moulded by what they see. Many children are watching reruns of their favourite scene time after time so that they are strongly imprinted upon their minds” (Brown 1984, 79-80).

This reference to “time after time” and “strongly imprinted on their minds” relates to the temporal power that video presented to viewers. The technology enabled users to stop,

27 pause, rewind and replay scenes. As the quoted excerpt suggests, this was one of the main concerns among moralist campaigners.

The study defined “nasties” as

“films that contain scenes of such violence and sadism involving either human beings or animals that they would not be granted a certificate for general release for public exhibition in Britain” (Murdock 1984, 60).

This definition shows the lack of consistency and overview as the list contained several titles that had been passed by the BBFC for general exhibition including THE BURNING

(1980) and THE EVIL DEAD (1982) (Ibid).

The overall aim of the enquiry and the report was blatantly clear. Hill repeatedly mentioned in the report that the enquiry sought “to bring about a major strengthening of censorship through a toughened Obscene Publications Act” (Brown 1984, 81). Some of the claims made in the report were manufactured specifically to arouse the interest of newspaper editors and find their way to the front pages of Britain’s press. The report claimed that 37% of children under 7 years of age had admitted to having seen a video nasty, and further claimed that the figure rose to 40% of children under the age of 16 had been exposed to video nastiness in their home (Brown 1984, 68). The enquiry panel assembled at the press conference proudly told reporters that to ensure accuracy, over 6,000 pupils and parents had been interviewed and that at least 2 schools in every county in England and Wales had been visited and polled during research. The report ended with the assertion that unless the dissemination of video filth was curtailed, Britain was “priming a timebomb of violence which will explode on the streets of Britain” (Brown 1984, 80).

Brown and his team read through the report and were astonished at the conclusions that Hill and the enquiry had reached and published. Hill had not consulted Brown on the structuring of the report and had blatantly ignored the advice and considerations that Brown and his team had expressed throughout the various research stages (Brown 1984, 81-82). Brown also could not work out how the enquiry had worked out that almost 40% of children 7 and under had seen a video nasty. None of the data that Brown had collected had pointed to such results. At the time the report was released, the inquiry group had received only 46 questionnaire replies from 6-year old’s, of which 3 had seen a combined total of 17 nasties. This, brown worked out was how the group arrived at a total of almost 40%. This claim has never been refuted by Hill or any member of the PGVE. The purposely fashioned and easy to remember statistic was

28 perfect for the front pages of the tabloids, and the shaky statistics were cited endlessly in parliamentary debates (Brown 1984, 82). Based on the concocted findings of the report, news bulletins dutifully reported the shocking statistic that around 3million children had seen a nasty, and other claims of the report were paraded around by moralists and conservatives as solid empirical evidence (Brown 1984, 84).

Much dismayed, Brown alerted the management committee at the TRU who accepted Browns full report a few days later, in which Brown completely disowned the report. An Executive had been hurriedly formed on the 22nd of November among the members of the enquiry who retroactively dismissed Brown and Oxford Polytechnic from any involvement (Ibid). It also transpired that while Brown had been on leave in Dublin, Hill had entered the offices at the research unit early on the 25th of November and removed all the data and questionnaires relating to the research, as well as all private and business written correspondence between the enquiry and the research institute. Hill had even remembered to wipe the computer files (Brown 1984, 79). Brown did not hear again from Hill or any other member of the enquiry again.

Desperate for what was hailed as irrefutable empirical evidence, Brice embraced the findings of the report, which he and other censorship campaigners subsequently and “constantly referred to during the Video Recordings Bill’s passage through parliament” and in future interviews and debates (Murdock 1984, 58). Months later, in an interview for the Times which appeared on 8th March 1984, Bright acknowledged that the way in which the data was collected in Birmingham did not comply with traditional scientific practices admitting “I do question the validity of the research. It points at the problem, but I do not think one can take that as concrete evidence” (Murdock 1984, 65). Other eminent campaigners were quick to deflect attention away from the report’s methodological shortcomings. Speaking before the House of Lords, the Bishop of Wakefield reminded his peers that “Particular doubts about this bit of research should not blind us to the very real dangers that are before us. After all, much research has been carried out on the social effects of violence shown on the television screen” (Murdock 1984, 65). The bishop was correct, research had been conducted, but he failed to mention that the findings were also inconclusive. Newspaper and television outlets played their role in feeding the manipulated data to the British public with catchy and easy to remember figures and percentages. The statistics and claims fueled tabloid campaigns get the video nasties banned (Brown 1984, 68).

Fig. 8: Graham Bright’s Video Recording Bill (1983).12

An academic by the name of Guy Cumberbatch was suspicious of the claims made in the report. As a researcher, he was unsatisfied at the methods used and the conclusions that had been drawn. Cumberbatch decided to test the validity of the data and findings. He went to some schools in the Birmingham area with a list of video nasty film titles and asked the children which titles they had seen. Cumberbatch had included several fictitious titles to the list. Some of the fake titles on the list included Vampire Holocaust and Zombies from Outer Space, chosen for their similarity to actual titles such CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979), VAMPYRES (1974) and ZOMBIES LAKE (1980) (Murdock 1984, 64). The Birmingham children proudly stated that they had seen many of the films, including some of the non-existent titles. Having evaluated the data Cumberbatch was able to reveal that 68% of children asked claimed to have seen video nasties that did not exist. One of the titles that the interviewees claimed to have seen most was HOSPITAL OF HORRORS (Barker quoted in West 2005). Although admittedly non-conclusive, Cumberbatch’s experiment highlights several issues. The reliability of the original questionnaires and the data gathered from them was unreliable and should not have been paraded around by politicians as empirical evidence. It also exposes poor empirical execution by Dr. Hill. The inclusion of fake names and options is a standard element of self-completion questionnaires and is intended as a control mechanism (Murdock 1984, 64). Cumberbatch’s findings were published in the Guardian newspaper on the 25th of April 1984 in an article titled “Sorting Out Little White Lies from Nasty Pieces of Work” (Murdock, 1984 123), but were not given much attention by politicians or moralists.

To their credit, the Roman Catholic and Methodist Church formally withdrew their association and support from the PGVE in February 1984, on learning how Brown and his team had been treated. The representatives were very uncomfortable when it became known that the hastily established Executive which counted Dr. Hill, Lady Watterston and the Bishop of Norwich among its esteemed members, had sanctioned the removal of all data from the TRU offices and the unit’s firing from the project (Brown 1984, 82-83). 30

Without any parliamentary mandate, a group of motivated politicians and conservative moralists were able to convince the British media, church leaders and parliamentarians that they had fresh empirical and solid data that video nasties were a severe threat to British children, and that legislation was urgently needed to stop the moral decay. The self-appointed and anointed enquiry were willing to steal documents and cover their tracks to achieve their aims. The contents of the report were anything but empirical or transparent and did not seek to further the discourse. The credibility of any academic paper relies on the integrity in which way the documentation is prepared and the transparency of the research methods and data to allow its replication (Brown 1984, 69). Video Violence and Children failed miserably in both criteria. The right-wing partisan report contributed significantly to Bright’s bill passing through the House of Commons unopposed, resulting in legislation that became famously known as the Video Recordings Act (1984), that compelled titles to be submitted to the BBFC for censorship and certification (Brown 1984, 85-86).

5. Marketing the Video Nasties

Film historians often refer to the time before home video content was regulated as a “golden age” (Newman 1996, 132). It is remembered as the pre-cert era, a brief and wonderful period where uncensored versions of violent horror films could be procured from video libraries without impunity until the evil press and prudish politicians spoiled the party with the implementation of the VRA in 1984.

Encoding the press and policymakers as the bad guys in this scenario, makes it very easy to present the video industry, the distributors and the videos themselves as the innocent parties (Egan 2007, 47). In her book, Trash or Treasure: Censorship and the Changing Meanings of the Video Nasties (2007), Kate Egan proposes that although the tabloid media and the British establishment certainly played their part in creating and escalating the video nasty carnival, there were other factors and contributors that eventually led to the video nasty crackdown (Ibid). Egan maintains that elements and practices within the video industry were instrumental in drawing attention and disgust from moral leaders, politicians and the public. Egan points the finger squarely at several of the four dozen or so video distributors operating in Britain in the early 1980s. Most of these new companies were run by savvy entrepreneurs who exemplified the neoliberal ideologies of Thatcherite Britain (Egan 2007, 50), and were ready to go the extra mile to make a profit. The Conservative government actively encouraged companies in all industries to be vigorous in generating demand for their products and

31 services. Small and independent video distributors used provocative and intentionally goading marketing campaigns to promote their titles, and as a result, alerted the media to the apparent onslaught of depravity available on home video. The marketing campaigns and stunts that distributor Go Video employed were particularly provocative, and gave the home video industry a bad image, largely in part to the company’s video covers that lined video library shelves and full-page ads that it ran in trade and consumer magazines (Wingrove & Morris 1998, 5). Go Video created some of the most incendiary and gruesome video covers for titles such as SS EXPERIMENT

CAMP (1976) and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979). These intentionally eye catching and shocking images were generally far more gruesome than the films they were promoting, and they created the desired perception not only in the imaginations of the intended audience of exploitation and horror fans, but also in that of politicians and moral entrepreneurs, making their crusade to censor and ban the films even fiercer (Brewster et al. 2005, 05). The static images that adorned the video nasty boxes could be held aloft and ridiculed in parliament and on television, representing the low moral character of the films and the home video industry (Egan 2007, 48). Video distributors devised and implemented marketing campaigns that were so “excessive and infamous” that it was inevitable that they would be met with protest and disdain by conservative and establishment voices (Ibid).

In their book Great Britain Limited (1991), John Corner and Sylvia Harvey opine that at the start of the 1980s Britain was permeated by two “ideological tenets” that caused “tension” and “contradiction” (Corner & Harvey 1991, 10-12). It was not as some might expect, an ideological standoff between the permissively liberal left and the conservative right. Entrepreneurs were encouraged to be brash and creative in getting their businesses off the ground and noticed by the public, but the 80s was also an era where the government believed in policies that propped up a “heavily centralized and frequently authoritarian state” (Egan 2007, 48). These wildly opposing approaches created the tension that resulted in the moral panic surrounding the video nasties and the wide fissure between those embraced the get up and go mentality, and market the new and exciting entertainment medium to the British public, and those who sought to maintain and strengthen right wing political ideologies that had regained sway in the 1970s. The permissiveness of the 60s could not be allowed to regain momentum and infect public opinion.

To enable readers to get a sense of the quality and type of films that Go Video released in its very early days, I first present a short synopsis of Italian director Sergio Garrone’s 32

1976 Nazi sexploitation and rape revenge video nasty SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) and Ruggero Deodato’s CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979). These were also among the films that sparked the video nasty panic.

5.1 SS EXPERIMENT CAMP: Synopsis

Nazi soldiers and doctors are torturing young and attractive female prisoners at a POW camp during World War II. Those not willing to swear allegiance to Hitler are murdered, and their bodies burned. There seems to be no escape from this man-made hell for the captives. A fresh batch of female POWs is delivered to the camp. They are immediately stripped and sent for a communal shower. The latest additions are told to abandon all hope. Mirelle (Paola Corazzi), one of the new prisoners, catches the eye of Helmut (Mircha Carven), a handsome German solider. Mirelle is very attractive and there is immediate chemistry between the two. Helmut has been recalled from the front to take part in a top-secret experiment. He and five other soldiers have been handpicked to have sex with prisoners under laboratory conditions. The goal, the camp doctor claims, is to further “the proliferation of the German Empire”. The commanding officer Colonel von Kleiben (Gorgio Cerioni) has an ulterior motive for having Helmut stationed at his camp. He wishes to take Helmut’s testicles, as he lost his own while raping another prisoner, when she bit them off while resisting the attack. The experiment begins, and Helmut is assigned Mirelle as his partner. Female prisoners not willing to take part are tortured and killed and those women deemed unsuitable for the experiment are sent to work in the camp’s brothel. A young girl is delivered to the brothel and raped by a ruthless Nazi sergeant (Serafino Profumo). The blood on her thighs proves rumors of the girl’s freshly violated virginity. The young woman is filled with rage. She grabs a fork and stabs her attacker. As punishment, she is strung up upside-down naked in the courtyard for all to see. (This infamous image would later adorn the Go Video rental cover).

Helmut falls for Mirelle and asks to stay on at the camp once the experiment is over. This fits in nicely with the commanding officer’s plans to relieve Helmut of his testicles. Von Kleiben says he will let Helmut stay if he takes part in another experiment. Helmut agrees. Dr. Steiner (Attilio Dottesio) protests but is convinced to perform the operation. Helmut awakens from the procedure and realizing what has happened goes after von Kleiben. Dr Steiner commits suicide when confronted by Helmut and the colonel is 33 overpowered and killed by some female prisoners. Mirelle and Helmut escape from the camp but are almost immediately mowed down by machine gun fire.

Garrone’s film is an eclectic mix of “themes and trends found in Italian exploitation” (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 256). The actors are well tanned and are more concerned with superficial beauty than escaping, let alone surviving the daily hell at the camp. Camp guards are astonished when prisoners try to make their escape and Dr. Steiner turns out to be Jewish. SS EXPERIMENT CAMP is not a good film, but it is notorious. Its title, video cover and promotional campaign ensured that it was one of films that the DPP shortlisted for prosecution in 1983 (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 256-257).

5.2 CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST: Synopsis

While filming a documentary in the jungles of South America, a group of young filmmakers goes missing. After hearing nothing for many weeks, a search party is sent to find out what has happened to the team. The decomposed body of one of the guides is quickly discovered, and with some help from a local tribe, the skeletons of the rest of the team are found amongst some abandoned camera equipment. The search party also finds some film cans which they take back to the TV station who commissioned the documentary in New York. The TV station decide to try and edit a coherent story from the found footage and ask professor Monroe (Robert Kerman) to lend his name to the venture to give the project some scientific integrity and gravitas. Monroe agrees and to get a feeling for the deceased film crew, he watches one of the teams earlier works: The Last Road to Hell. The film was shot in Africa and depicts numerous horrific acts such as a firing squad shooting and killing some men and a boy being shot at close range in the chest. Monroe is told that the team instigated the events for the sake of the production. Monroe considers this revelation as he watches the jungle footage. The film, when finished, is to be titled The Green Inferno.

The narrative now follows the film team through the footage as it is pieced together. The camerawork is shaky and handheld with cuts that remind you it is documentary footage. We get to know Alan Yates (Gabriel Yorke), Faye Daniels (Francesca Ciardi) Mark Tomaso (Luca Giorgio Barbershop) and the rest of the film team. The rolls of film show the team venture deeper and deeper into the jungle. A large poisonous spider crawls up Faye’s arm at one point and is only helped by the team after they have filmed the creature move up the screaming woman’s arm. Filipe, the team’s guide, is bitten by a snake. The men try to save his life by amputating his leg, but the guide dies from the procedure. The crew comes across a tribe and shoots one of their hunters in 34 the leg so that they can follow him more easily, leading them to his village and the Yacumo tribe. The team terrorize the tribe and herd them into a hut which they set on fire. They film the burning and intend to claim that the atrocity was the result of an attack from a nearby hostile tribe. Alan and Faye are filmed as they have wild and physical sex.

Monroe is ignored by TV executives when he tells them of his concerns, and a female producer tells him over lunch that “Today, people want sensationalism” and “the more you rape their senses, the happier they are”. Monroe finally manages to convince some senior executives to view some edited-out scenes before the documentary is aired. The executives and Monroe take their seats in a private screening room and watch the redacted footage. The first spectacle is an occasion when members of the film team catch a young native and rape her. A short time later, while forging on through the jungle the team come to a clearing where they see a young woman has been impaled on a stake. Alan is heard saying how the killing of the woman was an “unimaginable horror”. His face however, shows that he is delighted that the team have stumbled upon the horrific spectacle. The footage and the narrative jump to a scene where the team are surrounded by hostile natives. Jack Anders (Perry Pirkanen) is hit by a spear and is immediately shot dead by Alan. Tomaso films on as the natives dismember Jacks body. They chop his body in two, castrate him, and feed on his guts. “Keep rolling. We’re gonna get an Oscar for this” is heard as the natives eat Jack’s raw flesh. The natives capture Faye and Alan is badly injured while Tomaso films on. He captures Faye’s rape on film and does not flinch as she is bludgeoned to death. Mark turns the camera on himself as he is finally captured and beaten to death. The footage ends on Mark’s severed head as it stares into the camera lens. As the lights are switched back on in the screening room, one of the senior executives jumps out of their seat and immediately orders all the found footage to be destroyed. As Monroe leaves the station he stares at the crowds of New Yorkers bustling around the city and asks himself” I wonder who the real cannibals are?”

Italian director Ruggero Deodato’s found footage movie is not an easy film to watch. The handheld camerawork does give the effect that the footage is real and had many people fooled that the film was a snuff movie by the special effects and Des Dolan spreading such rumors. The two main narratives are edited together very well, and film does try to make some social commentary. However, the dialogue used to make such points is weak and pretentious. Ironically, Deodato’s film considers the effects of viewing violence on audiences. 35

5.3 GO Video

Here, I present the history of Go Video, one of the most infamous of the small and independent distributors operating in the early days of the home video boom in Britain. This is intended to support the argument that Go Video and its founder Des Dolan (Martin 2007, 156), must accept some of the blame for first drawing attention and later scorn from conservative campaigners and politicians, attention that led to DPP prosecutions in 1983 and the VRA in 1984.

Legendary distributor Go Video started out as Video7 in South London in 1979 (Go Video Ltd 2018). It was set up by Des Dolan (Flint 2018), a savvy entrepreneur who gave up working as a record company executive to make it big in the burgeoning home video entertainment industry. Dolan was one of the many encouraged by the then Margaret Thatcher, to take the initiative and become their own boss. Video7 began releasing public domain films from as far back as the 1930s, including WHITE ZOMBIE (1933), which put the distributor on the map, and gained the fledgling enterprise respect from horror fans. However, Dolan didn’t release WHITE ZOMBIE because he wanted to rekindle interest in a forgotten horror classic, he released the Bela Lugosi vehicle because it was free and available (Flint 2018). Dolan’s company initially released 21 public domain titles including dramas and comedies. Hollywood studios were still hesitant to embrace video in the early 1980s, as they felt it threatened their box office and TV rerun residuals, so the growing market was hungry for anything distributors could secure the rights for (Brewster et al. 2005, 4). The advertisement in Fig. 9 for distributor InterVision, which appeared in Variety trade magazine in 1980 reminded British video rental store owners that they would not make their fortune by only stocking Hollywood hits and box office favorites.

Fig. 9: Variety magazine May 7th,1980.13 36

Dolan’s start-up changed its name to Go Video in early 1981, and moved to larger premises in Soho, central London. Dolan travelled to Europe and closed some astute licensing deals, picking up four cheap soft-core and exploitation titles including

CELESTINE (1974) and Jess Franco’s THE DEMONS (1972). THE DEMONS is considered by many critics to be one of the “trashiest, sleaziest films on video in the UK” (Wingrove & Morris 2009, 49). These would be the first titles released in Britain by the company under its new name. The crudely cut-out cover design for THE DEMONS clearly shows that the company was not run by passionate film buffs, but by a businessman out to save money where possible and make a quick profit (Flint 2018). Go’s other early video covers are so shoddy and cheap that it could be argued that the tacky look was intentional.

Fig. 10: CELESTINE (1974).14 THE DEMONS (1972).15

Dolan also released two kidvids in late 1981. These were videos with child appropriate content aimed at parents looking to entertain and distract their children. This shows the eclectic diversity of the company’s titles, and indeed of the entire home video industry which was still its infancy. Distributors were still desperate to acquire any new titles whatever the genre and were not thinking about corporate identity or customer loyalty. Dolan was also motivated to release child appropriate content to clean up the company’s image and reputation after its initial releases. Other distributors would later add kidvids to their range when the market became flooded and distributors were looking for titles that promised reliable rental figures (Walker 2017, 632-633).

Fig. 11: Go Video’s VIDEO COMIC (1981).16

Dolan believed that the key to penetrating the market was to feature his covers in the numerous consumer magazines that were springing up in the early 1980s. Dolan also had the brash and ingenious idea of issuing pubs with free beer mats that depicted

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST’S video cover artwork (Brewster et al 2005, 192). He was determined that Go covers would be unique and instantly recognizable, a plan that could have come from his marketing days before venturing into home video distribution. Video magazines boasted loyal and growing readerships, and Dolan was convinced that if his adverts generated interest among VCR owners, then video libraries up and down the country would be compelled to stock his range of titles (Ibid). The tactic worked, and Dolan would use trade magazines to advertise his range of titles in the future. Once the major studios started to realize that there might be a way for them to cash in on the home video boom, Dolan knew that small distributors would have to get tough to survive. In an interview for Video Today magazine Dolan proclaimed that

“The going is likely to get a lot tougher for independent video labels this year, now that the majors have got themselves together. The Indies will have to respond very positively. Any independent which is not very aggressive in its marketing stance – and in the way it competes with the majors – won’t be here next year” (Des Dolan, Video Today 1982).

Following up on these statements, Dolan paid for full-page advertisements to promote

SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979), in Music & Video Week and Television and Video Retailer in January 1982(Brewster 2005, 5), (Martin 2007, 14). These two films would later become regular whipping boys during the video nasty panic. The artwork for Go’s Nazi exploitation film depicted a young almost naked woman in an inverted crucified position with Nazi emblems hanging from her body, with the bust of a stern Nazi officer looming behind her. The artwork for CANNIBAL

HOLOCAUST sees a wide-eyed dishevelled cannibal devouring some raw intestines, with the tagline “EATEN ALIVE” printed in large yellow letters.

SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) advert.17 SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) video cover.18

FIG. 12: CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) advert.19 CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) video cover.20

In early 1982, the editor of trade magazine Television and Video Retailer received some letters of complaint about the ads for SS EXPERIMENT CAMP and CANNIBAL

HOLOCAUST, which the magazine reproduced in its next issue (Martin 2007, 14). In an interview that accompanied the printed letters, Dolan reacted first by saying that the advertising had to be effective in serving to “warn off the unwary (Ibid). He claimed that he was not oblivious to decency and proudly told the interviewer that “we imposed our own moral censorship” by covering the genitals the crucified and tortured woman in a pair of skimpy black panties (Wingrove & Morris 2009, 10). He also said that there was no sense in him “toning down” the lurid and eye-catching nature of his promotional material unless other distributors were also forced to do so. Dolan ended the interview by remarking that he felt what the industry needed was “some sort of guidance that video advertisers can follow or at least refer to” (Martin 2007, 14). Dolan (perhaps intentionally or naively) reacted to the controversy from a business perspective, void of moral contemplation. The magazine’s editor sympathized somewhat with Dolan’s assertions, suggesting that 39

“as the industry gets fatter and the publicity material spreads wider and wider, there must be a case for public moral acceptability” (Wingrove & Morris 2009, 10).

The intentionally impudent statement regarding the panties did nothing to appease the anger felt by moralists and SS EXPERIMENT CAMP, along with Go’s other infamous nasty

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST would become two of the first titles to be prosecuted by the DPP under the OPA in 1983 (Flint 2018). Based on his knowledge of the industry, the editor concluded the article by saying that he felt that there was a slim chance that distributors would come together and be willing to agree on a voluntary code of practice. There were some halfhearted attempts at self-regulation, but commercial greed kept distributors from committing to any measures that would give their competitors an advantage (Wingrove & Morris 2009, 10). Dolan’s goading advertising also caused concern among members of the Advertising Standards Authority who received numerous complaints from the public and pressure groups (Walker 2017, 632). The authority conducted an enquiry in May 1982 into the state of home video advertising and the complaints were upheld. The ASA found that the advertising for

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST went “beyond the bounds of decency”. In response to the SS

EXPERIMENT CAMP’S marketing material, the authority stated that they

“regret that some editors should be prepared to publish advertisements in which increasingly films of a violent or sexually perverted character were described in terms which, like the films themselves, were calculated to appeal to only the most degraded tastes” (Martin 2007, 14).

Dolan and other distributors realized that they had to be careful any could not count on the ASA for support. However, nobody in the industry was willing to do anything too drastic and give competing distributors and titles an advantage. The two advertisements for THE DEMONS (Fig.13), appeared in the May and June ‘82 issues of Continental Film and Video magazine. The ad which appeared in the June issue is a perfect example of the cheap and dirty style of self-censorship that Dolan thought would suffice to allay the steadily growing number of complaints. A hand-written note covers the naked nun’s tortured genital area, as if that was the only problem with the image for Christians. Dolan makes sure that punters are aware that the content is only suitable for adults by taking the magnanimous steps of underlining the word adult and punctuating his taglines with exclamation marks.

May Issue. 21 June Issue.22 Fig. 13: Des Dolan’s style of self-censorship: Continental Film & Video magazine 1981.

5.4 The stunt that started it all.

Des Dolan shall forever be associated with the video nasty panic for a stunt that shocked and infuriated campaigners and politicians so much that it sparked a media fueled moral panic which ultimately resulted in legislation being passed to censor and ban the video nasties.

In an ill-fated attempt to generate free media publicity, Dolan, sent a copy of director

Ruggero Deodato’s previously unscreened (Wingrove & Morris 2009, 21) CANNIBAL

HOLOCAUST (1979), along with a fabricated letter of complaint to the then 74-year-old Mary Whitehouse in March 1982 (Phelan 2014). This was no random delivery, and the recipient had also been chosen specifically. Dolan also instigated a whispering campaign fueling rumours that the film was a snuff movie, with some viewers and politicians believing that people had been killed during the production of the film (Martin 2007, 156). The moviemakers had employed some primitive yet effective special effects and the documentary like camera work and the poor quality of multigenerational copies added to the uncertainty and infamy surrounding the film. The quality of the image was also degraded by constant the constant pausing and rewinding of particularly scenes. As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, this control over the image was of great concern to moralist campaigners. The snuff rumours were of course false, but the hype and naivety of audiences and campaigners helped to elevate the film to near legendary status among horror and exploitation fans (Martin

2007, 108). Initially, the stunt seemed to have achieved its aim. In an interview given to a British newspaper Dolan said that

“Nobody had heard of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST until I wrote to Mary Whitehouse complaining about it. Once she got in on the act, I couldn’t run off enough copies to meet demand” (Des Dolan cited in west 2010).

Whitehouse’s reaction to the gory video was expectedly, one of utter disgust. Dolan’s stunt launched her into a crusade to see Britain rid of violent and obscene films. Although she was over 70 years of age as the video nasty panic started to gain momentum, Mary Whitehouse did not appear before the cameras and the Christian masses like a dour and terrified pensioner. She appealed to Christians, and the media because of her wild assertions and stage presence which resembled the optimism and buoyancy of an evangelist. Whitehouse appeared invigorated to be spearheading the campaign against violent, pornographic and permissive video content.

Whitehouse used her right-wing connections to screen some video nasties (including

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST) to Conservative MPs at their party conference (Petley 2011, 27). This helped to turn many MPs against the films. Her tireless efforts were supported by a tabloid campaigns to “Ban the Sadist Videos” and “Ban the Video Nasties”. Whitehouse also went on breakfast television to warn the public about the threat video nasties posed to British morality and children. When presenter Nick Ross asked her how she could be so opinionated about video nasties without ever having watched one she replied,

“I have never seen a video nasty. I wouldn’t ... I actually don’t need to see visually what I know is in that ﬁlm” (Mary Whitehouse).

This not only shows Mrs. Whitehouse’s astounding supernatural abilities, but also the impact of the video covers, as they represented what was on the videotapes inside. I believe that Mrs. Whitehouse made this statement based on her exposure to lurid and offensive covers that accompanied films like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) and THE

DRILLER KILLER (1979).

Fig. 14: THE DRILLER KILLER (1979).23

Whitehouse would probably have eventually become aware of video and the video nasties sooner or later, but by sending her a copy of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST in March of 1982 Des Dolan triggered a chain of events that escalated for the next 19 months until the VRA was passed into law in early 1984. Once legislation was in place in 1984 to regulate exactly which titles were suitable for British audiences, the authorities wasted no time in prosecuting numerous small and independent distributors which resulted in hefty fines and even jail time for video dealer Roy May in January 1984 (Brewster 2005, 178).

The video industry realized that it had a serious problem on its hands and that it needed to act swiftly if it were to retrieve some respectability. As so often, when an entertainment medium faces controversy and ridicule from moralists and policymakers, the first reaction was to initiate internal self-censorship. The British Video Association (BVA), which had been founded in 1980 to represent publishers and video rights owners of pre-recorded home video entertainment published a hurried statement where they stated their intention to

“Introduce new safeguards to protect members of the public from inadvertently buying or renting videograms which might be grossly offensive to some adults or seriously disturbing to children” (Brewster 2005, 174).

This vague statement was however, not followed up by any subsequent or significant action, leaving the distributors at the mercy of the media, moral crusaders and politicians (Ibid).

5.5 The media gets nasty

By sending Whitehouse a copy of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, Dolan had awoken a sleeping bear. Whitehouse’s incessant campaigning and scheming attracted more and more media attention. The first article to report on the video nasties in the British print media

43 appeared in the Sunday Times in June of 1982, where it specifically named Go Video’s

SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) as an example of the “lurid exploitation movies” that were freely available (Brewster et al 2005 174). The campaign logo (Fig.15) that accompanied every article relating to the video nasties showed the cover of CANNIBAL

HOLOCAUST. The article spurred Scotland Yard into action who promptly acquired and sent copies of the films to the British Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to see if the video content was in breach of the law and warranted prosecution (Ibid). Within a matter of days distributors including Go Video were being raided by the police in the guise of the Obscene Publications Squad. Go was forced to immediately hand over all copies of SS EXPERIMENT CAMP to the authorities (Martin 2007, 17). Constant raids and prosecutions against Go and its early titles hurt the company. Rental store operators preferred to stay away from the infamous label and its oft prosecuted titles. By 1983, the majors had gotten over their initial fear of home video and were embracing the format, pushing out smaller distributors. Go, along with many other small labels could not compete with the major studio labels, and by the end of 1983 had gone out of business (Flint 2018).

Fig. 15: The Daily Mail’s: Ban the Video Nasties campaign 1982.24

Go video was only in business for little over three years, but within that time Des Dolan helped to make hitherto unknown B-movies like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and SS

EXPERIMENT CAMP infamous and legendary video nasty titles. The marketing campaign and stunts that Dolan and his team employed drove other distributors to compete and design their own lurid and controversial video covers. His commercially driven model was however, responsible for attracting the attention of concerned moralists, the media, the police, the DPP and politicians to home video, whose combined efforts would lead to prosecutions, prison sentences and legislation that would see home video releases heavily censored and even banned.

6. Mary Whitehouse: The moralist entrepreneur

This section chronicles the tireless work of blue rinsed moral crusader Mary Whitehouse and her organization, the Nationwide Festival of Light. This is intended to support the claim that the former headmistress (BBC 2014), was a major contributor to the moral panic surrounding the video nasty scare. She was one of the people “manning the barricades” in Stanley Cohen’s (2002) theory of moral panic (Cohen 2002, 1). Her efforts, and that of people close to her helped to get legislation passed that demanded the retroactive and future classification and censorship of all video content. The middle-class mother of two, campaigned relentlessly for over thirty years to keep sex, violence and depravity out of cinemas, and off TV and home video. Whitehouse was a household name, a feat which she herself carefully orchestrated through her sensational claims, stunts and demands. She appeared regularly in the tabloids during the video nasty panic, exemplifying a symbiotic collaboration among Cohen’s “deviance defining elite” (Ibid).

Whitehouse was well known in Britain as the “self-appointed mouthpiece for the moral minority” (O’Neill 2010). She had been catalyst behind the Clean Up TV campaign in 1964, which had evolved into the much more structured and focused National Viewer’s and Listener’s Association (NVALA) by 1966 (Petley 2015, 523). Whitehouse and her cohorts complained and demanded the suspension of popular TV shows like the perennially and now internationally popular cult series Dr. Who (O’Neill 2010). She was a leading figure in the Christian conservative movement known as the Nationwide

Festival of Light, that campaigned to have films like Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS (1971) banned in Britain and boasted a membership of over 1,250,000 by 1971 (Petley 2015, 524-525). Whitehouse and her followers felt that Britain should return to conservative values and turn its back on the permissive society of the 1960s. Whitehouse had friends in high places and her energy and tenacity held no bounds.

As chairperson of the Film Viewing Board for Greater London Council (GLC) in the early to mid-1970s, Enid Wistrich had numerous run-ins with part time pensioner and fulltime moral crusader. Wistrich suggests that Whitehouse achieved popularity particularly among middle-aged and older Britons owing to the confusion and uncertainty experienced by both men and women in British society in relation to shifting gender and sexual roles in the 1960 and 1970s. Whitehouse cleverly marketed herself as a “nanny figure” who sought to reassert British values. She rallied against the sexual permissiveness and ambiguity of the swing sixties and beckoned a return to British norms of inhibition and restraint (Wistrich 1978, 11). In December 1973

Whitehouse staged a pre-planned walkout from a public screening of BLOW OUT/ LA 45

GRANDE BOUFFE (1973) (Wistrich 1978, 31). In an interview in the Daily Mirror, Whitehouse did not mince her words and stated that she thought the film was

“totally disgusting…the most revolting film I have ever seen” (Ibid).

One might assume from her statement that the film exposed audiences to depraved and twisted imagery. Chief reviewer Enid Wistrich was of a different opinion and felt that BLOW OUT was

“a clever French film which set out to shock and outrage not so much with its sexual episodes but by an emphasis on eating and over-eating which is intended to illustrate the decadence of food conscious French society. The sexual scenes, which included some variations from the orthodox, were implied rather than explicit.” (Wistrich 1978, 30).

The warning placard that the GLC had asked the exhibitor to place in clear view in the cinema foyer described BLOW OUT as “A black comedy about four world weary pleasure seekers who decide to eat themselves to death in an orgy of high cuisine and sexual indulgence”, To this the GLC added “The GLC advises that this film contains material which may offend some people” Wistrich 1978, 53). Cinema staff later reported that cinemagoers had mentioned their appreciation for the notice and that there had been no objections or complaints from the public. Not one to be outdone and showing her resourcefulness and stamina, Whitehouse later attempted (unsuccessfully) to sue the cinema owner using the Vagrancy Acts of 1824 and 1836, on grounds of indecency in a public place (Wistrich 1978, 31). Wistrich became certain that Whitehouse and her anti-pornography movement were not interested in structures or safeguards that “forewarned and protected” from offence. Wistrich felt that the moral crusaders wanted any film that they found offensive to be outlawed for everyone Wistrich 1978, 53).

Although a competent orator, Whitehouse was not concerned with nurturing or participating in debate about pornography and its alleged effects on societies morals (Wistrich 1978, 125). This is exemplified by actions that took place in advance of a planned seminar organized by the Film Viewing Board of the GLC, to debate pornography and film censorship in 1974. It had been announced that scenes from the controversial film DEEP THROAT (1972) were to be screened and debated upon at the seminar. In a typical display of her far-reaching ability to apply pressure, Whitehouse, with the assistance or tireless anti-pornography campaigner Lord Longford, placed numerous calls to the office of the Customs Officer, informing them of the organizer’s intentions. Whitehouse also demanded that the film not be allowed entry into the

46 country. As a result, the Customs Office viewed the film and decided that it was indeed indecent and would be confiscated if brought into Britain, rendering the seminar redundant (Wistrich 1978, 48-49). Later that same year, Whitehouse, not known for accepting defeat lightly, tried to discredit the U.S. Commission Report on Obscenity and Pornography in 1974, after the lengthy and comprehensive study could find no connection between pornography and criminality Wistrich 1978, 60-61). As the Secretary of the NVALA, Whitehouse went so far as to publish a pamphlet where she made unsubstantiated claims that the Commission had ignored and suppressed valid data and that many (unnamed) psychiatrists had indeed observed a connection between exposure to pornographic imagery and criminality (Wistrich 1978, 66). Whitehouse was also adept at wrangling her followers fears and emotions. She led thousands of Christians at Trafalgar Square in song and prayer at the National Festival of Light rally in1973. She could convince hundreds of fellow crusaders to endure the rain and cold and protest outside town halls and council meetings for hours on end (Wistrich 1978, 70). She was also not averse to politicizing pornography. She accused the far left of encouraging the dissemination of pornography into British society in the Sunday Times 19th Oct 1975. She felt that the left had made a conscious effort “to destroy Britain’s morale and character” (Wistrich 1978, 79). This was giving lip service to the theory that decadent and permissive societies historically exhibit declining moral values. Legendary Men’s magazine publisher and porn producer David Sullivan was so annoyed by Mary Whitehouse and her constant campaigning that he launched a soft-porn men’s magazine with the title Whitehouse in 1974.

Fig. 16: Whitehouse Men’s Magazine #15 (1978).25

When considering exposure to scenes of violence, Whitehouse expressed her concern in an interview with the Guardian newspaper on the 6th of June 1974. She feared that exposure to horrific images of murder and violence in war documentaries and uncensored war movies would “sap the national will to wage war” (Wistrich 1978, 131).

She feared that the British public would become conditioned to be repulsed when repeatedly exposed to gruesome and violent imagery just like the character of Alex in

Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), (Ibid). Censorship therefore, was a necessary tool to facilitate military offensives and conflicts, and bolster morale. Nightly reports and body counts on the evening news during the Vietnam war were instrumental in turning public opinion against American involvement in South East Asia in the 1960s. Whitehouse’s fear also exposes a link between censorship and authoritarianism (Wistrich 1978, 139). Those in power throughout history have traditionally censored access of art, media entertainment and technology to the masses.

The Festival of Light: A very dark place.

The beginning of the 1970s witnessed a seismic shift in British politics and society. The era played host to what former Greater London Council member Enid Wistrich (1978) refers to as a “backlash against the liberalising trend of the 1960s” (Wistrich 1978, 21). One product of this shift was the incarnation of the conservative and rightwing leaning Nationwide Festival of Light in 1971 (Wistrich 1978, 21), which was a grass roots movement that quickly gained traction and widespread membership. Christians, weaned on the crutch of spiritual guidance were looking for “reassurance, authority and certainty” after the sexually permissive, and morally bankrupt 1960s (Wistrich 1978, 11). The organization reacted accordingly and with Mary Whitehouse at the helm, positioned itself as a moral compass, providing “faith and purity in an impure world” (Wistrich 1978, 12).

Along with journalist and reformed womanizer Malcolm Muggeridge, the pornography- allergic Lord Longford and squeaky-clean chart topper Cliff Richard, Mary Whitehouse was instrumental in transforming the collection of concerned Christians into a national movement, boasting a membership of over 1,250,000 by early 1972 (Petley, 2015, 523). Top on the list of the festival’s aims, which quickly mutated into demands owing to swelling membership and prominent support, were “to protest against the exploitation of sex in the media and the arts, and to evangelize on behalf of Christianity as a means of national moral rearmament” (Ibid).

Fig. 17: Crusading against violent videos in Australia, July 1984.26

The Festival issued several proclamations at a 30,000 plus strong rally in Trafalgar Square on the 25th of September 1971 (Ibid), including one that was directed at those controlling the British media. It urged media bosses and decision makers as summarized by Phelps (1975) “to discourage the commercial exploitation of violence, dishonesty and sex” and “to ensure that their productions do not “offend public feeling’’ or “incite to crime and disorder’’ (Phelps 1975, 203). The movement also campaigned for the establishment of a statutory film council to oversee and decide on issues of film censorship (Petley 2015, 523). To free themselves of the thankless task and evade the Festival’s continuous ridicule, Greater London Council formally requested that the Government set up an enquiry to investigate whether there was “a more appropriate executive body than local authorities” to perform the task of film censorship in 1972. No such enquiry was ever set up (Wistrich 1978, 22), but the wish would be fulfilled 12 years later in 1984, when the BBFC was officially appointed by law to classify and censor all video content submitted for release in Britain. This was an ironic development, given the Festival’s continued attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the BBFC’s decisions throughout the 1970s when the opinions of the Board did not comply with that of the movement.

The Festival engaged in numerous well-organized activities where it hoped to influence public opinion and the attitudes of local councils, who had the power to ban the exhibition of films in their boroughs and were not bound by BBFC decisions. Cinemas that did not comply could be fined or have their licenses revoked. The Festival published open letters that sometimes appeared in daily newspapers where they claimed, “The state of contemporary society cried out for restraint” and that “Central and local Government have a duty to protect ordinary citizens from exploitation and corruption” (Wistrich 1978, 65).

Whitehouse and other crusaders utilized negative press articles directed at films like

THE DEVILS (1971), and LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972). These films had already been granted an X rating by the BBFC, which restricted those under the age of 18 (accompanied or otherwise) from viewing the movie in film theatres. This was unacceptable for the evangelical right, and Festival members set about affecting change at local levels of government. Newspaper clippings were posted to local councilors who sat on film review boards (Petley 2015, 524). The Festival were successful in drawing the attention of councilors to controversial films, often resulting in special screenings and councils overriding BBFC decisions (Ibid).

In a reaction letter published in The Times newspaper on the 3rd of May 1972, (Petley 2015, 525), Stephen Murphy, then head of the BBFC, commented on his concern in the way certain organizations were seeking to influence local councils in saying

‘we have become aware of a quite deliberate campaign by certain pressure groups to discredit the work of the board with local authorities’ (Stephen Murphy, The Times 3rd May 1972).

Naming the Festival as one of these groups, Murphy also mentioned that he had read in NOVA, the Festival’s own newsletter, that it had over 180 regional officers and organizers dotted throughout the country, ready to act (Petley 2015, 525).

“The technique employed, so far as we have been able to discover, is that material is centrally compiled and then distributed to regional members who are invited to write individually to local authorities, and thus to create an impression of spontaneous public dismay. This, it seems to me, is a perfectly legitimate method for a pressure group to use in seeking to make its views known. What must cause the board some concern is that material prepared centrally is sometimes inaccurate and misleading” (Murphy, The Times 3rd May 1972).

One interesting example of effecting change is that of the film OH! CALCUTTA! (1972). The film was banned by the BBFC for its depictions of graphic nudity and sex. The members of the Film Review Board in Greater London Council ignored the BBFC recommendation who had banned the film. GLC granted a cut version of the film a license to be shown in the borough, one of the most densely populated boroughs of London at the time (Wistrich 1978, 21-22). The Festival of Light sprang into action and succeeded in having the issue referred for consideration by the entire council. The film review board’s original decision was revoked convincingly by the ninety-member strong council by a majority of two to one (Ibid). Whitehouse and her minions managed to have a decision overturned, ironically back to that of the original verdict handed out by the BBFC.

The movement witnessed a decline in membership after only two years of existence, as the campaign became too evangelical, alienating Catholics and people who were not devout church going Christians (Capon 1972, 123). The movement however, did not totally disappear but transformed over time and was renamed Care Action Research and Education (CARE) in 1983, and continues to peruse a conservative agenda on issues relating to assisted suicide, embryo research, homosexuality and abortion (Petley 2015 527).

Raymond Johnston, the first parliamentary research Director of CARE, played an important and questionable role in seeing Graham Bright’s Video Recordings Bill sail through parliament in 1983. CARE have repeatedly made wild and sensational claims over the years to stay visible in the public media and consciousness and were labelled “a bunch of homophobic bigots” in parliament by the openly gay and Christian Labour MP Ben Bradshaw in 2000 (Ahmed 2000).

Whitehouse gets nasty

Whitehouse’s ire was ignited once again in March 1982 when Des Dolan, the head of

Go Video sent Whitehouse a copy of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) with the intention of drumming up some free publicity. Dolan fully expected Whitehouse to be incensed and complain in the press. This shows how well-known Whitehouse was for her morals and her modus operandi of running to Fleet Street and the tabloids to publicize her displeasure and mount a counter offensive. The Majority of the British press was a willing accomplice and mouthpiece for politicians, pressure groups and even the Director of Public Prosecutions in calling for censoring and banning some video titles in the early 1980s. (Petley 2011, 18-19). Owing to her notoriety, vast campaigning experience and media savvy, Whitehouse quickly became the spearhead of the moralist campaign against the video nasties and was invited to appear on talk shows and even breakfast television, where she lost no time presenting the video nasties as corruptive and evil to Britain’s children. When asked in a television interview on breakfast television how she could judge a video nasty having admitted to having never watched such a film, Mary Whitehouse gave the following response

“I have never seen a video nasty. I wouldn’t ... I actually don’t need to see visually what I know is in that ﬁlm” (Mary Whitehouse cited in West 2010).

It was statements like this that led many rational thinking people to dismiss her and her campaign, but O’Neill argues that this would prove to be a mistake, as she crusaded on and forged alliances with likeminded civil servants and MPs, even

51 boasting to be on best terms with Margaret Thatcher (O’Neill 2010). This claim was supported when the Telegraph newspaper ran a story on the 2nd of March 1983 where it quoted Prime Minister Thatcher’s response to Whitehouse’s demands for political action where she said that

“Like you I deplore those who seek to profit out of exploiting the weakness of others, and in doing so undermine our traditional standards of decency and respect for family life” (Margaret Thatcher cited in Petley 2011, 27).

Whitehouse was perfect for the newspapers. She could be relied upon to say something controversial or demand something that many right leaning conservatives could accept. She was also a source of amusement for those who did not take her so seriously. Whitehouse understood the importance of media attention and orchestrated her own stunts and issued statements to ensure that both she, her organization and her aims were regularly mentioned in the British media. The Telegraph newspaper was only too happy to report on the 8th of April 1983 that Whitehouse had gone to the extreme of writing personally to every member British MP looking for their support (Petley 2011, 27). She was well practiced in campaigning and by the 1980s, she had a network of influential friends to call on for help. Whitehouse’s primary contribution to the video nasty moral panic was that she was instrumental in driving the panic forward and keeping it in the papers (Petley 2012, 40).

Fig. 18: A trilogy of conspirators: Bright, Whitehouse and the Daily Mail (1983).27

7. Video cover artwork: The AIDA video rental experience

While perusing numerous websites for information and material for this paper, I noticed that the video nasty era, the VHS format, even the 80s decade itself are all remembered with hazy nostalgia and pride. Now all well into their forties, these eyewitnesses recount wistful memories of the good old days “where aisles upon aisles of ghoulish box art imprinted itself upon their imaginations” (Nastasi 2015). “Tapeheads” as early fans of home video entertainment are referred to, remember the

52 physicality, the purity and the thrill of the pre-cert and video era and the unforgettable video covers that lined the rental shelves (Ibid). The provocative and potentially offensive artwork on video nasty covers was one of the main reasons why the films were attacked and ridiculed by the British establishment and tabloid media in the early 1980s. Politicians were appalled by the images that they considered depraved and lurid (Brewster 2005, 4). This chapter examines the marketing tactics employed by distributors and apply the theoretical AIDA model of marketing when analysing several video nasty covers, and to the video rental experience of the 1980s.

The analysis intends to show that the design of video nasty artwork was not accidental (McGarrigle 2017) and explains why some cover designs remain burnt into memories of horror fans who adored, and moralist politicians who abhorred the video nasties and their sleeve covers (Brewster 2005, 5). The impact of the covers was so immense, that it drove moralists, (in tandem with the tabloid press), to demand and compel politicians to pass legislation mandating the censorship of all video content.

My research into the video nasty phenomenon has enabled me to identify distinct features and trends in the way videos, and particularly horror videos were marketed to consumers in the early days of home video entertainment in Britain. Renting a video in the 1980s was a physical and an emotional experience. I liken it to a visit to an art gallery, where people stand and linger in front of paintings and other artworks for long periods of time. Many art lovers return over time to gaze at their favourite images. Paintings remain hanging on gallery walls for years, silently inspiring and giving joy. Walking into a video rental store was a similar experience, particularly when you ventured into the horror aisles. Video box covers lined the shelves facing potential consumers, each with their own distinctive imagery to entice. The lengths distributors went to in urging punters to choose their titles for that evenings viewing entertainment sparked a moral panic that was fueled by the press and amplified by moralists. It is also one of the reasons why certain videos were targeted by the authorities for their obscenity and depravity, landing them on the video nasties list (Brewster 2005, 5).

Once the video rental industry was up and running, film fans no longer had to write off to post office box addresses to buy, swop and share titles. Renting a video meant getting up and going down to the local video rental store to browse the shelves. It could involve getting a hot tip from the owner or other tapeheads on a new release or unknown gem. You entered a space where a visual war was being waged for your attention and your interest which would, after the person had passed through the four

53 stages of the AIDA process, eventually lead to a video title being rented for that night. Distributors knew that the video box cover was on the front line in the battle against other distributors and titles, and they had complete control over how to exploit this advertising space to market their films. Distributors began employing talented artists and graphic designers to create video covers that were like a great work of art, once seen, not easily forgotten. These artists employed simple colour schemes, legible font and centered imagery to draw the attention and awaken the interest of the casual browser, the first steps of the AIDA model.

Rental shop owners did not put tapes in their original boxes for their customers to take home for the night. One reason for this was the fear that the covers would be stolen or copied and used to produce bootlegs which would not be good for business. Another reason was based on simple yet clever marketing. The video cover was how the film was communicated and marketed to movie fans, and the movie shelves were the silent battlegrounds where video covers fought for the attention of those browsing for their fix of horror. If a video cover lay on a living room carpet in front of a VCR overnight somewhere, then it could not do its job. It would be like a lost soldier, unable to serve his regiment. There would just be an empty space between two other video covers on the shelf. If on the other hand the video was rented but the video box was still on the shelf with a little slip of red paper with the words on loan slipped under the plastic of the cover, (as was the norm), then the title immediately became more attractive and appealing. Someone else had gotten their sooner and was already lying on or hiding behind their couch enjoying the movie. The cover stayed in the store and was free to be taken down, inspected, and held in awe. You could still flip it over and read the synopsis, and the artwork on the front had the job of catching your eye and pulling you in to that film’s universe. This exchange between the VHS cover and the consumer exemplifies the execution of the AIDA marketing model.

AIDA is a marketing model that was first presented by E. St. Elmo Lewis in 1898 (Hadiyati 2016, 51). It is a model that identifies the “cognitive stages an individual goes through during the buying process for a product or service” (Hanlon 2013) and proposes that advertising messages need to accomplish several tasks or stages to move a consumer to action, which in this case is the rental of a video title. The model is often likened to a funnel that channels consumers towards an item and includes four stages represented by the four-letter acronym AIDA. The letters stand for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action (Ibid).

Attention

The first stage of the AIDA model involves making the consumer aware of a product or service. It also aims to affiliate itself with the desired audience (Hanlon 2013). The advent and growth of the video home entertainment market quickly saw the shelves of video rental outlets awash with titles, all longing to be taken home for the night. By 1980, there were already over 4,500 video titles available for rental or purchase in Britain (Brewster et al 2005, 4). Distributors looked for new ways to give their titles the edge over the wealth of worthy competition. The new wave of horror films that entered Britain with the advent of home video sought to shock and push the limits. The desire to be notorious and memorable washed off on the distributors and cover artists who attempted to capture the essence of the movies they promoted in a single image. I will begin by analysing covers (see fig.19) from two of the most infamous video nasty titles,

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974). The first thing that my analysis unearthed is the fact that video nasty covers are predominantly illustrations. This could have been employed to allow artists the freedom to create lurid and shocking imagery that would have been expensive or impossible to capture in a photograph. Illustrations can also distance an image from reality, keeping the image and the emotions it elicits out of the real world. As some of the images are so disturbing and violent, the use of illustrations may have been used to separate reality from the imagined worlds alluded to on the video covers.

The next important observation is that the protagonist or human figure is always central in the image. In the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE COVER, a woman with athletic body and ripped clothes moves stealthily away from the observer into the undergrowth with a sharp blade in her hand. The cover image also hints at the movie’s exploitative tendencies, as the woman’s head and face are not visible, and her aesthetically pleasing physical form is bare in all the right places.

Fig. 19: I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978).28 THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974).29

In Texas, a centrally positioned masked figure runs towards the observer, also with a weapon in his hand. A woman’s face fills the background and her eyes mirror the horrors that she will surely endure in the film. Both images are shocking and grab our attention instantly. This use of central imagery can be found in portrait composition of great masters such as Da Vinci and Rembrandt (see fig. 20).

Fig. 20: La Gioconda: Leonardo da Vinci (1503).30 The man with the Golden Helmet: Rembrandt. (1650).31

The cover images are not muddled or convoluted with multiple messages or layers. They are clear and instantly digestible. They announce that fear and horror await anyone brave enough to watch this movie. The font and wording are bold and easily legible. The colour red connotes blood and violence. The general colour schemes of video nasties are simple and dark with only two or three colours being applied. This pattern of dark, centralized and shocking imagery is evident in other horror titles such as John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978) (see fig.21) and MONKEY SHINES (1988) (see fig.22). American distributor Anchor Bay prides itself as a leading distributor and expert in 70s and 80s horror cinema. The marketing department at Anchor Bay had the wisdom to alter almost nothing to the cover when they rereleased Carpenter’s

56 phenomenally successful, yet wildly overrated slasher movie in 2001. Anchor Bay kept the simple colour scheme, centralized image and bold clear lettering.

Fig. 21: HALLOWEEN (1978) original poster.32 HALLOWEEN (1978) DVD ANCHOR BAY EDITION (2001).33

The same can unfortunately not be said for MGM’s 1999 rerelease of MONKEY SHINES (1988). The cover seems to be advertising a documentary about some small species of monkey that are being captured and illegally experimented upon by cosmetic firms or genetic scientists. The tagline “An experiment in fear” only goes to support my reading of the MGM cover as a film about animal testing and lab experiments. The cover includes a photo of a monkey, immediately conveying a more documentary like and realistic mood. This film would most certainly not have triggered an AIDA chain of marketing phases if it had graced the rental shelves and fought for the attention of horror fans back in the 1980s (Hall 2015).

Fig.22: MONKEY SHINES VHS (1988).34 MONKEY SHINES DVD rerelease.35

The power of such simple devices becomes transparent through analysis of contemporary horror film artwork. The visual campaigns created to market GET OUT

(2017), clearly shows how important the visual impact of a DVD cover or thumbnail can be to the film’s ability to communicate with audiences. In the cover on the left is creative and hints that something is badly broken, but the observer’s gaze cannot settle on any one part or the cover, and is confronted with conflicting emotional states (see fig. 23). Two men embrace in the top right while the couple in the bottom left are smiling brightly. The cover is not clear in the message it is trying to convey, and feels more like a cover for a family drama. The cover on the right shows a cover much more in line with 1980s video covers and the AIDA marketing model. The protagonist is located in the middle of the image, his face gripped in sheer panic. The font is clear and big, and the designers used only two basic colours for the entire image.

Fig. 23: GET OUT (2017). An unclear message.36 Classic nasty simplicity and composition.37

Interest

This step aims at generating enough consumer interest in the product so that the potential customer is willing to invest time into researching the product further (Hanlon 2013).Once a person’s attention has been comandeered, the next stage in the model involves awakening the interest and curiousity of the potential consumer. Browsing the aisles in the 80s, horror fans searched for a film that would give them a cocktail of entertainment and scares. Video cover artwork fed off such desires by presenting film fans with images that subverted norms and expectations, surprising them and making them curious. Designers did this by uprooting familiar conventions and relocating them to unusual settings and environments. The conventions are thus liberated from their tradtitional coding and are free for reassignment. They become twisted and terrifying. The subversion of expectaions leaves the horror fan wanting to know more about the film, increasing the likelihood of them renting the movie. 58

The cover for the video nasty EVILSPEAK (1981) takes the desktop computer and transforms it into a gateway of evil, as a pentagram beams from the computer screen (see fig.24). The centrally positioned figure is possessed by the satanic power eminating from the much loved appliance that was finding its way into offices and middle class homes everywhere. The cover informs the observer who is really in control. The font is large and coloured red. The overall tone of the cover is dark and the illustrated image is simplistic.

Fig. 24: EVILSPEAK (1981).38

SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT (1984) takes the children’s convention of Santa Claus and turns him into a faceless axewielding killer, still possessing the traditional ability to scale down your chimney and enter your home silently in the dead of night. The trend of playing on words is evident on the video box cover (see fig. 25), as the title alludes to the opening lines of Franz Gruber’s Christmas carol Silent Night (1818). The tagline

“SANTA’S HERE” refers to the famous “They’re here” tagline and quote from Tobe

Hooper and Steven Spielberg’s horror hit POLTERGEIST (1982). Both taglines chillingly inform us that the danger is not out there somewhere lurking in the dark, but already in our homes. The poster campaign refers to another classic horror film. “You’ve made it through Halloween, now try and survive Christmas” is a reference to John

Carpenter’s protoslasher HALLOWEEN (1978). If you had the stomach to watch and survive Carpenter’s movie, then the poster dares you to watch TRI-Star’s holiday season horror offering.

Fig. 25: SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT (1984).39

The artwork for the Hollywood production POLTERGEIST (1982) also displays classic AIDA attention grabbing elements, such as the centralized protagonist, black background and clear font (see fig.26). It also places the familiar and trusted TV set in a subverted paranornal setting, creating interest in those browsing the shelves of their local video rental shop. This shows the influence of video nasty covers which were designed by small and independent distributors on the major studios. The subversion of familiar objects is also present in the artwork for GET OUT (2017) . The fact that the man could be experiencing so much fear or pain sitting in the centrally positioned comfortable leather armchair arouses interest. Cosy armchairs ar more normally associated with comfort and snozzing grandfathers on a Sunday afternoon.

Fig. 26: GET OUT (2017).40 POLTERGEIST (1982).41

Some video nasties also came with covers that grabbed interest by subverting expectations. FUNHOUSE (1981), takes a harmless toy, a jack in the box, and transforms it into a menacing masked murderer. The puppet grins omonously out at us and is about to grab us with one hand, holding an axe in the other. Stephen King

60 also subverted our conventions and norms five years later with his novel and subsequent film IT (1986). INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS (1972) takes the convention of farming, farmers and pitchforks and subverts them into visions of horror. A farmer is seem forcing the prongs of his trusty tool into a woman’s neck instead of a hay bale, in the middle of sun rippened field of corn (see fig.27).

Fig. 27: FUNHOUSE (1981).42 INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS (1972).43

The pure and wholesome environment of farming life is subverted into a world of violence and murder. The location of the corn field has been subverted in many horror films as a location of terror and fear.

Desire

Now that attraction and interest has been achieved, and the consumer is investing time to inform themselves more about the film, the model moves into its third phase; that of desire. The notion of desire aims at creating an emotional connection between product and consumer by providing proof and revealing the products uniqueness and personality. This should move the horror tapehead to liking the product and create a desire to purchase or consume the product (Hanlon 2013). The cover needs to back up claims made by the front cover image with tangible information and proof. This is achieved by the synopsis located on the back cover of the box or reviews that are incorporated into the overall cover design. It may also be achieved by including still images from key scenes the reverse or spine of the cover. Together, the text, reviews and stills should give the audience a taste of what is to come. For horror fans, this could include visions and promises of blood, gore, dark humour and possible nudity.

The early years of home video entertainment in Britain were unregulated and distributors took advantage of the lax in legislation regarding home video releases of cinematic content (Brewster 2005, 4). Horror fans were crying out for as much blood, violence and gore as directors and film distributors could deliver. Limits were pushed and severely tested in Britain with the release of the films with video covers like THE

DRILLER KILLER (1979) and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979), (see fig. 29).

Fig. 29: THE DRILLER KILLER (1978).44 CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979).45

This sparked a trend in the United States where distributors began placing warnings on their covers which they wore like a badge of pride, making the films even more desirable to horror fans. Other covers boasted of how they contained uncut versions of films that were banned or censored in numerous countries around the globe.

The cover of MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY (1981) which was a video nasty released in

Britain as CANNIBAL FERROX, came with a large red and yellow warning, stamped asymmetrically on the front of the cover for added impact. It also bragged that the film had been banned in 31 countries (see fig.30). Not satisfied that this would be enough to entice horror fans, the distributors placed another large warning on the back cover printed in uppercase which read

This motion picture is one of the most violent films ever made. There are 24 scenes of barbaric torture and sadistic cruelty graphically shown. If the presentation of disgusting and repulsive material upsets you, please do not view this film. (MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY/ Thriller Video 1981).

Reading these warnings must surely have felt thrilling and exciting to fans of gore and horror in 1982. Anyone who rented this version of the film would be privy to scenes of depravity and violence that nearly three dozen governments had deemed too horrific for their citizens. Other desire arousing triggers that were presented as warnings included the Too gory for the silver screen stamp, that claimed the film had been deemed too bloody and violent for theatrical release. Such enticing claims created

62 ample desire among horror fans eager to witness the gore on offer for just two pounds per night. The claims and warnings escalated without any regard for the sensitivities of those who were beginning to take offense to the artwork.

Fig. 30: MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY USA / CANNIBAL FERROX UK (1981).46

Action

The final phase in the AIDA model is that of action. This is the phase where the consumer is finally moved to purchase a product and avail of a service (Hanlon 2013). The three previous phases are meaningless to a distributor or rental store owner if their combined efforts do not result in the rental of a video title. As with the desire phase, the synopsis on the back-cover functions like a no-frills elevator sales pitch. The other way that distributors try to close a sale is by incorporating directives into the cover design that speak directly to fans. YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT TO BELIEVE IT! is stamped assertively on the cover of BURIAL GROUND (1981). It is telling anyone brave enough to take this film home that the movie is scarier and more horrific than anything they can imagine. It is throwing down the gauntlet, taunting people to pit the depths of their imagination against that of the writers and directors of the film, and only by experiencing the film can a victor be determined. Rank Video, the distributors of the video nasty BLOOD BATH (1975) were certain that their film was TWICE AS TERRIFYING

AS YOUR WILDEST DREAMS!

Some film titles functioned as directives to horror fans. Knowing that generally, people what they cannot have, distributors often renamed their films with titles that sounded like something your parents shout after you as you borrowed the car keys on a

Saturday night. Some video nasty examples are DON’T GO INTO THE HOUSE! (1979),

DON’T GO INTO THE WOODS ALONE! (1980), DON’T GO NEAR THE PARK! (1979), and

DON’T GO IN THE BASEMENT! (1973). 63

Fig.31: DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE (1980).47

Other directives feigned concern for the psychological well-being of viewers, luring them to test their mettle. Astra Video’s BLOOD FEAST (1963), an old Herschell Gordon Lewis movie was rereleased during the video horror boom. The front cover of the video sleeve was adorned with the information that

“You’ll Recoil and Shudder as You Witness the Slaughter and Mutilation of Nubile Young Girls - In a Weird and Horrendous Ancient Rite!”

Just for good measure the distributor added that there was “NOTHING SO APPALLING IN

THE ANNALS OF HORROR!” (see fig. 32). These statements challenge viewers to prove the distributors wrong. They claim to know the limits of the human mind and know in advance how viewers will react. What young horror fan would not love to prove such claims as falsehoods. The only thing that stands in their way is the cost of a night’s rental charge.

Fig. 32: BLOOD FEAST (1963).48

The cover of SAVAGE WEEKEND (1979), speaks directly to audiences informing them that 64

“YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN. YOU ARE DOOMED. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR…… SAVAGE WEEKEND”. The person standing in the aisle reading the cover has no choice in the matter. It has already been decided by powerful and dark forces that they have indeed been chosen. The best thing to do is just rent the movie and get it over with. The grim reaper’s finger pointing out from the cinematic plane into the real world dispels any misunderstanding as to who has been selected. Should that not be enough impetus to cause the audience to act and watch the film, a final claim awaits those who dare to peruse the back cover. Not to be outdone, in the absence of a synopsis, the back cover informs us in blood dripping certainty that IT WILL SCARE YOU TO DEATH (see fig. 33).

Fig. 33: SAVAGE WEEKEND (1979).49

Renting a movie today does not require much physical effort or emotional investment. It is possible to rent or purchase a movie in a matter of seconds and just a few swipes on your smartphone or clicks on your Smart-TV’s remote control. Browsing for video entertainment is, like so many other online procedures, an event that does not necessitate human interaction. The internet has made true the adage of everyone’s a critic. Anonymous experts condense their reviews to under 120 characters and logarithms utilize your choices to create lists of similar content that may interest you on your next visit to the site. Renting a film in the 1980s involved interaction with not only the store owner and other film fans but also with the video covers that grabbed the eye’s attention with their purposely designed images and directives that challenged horror fans to test their mental stamina by watching the film cradled within the cover. Distributors were, owing to a lack of regulation, creative and bold in their claims and methods. They flaunted their titles like freakshows, using reverse psychology to make their films even more attractive. The lack of regulation and legislation allowed distributors to fight hard in a flooded market, all looking for a home for the night. The

65 rental shelf was an interface between the image and the viewer, and the image was well equipped to win the confrontation.

Independent and small distributors like Astra Video and Go Video created the distinct video nasty look, which proved popular with fans and outraged conservative moralists. As horror films were flying of the shelves in video libraries in the early 80s, major and more respected distributors like Thorn EMI copied the nasty style when designing covers and advertizing slogans for their horror titles. The cover of GIRLS NITE OUT (1981) has a centralized image of a young woman gripping a blanket in fear as she stares directly out towards the viewer (see fig. 34). The font used for the title is large and easy to read. It is also coloured red in reference to the colour of blood. The cover includes a mini synopsis which reads “The terror begins as one by one, each girl is mystreriously murdered by a sadistic maniac”. The back cover includes a production still of three girls running towards the viewer full of fear and panic. These are all classic elements of video nasty imagery.

Fig. 34: Thorn EMI’s teen-slasher: GIRLS NITE OUT (1982).50

One Thorn EMI title that made it onto the DPP’s list of deplorable nasties was THE

BURNING (1982), which exhibits video nasty like artwork. The burning figure is central in the frame with big red lettering that is eye-catching and easy to read. The cover includes a not too humble statement that claims the film is “The most frightening of all maniac films” (see fig. 35). The back cover lists a mantra of things that viewers must not do, if they hope to survive the experience. The directives, as with several other video nasty titles all start with the word “Don’t”. This immediately challenges the observer, making the film instantly more desirable to horror fans.

Fig. 35: Thorn EMI’s maniac video nasty: THE BURNING (1981).51

Through the application of the AIDA model, I have endeavored to show that distributors used aggressive marketing techniques and intentionally offensive and eye- catching imagery to convince potential video consumers to rent their titles. There was no code of conduct to adhere to and distributors pushed the limits of what was acceptable. As a result, the Advertising Standards Authority began to receive complaints in 1981. This would lead to media interest and protests from self-appointed moral guardians and the passing of crippling and censorious legislation, putting many of the small distributors out of business.

8. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978): A case study and defense.

I have elected to present a detailed case study of Meir Zarchi’s legendary rape- revenge video nasty I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978). I chose Zarchi’s film as it is “perhaps the most famous of the nasties” (Wingrove & Morris 2009, 26), and the most notorious of all the films that were prosecuted by the DPP (Kerekes & Slater 2000,

188). I shall argue that I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, hereafter referred to in abbreviated form as ISOYG (except when discussing the origin of the film’s title), is not as critic Roger Ebert wrote in 1980 “a vile bag of garbage” (Ebert cited in Oldridge 2003, 113-114), and depraved piece of exploitation, but a film that merits artistic recognition and challenges the very tropes and viewpoints of those it was accused of and banned for. Arguing a case for one of the most notorious video nasties is intended to function as a framework to highlight how the media, evangelists and politicians got it wrong, and that their motivation for banning the nasties did not purely stem from the content or narrative of the films.

I begin with a synopsis of the film as a starting point for later analysis and comparison. I then chart the film’s history and how it was received on its initial release in America and in Britain. This is followed by a section devoted to analysis and comparison to other films.

8.1 Synopsis

Jennifer Hill (Camille Keaton) is an attractive young writer, who is in the middle of writing her first novel. She needs to concentrate on her book and distance herself from the bustle of city life, so she rents a secluded country house for the summer and looks forward to some rural tranquility and hours of uninterrupted and inspired writing.

On her three-hour drive upstate, Jennifer stops in for fuel at a lazy and run-down roadside filling station and is quite a distraction for Joey (Eron Tabor), the store’s pump attendant, who is instantly attracted to the young woman and ogles Jennifer’s athletic body. Johnny has the company of his two idle friends, Andy (Gunther Kleemann) and Stanley (Anthony Nichols), who spend their time hanging around the station with nothing to do other than make jokes and fool around, marginally managing to vent their pent-up sexual energy. Jennifer is friendly to the attendant and during their small talk innocently reveals where she will be staying. Shortly after her arrival at the summer house, Jennifer decides to refresh herself by going skinny dipping in a river that runs along the rear of the property. She orders some groceries from the local store which are delivered by Matthew, who is simple but harmless, and takes an instant liking to Jennifer who is friendly and kind to the young man.

Later, back at the filling station, the pump attendant and his friends make fun of Matthew who proudly cliams that he caught a glimpse of Jennifer’s breasts. Having consumed all the entertainment (such as bowling and cinema) that their small town has to offer, the four young men stroll off into the warm evening looking for distraction.

With nothing much else to do, the group of men take an interest in Jennifer, and begin to prowl the vicinity of the summer house and monitor her movements. Their interest becomes more intense and they embark on a series of visits which irritate and distract Jennifer from her tranquility and her work. The four men eventually abduct Jennifer (only wearing a swim suit) and chase her deep into the surrounding forest. Jennifer fights and screams but there is no one to hear her cries for help. She is pushed around and toyed with by the men and is blocked from making her escape by Johnny, still wearing his work overalls. Johnny and his friends pin Jennifer to the ground and call

68 on Matthew to rape her. Matthew remains rooted where he stands and refuses. With the other men still holding Jennifer down, Johnny rapes Jennifer instead. Having finished Johnny dismounts from the sobbing and defiled Jennifer, who crawls away into the thick undergrowth. A brief pang of guilt flash across the faces of Johnny’s accomplices. Johnny shows no remorse for his actions and urges Matthew to seize the opportunity and not die a virgin. The mentally immature Matthew is torn between decency and lust, but eventually allows Jennifer to escape into the forest. Jennifer stumbles shell-shocked through the trees clutching her dirty and bloodied body. She hears diegetic music coming from somewhere in the forest. Jennifer follows the music to its source which is a clearing where Andy (one of her abusers) sits perched upon a large rock casually playing his harmonica. The rest of the gang circle Jennifer who is then once again pinned down over a rock and is brutally sodomized. Once the men have had their way, they leave Jennifer stretched over the rock and the gang of four head for their motorboat without saying a word to each other or to Jennifer. They dump her bikini in the water and set her kayak afloat to delay her.

Jennifer summons what little strength she has left and finds her way back to the summer house. Her ordeal is not over however and is prevented from alerting the authorities by the gang who have been waiting for her. The men beat up Jennifer who eventually passes out from exhaustion.

The gang pour alcohol into Matthew, which alters his character. He becomes tipsy and loses his inhibitions. He strips down to his socks and willingly mounts Jennifer and proceeds to rape her while she lies motionless on the floor. Jennifer regains consciousness, only to see Matthew writhing on top of her, in a pathetic rape attempt, cheered on by the other men. While rummaging around the house one of the assailants finds Jennifer’s manuscript and reads a passage aloud in a sarcastic tone before ripping up the pages. Jennifer passes out again, but this does not put an end to the terror as Stanley now steps up and brutally violates Jennifer with a beer bottle. The gang finally cease their abusive attacks and leave, but almost immediately decide that Jennifer must be killed to silence her forever. After some convincing, and armed with a blade, Matthew is sent back to the house to kill Jennifer. Matthew cannot bring himself to murder the young woman, although he allows the gang to think that he has been successful by coating the blade of the knife in blood. Satisfied, the gang leave the scene in their motorboat. Jennifer slowly gets her strength back and nurses her wounds. In a symbolic scene, she tapes the pages of her manuscript back together and sits for hours thinking about what has happened to her. Weeks pass, and the men 69 begin to wonder why the murder has not been reported. The men begin to doubt if Matthew did indeed kill Jennifer. Andy and Stanley are sent by Johnny on a reconnaissance mission to the house to check the crime scene. They find Jennifer sitting at the base of a tree at the back of the house. Jennifer is not phased, and simply stares at the men as they pass by in their motorboat. The pair return and report to Johnny, who ostracizes Matthew from the gang for lying to them and putting them in danger.

Dressed totally in black, Jennifer leaves the house and drives to an empty church. She kneels and prays before blessing herself and rising to her feet with a newfound sense of resolution and purpose, having asked for forgiveness for the revenge she is about to dispense. She returns to the house and sets her plan of revenge in motion. She orders some more groceries, and as the store’s delivers boy, Matthew is sent to deliver the order. He cannot refuse to go, as this would raise alarm. He steals a knife from the store and cycles out to the house with the intention of killing Jennifer. Jennifer is now much slower and deliberate in her movements and maneuvers him right to where she wants him. Matthew is visibly nervous to be in Jennifer’s presence and berates her for bringing him and the town bad luck. While wielding a knife Matthew apologizes for what he has done, but Jennifer placates his rage and his murderous intent by undressing before him and inviting him to sleep with her. While Matthew is distracted by sex, Jennifer wraps a noose around the simpleton’s neck and hangs him from a tree. Jennifer watches as Matthew’s body shudders in its final death throes, his trousers dangling pathetically about his ankles. Her plan is now clear, she seeks to exact murderous revenge on all her assailants. Johnny is the next on Jennifer’s list. She easily lures Johnny into the woods with the promise of sex. She suddenly changes tact and produces a gun from under her clothes and commands Johnny to strip at gunpoint. He begs her to stop and tries to make a case that the attacks and the rape were not his fault. He puts the blame on Jennifer for prancing around in a bikini and parading her legs when she first arrived into town. Jennifer appears to accept Johnny’s arguments and invites Johnny back to the house for a good time. She joins him for a bath and begins to fondle his genitals under the water while openly admitting to having murdered Matthew, which Johnny laughs off and doesn’t believe. She allows him to enjoy the event for a few seconds before picking up a knife she had concealed under a bath rug and castrates Johnny as he sits in the bath. Owing to the large amount of suds that rests of the surface of the bathwater, Johnny only realizes what Jennifer has done when the bath water begins to turn red. Jennifer gets out of the bath and locks

Johnny in the bathroom to bleed to death. She puts on some music and settles down in a rocking chair staring emotionlessly at the bathroom door. The classical music drowns out Johnny’s screams, which grow quieter, then less frequent, and finally stop. Shortly thereafter, Stanley and Andy return to the house looking for Johnny. Jennifer swings in her hammock like a spider waiting patiently for its prey. After pushing Stanley out of his boat and taking an axe away from Andy, Jennifer circles the men several times as they flail about in fear and panic. Jennifer plunges the axe into Andy’s back and he sinks below the surface of the water. Jennifer then uses the boat’s propeller to kill Stanley. The final shot of the film sees Jennifer heading upstream in Johnny’s motorboat with a detached look on her face which is only interrupted by slightest of wry smiles.

8.2 History

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) was written, directed, produced and edited by Meir Zarchi (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 191). Zarchi was inspired to make a film which dealt with issues of rape and justice after experiencing the bureaucracy and insensitivity displayed by police after he had driven a rape victim to a police station (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 190). The title which is immediately and intentionally offensive was not the original title of the film, nor was it the first film to sport the notorious title. Zarchi’s film was already the third film to be released in America as I Spit on Your Grave. The legendary and aptly named American exploitation film producer Jerry Gross borrowed the title twice from the 1959 anti-racist French Noir movie J'IRAI CRACHER SUR VOS

TOMBES (1959), which translates into English as I Spit on Your Graves. The film had been adapted from French author Boris Vian’s 1946 noir crime novel of the same name. Vian was not a fan of the adaptation and died of a heart attack while loudly sharing his displeasure with the audience at the film’s premiere in Paris in 1959 (Rolls

& Walker 2018, 32). The film was shown at drive-ins in the US from 1963 as I SPIT ON

YOUR GRAVE. Seasoned in the art of exploitation, Gross wanted a title that would stand out and generate publicity, a goal he achieved on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1975,

Gross changed the title of the Indian exploitation film CAMPER JOHN (1973) to I Spit on your Grave when it opened in Detroit (unknown 2017). Meir Zarchi’s 1978 production, which originally bore the title DAY OF THE WOMAN on the drive-in circuit was also renamed I Spit on Your Grave by Gross for its video release in 1981 (Wingrove & Morris 2009, 26, Kerekes & Slater 2000, 191-192).

Fig. 36 J'irai cracher sur vos tombes / I Spit on Your Grave (1959).52 CAMPER JOHN aka I Spit on your Grave (1973).53

Fig. 37: DAY OF THE WOMAN aka I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978).54

Zarchi’s film was distributed in Britain on video by Astra Video, a small, independent label, and was released in January 1982, just as the video home entertainment market was beginning to boom in Britain (Oldridge 2003, 113). ISOYG was one of the label’s first releases, and a distribution deal with the American copyright owner Novocom, made Astra the sole distributor of ISOYG outside of the US (Brewster et al. 2005, 217). Other early titles that were released as part of the Novocom deal included zombie

legend George A. Romero’s feminist horror flick SEASON OF THE WITCH (1972), a

documentary that carried the title THE BEST OF THE NEW YORK EROTIC FILM FESTIVAL (1973), and an absurdly eclectic collection of film trailers and clips that was released

under the title THE BEST OF SEX AND VIOLENCE (1982) (Brewster et al. 2005, 217-218). Being released by the same distributor of the latter two titles and sporting such a

provocative and potentially offensive title did not do ISOYG any favours, and the film was damned through association without having been seen by the majority moralist campaigners or journalists that campaigned so vehemently against it (Barlow & Hill

1985, 175). The film had not been shown in British cinemas before its video release, as it had never been submitted to the BBFC for classification (Oldridge 2003, 113). This could be attributed to the fact that the film had been met with disparaging reviews and had caused controversy on its initial theatre release in the United States in 1978 (Brewster et al. 2005, 217-218). Influential TV critic Roger Ebert detested the film and in 1980 wrote that

“I Spit on Your Grave is a vile bag of garbage that is so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe that it played in respectable theatres. But it did. Attending it was one of the most depressing experiences of my life…. At the film’s end I walked out of the theatre quickly, feeling unclean, ashamed and depressed” (Ebert cited in Oldridge 2003, 113-114).

Not satisfied with such a wicked review, Ebert used the platform of his PBS TV show Sneak Previews to encourage cinemagoers to boycott cinemas that were screening the film. The public did not heed his advice (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 188), some may even have attended a screening based on Ebert’s plea. ISOYG was the first title to achieve commercial success on video in America and was among the 25 bestselling video titles in the US in 1981 (Oldridge 2003, 113).

8.3 Reception in Britain

ISOYG was constantly named in the British tabloid media campaign calling for the banning of the video nasties from the time of the film’s release in Britain on VHS in 1982 (Martin 2007, 15), up to 1984, when the film was eventually banned (Oldridge

2003, 113). It was among the first of the video nasties to be prosecuted under the Obscene Publications act “which led to 234 copies of the film being confiscated from the warehouses of Astra Video in May 1982 by police” (Oldridge 2003, 114). It appeared on the original list of 17 films drawn up for prosecution by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in July of 1983 and appeared on all subsequent lists right through to December of 1985 where it was still listed alongside other notable nasties such as DRILLER KILLER (1979), SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) and FACES OF DEATH (1979) on the infamous DPP 39 list (Brewster et al 2005, 180-181). These 39 films would become infamous for decades to come as the “true” video nasties (Brewster et al 2005, 5).

The film was also reviled in Britain by Mary Whitehouse and her fellow campaigners. Their efforts kept the film in the focus of the British print media. Owing to its video cover and title the film became representative of the depravity that the video nasties were becoming notorious for (Martin 2007, 130). The film was ultimately banned in 73

Britain ensuring that the film earned an iconic status. Teenagers and horror fans flocked to rental stores before the ban was in place, elevating the rape revenge movie to the top of the UK’s rental charts (Brewster et al. 2005, 217).

As part of their relentless tirade against the video nasties, the British tabloid media disseminated numerous falsehoods about ISOYG that went unchallenged from more liberal journalists and these lies were willingly included by politicians in the government working party report on video violence which was published in 1985. The report included a distorted plot summary and referred to a scene that wasn’t even in the film (Oldridge 2003, 115). The report’s creators admitted that they had not actually viewed the film but had pieced things together from reading the descriptions in trade magazines and the taglines and texts that adorned video box covers (Barlow & Hill 1985, 175).

Even those who proclaim to be against the notion of censorship have continuously been slow or nonexistent in their defense of ISOYG. Writing in 1994, author Tom Dewe Mathews believed that the film “tarred” other and better films with the “nasty brush” (Mathews, 1994, 249). Martin and Porter (1986), thought that Meir Zarchi’s film was

“an utterly reprehensible motion picture with shockingly misplaced values…one of the most tasteless, irresponsible and disturbing movies ever made” (Martin & Porter 1986, 704).

Kim Newman was more concise with his words, dismissing the film as among “the most loathsome films of all time” (Newman 1988, 57). Some commentators were undecided. In his book Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film (1986) David J. Hogan felt that “Unpleasant as this film is, it at least shows a woman fighting back” (Hogan 1986). Few voices have defended ISOYG, but one person who took the time to watch the movie and reflect upon its possible artistic merit was Marco Starr. In his 1984 article defending ISYOG titled J. Hills is alive: a defense of I Spit on your Grave (Starr 1984, 48-55), Starr claims that

“I Spit on Your Grave is actually a very good movie – well made, interestingly written, beautifully photographed and intelligently directed” (Starr 1984, 49).

His opinion is not only based on the cinematic craft displayed by Zarchi in constructing his film but also because in Starr’s opinion the film exhibits a “militant stance…in favour of the women it is supposedly degrading” (Ibid).

The notion that a video nasty could find a morsel of redemption for being well made was obliterated by comments made by judge Christopher Beaumont during an obscenity trial in 1984 (Barker 1984, 109). The distributors of video nasty NIGHTMARES

OF A DAMAGED BRAIN (1981), were on trial for the possession of obscene material. The defense called noted film critic Derek Malcolm to give evidence on the film’s skilled camerawork and production value. Malcolm had just noted that the film had been “well executed” (Barker 1984, 109), when judge Beaumont rudely interrupted him and cried “You might say the German tank invasion of Poland was well executed. Does excellence and camerawork help the jury to come to a conclusion in the case” (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 50). Distributor David Hamilton-Grant was found guilty by the jury and was sentenced to six months in prison (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 49).

8.4 Analysis

In this section I consider the arguments and theories of various authors and researchers in attempting to understand why the film was met with such vehement hostility in 1the early 1980s from male critics and lawmakers.

Clover (1992) argues that ISOYG is a rare example of where men are depicted experiencing various “states of abject terror”, as when Stanley wails with terror as Jennifer circles him with the motorboat or when Johnny shrieks as he stares at his groin and realizes that he has been castrated by Jennifer. (Clover 1992, 51). The British government’s report on Video Nasties published in 1985 contains the false claim that Jennifer castrates Johnny and his friends before killing them, which is simply not the case, as Johnny is the only attacker to have his genitals mutilated from the gang of four (Oldridge 2003, 120).

Oldridge considers the notion that Jennifer does not act or behave as female cinematic characters are expected to, both generally and in extreme situations. In society and in perhaps even more so in cinema, men and women are expected to behave in particular ways. As already discussed, men being subjected to terror (especially by women) is an uncommon and jarring cinematic spectacle. It is also uncomfortable for men to observe women who do not behave in ways that men would expect or prefer. Oldridge (Oldridge 2003, 122), lists the acceptable types or behaviour of women in cinema and news reports as “either accomplices to men, victims of hysteria or PMS, or driven to murder in the heat of passion or rage” (Ibid). Jennifer Hills is nobody’s accomplice, she is totally alone and must rely upon herself. She shows no sign of hysterics and is cool and calculated in her actions having 75 recovered from the savage attacks. She rests for weeks thinking about her situation and is not in love with any of her victims.

Hardy, (1986) sees parallels between Jennifer Hills and Myra Hindley, the young woman who was a willing accomplice to Ian Brady in committing the infamous Moors murders in Manchester in the mid-1960s. Hindley was abhorred by the British public and was found guilty in the court of public opinion on account of her emotionless mugshot and portrayal in the British media as a stone-cold murderer, who was void of emotion and showed no remorse for the premeditated murders of several innocent young children (Hardy 1986, 329). This is behaviour totally alien to normal female behaviour, whose primary instinct is to protect the lives of small children. Jennifer too, commits premeditated murder and shows no sign of hysteria or emotion. The film may have received so much negative press and academic scorn because Jennifer, like Hindley, does not fit into expected female types or behaviour commonly observed in society and cinema.

Fig. 38: Moor’s Murderer Myra Hindley. (1965) (Source: Getty Images).55

Jennifer’s atypical behaviour has further ramifications. Barker (1984) asserts that viewers want to identify with Jennifer as she dispenses revenge because she has been done such a horrific and brutal wrong, but “the film distances the viewer” from Jennifer as audiences are not accustomed to female characters who operate and function differently to expected female behaviour. This, Oldridge suggests, could alienate male audiences while at the same time liberate female viewers (Oldridge 2003, 122). Many people (men and women) who watch ISOYG feel uneasy and appalled by the gruesome acts, but, as Martin Barker (1984) argues,

“that is just what the film wants. It wants us to hate the nature of the act of rape and what it calls forth” (Barker 1984, 113).

Martin goes on to concede that many people disliked the film for making them feel uneasy and confronting them with such brutality and viciousness, but that it would be 76 very unfair and simply untrue to claim that the film has the potential or tendency to corrupt, that it glorifies the act of rape itself, or seeks to justify the revenge killings committed by Jennifer (Ibid).

The rape scenes in ISOYG have often been cited as proof that the film exploits sexual violence: Ebert (1981) did not mince his words when he wrote that

“I Spit on Your Grave might have been the worst of the summer’s exploitation films, but it is hardly alone in its sick attitude towards women. With increasing frequency, the new horror films encourage audience identification not with the victim but with the killer” (Ebert 1981, 55).

As Oldridge (2003) notes, and as I too have observed, this would have been a viable viewpoint where it only true. Oldridge opines that the rape scenes depict exactly the opposite of what Ebert claims, and show the graphic and brutal potential of male sexual violence “in unflinching detail and invite the audience to participate in the suffering they cause” (Oldridge 2003, 123).This is perhaps achieved most effectively through the use of close-ups of the men’s faces as they abuse and violate Jennifer which function as point of view shots. Seeing rape through the eyes of the victim gives the viewer a front row seat to experience the sheer horror of rape and could go some way to explaining why the film was condemned so quickly by male critics and politicians and disliked by many male viewers.

8.5 No means no! Destroying the myths of male sexual violence

The film also challenges, and in some cases destroys some of the myths that are regularly fielded in relation to male sexual violence (Oldridge 2003, 122). Oldridge (2003) offers a list of myths challenged by Zarchi’s film including

“the idea that women can enjoy rape, that ‘no’ sometimes means yes, that some women invite assault by their provocative behaviour or clothes, that men are subject to sudden, uncontainable sexual urges, and that rapes are normally committed by strangers” (Oldridge 2003, 122).

The first myth listed by Oldridge, that “women can enjoy rape”, is quickly and easily debunked given Jennifer’s reaction and to cruel brutality of the attacks. She screams and begs the men to let her go repeatedly, and her opposition to the men’s advances and abuse cannot be misinterpreted as no can sometimes mean yes. The myth that women “invite assault” owing to the way that they dress or provocative behaviour is also challenged. Jennifer sports a bikini in many scenes, not because she means to goad or titillate the locals, but because she is on a summer holiday and has uninhibited access to a clean and secluded water source. The gang is also not 77 spontaneously consumed with “sexual urges”, as the attacks occur only after nights of fireside contemplation and creepy stalking. The gang hide and patiently wait for Jennifer to come crawling back to the summer house before embarking on their third sortie of vicious assaults. The men are not unknown assailants or faceless “strangers”. Jennifer chats with both Johnny and Matthew on her arrival, is friendly to Johnny and is tolerant of simpleton Matthew, dispelling any excuses that her tone or demeanor could trigger or justify such attacks. There is absolutely no ambiguity in the way that Zarchi’s challenges and debunks the myths listed, which as Oldridge (2003), claims cannot be said for other films of the rape-revenge canon, some of which have been lauded for “their sensitive and ‘responsible’ treatment of sexual violence

(Oldridge 2003, 123). Films such as THE ACCUSED (1988) or LIPSTICK (1976) are as examples of mainstream Hollywood productions that have narratives that comply with the previously listed myths. It is hinted that model Christine McCormick (Margaux

Hemingway), the rape victim in LIPSTICK is perhaps partly to blame for her attack. Her rapist is found not guilty when tried before a jury and is only after raping the younger sister of his first victim, stealing the young girl’s innocence, as if her own rape were not reason enough to seek revenge. Barker finds the message of the film more dubious than the “outright condemnation of rape” (Barker 1984, 129), by ISOYG.

LIPSTICK was aired on British television at the height of the Video nasty scare, without causing the public to protest of complain (Ibid). The attackers in THE ACCUSED are depicted as only having committed their attack after being triggered by a sudden and overpowering lust (Ibid).

8.6 Headless Women

ISOYG is often cited as not only being one of the sickest and most depraved of the ‘video nasties’, but as one of the sickest films of all time (Newman 1988, 80). Roger Ebert, film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times could hardly control has disgust while writing his review in June 1980 and thought the movie

“so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe it's playing in respectable theatres.” (Ebert 1980).

Such assertions were not only directed at the film, but also at the artwork and imagery that was designed to market the movie to cinema and video audiences. Here, I argue through analysis and comparison with other films that ISOYG was unfairly treated and show how other films of the era that used similar tropes and imagery, or narratives dealing with rape and justice were lauded by critics and feminists, while ISOYG was dismissed and banned, and was even referred to as “a vile bag of garbage” (Ebert 78

1980), by respected and influential mainstream critics. Since its initial release in theatres in the late 1970s and on video in the early 1980s, critics have offered widely opposing opinions on the advertising artwork used to promote ISOYG. Andi Zeisler (2008), for example, considers the video cover to be misogynistic and includes imagery that endorses violence towards women (Zeisler 2008, 72), while Meyers (2011), believes the cover is “a masterpiece of cunning ingenuity” (Meyers 2011, 107). Mckenna (2017), acknowledges these and other assertions, but to steer the discourse away from subjective opinion, observes that the promotional artwork

“bears a close resemblance to a host of other promotional images used to advertise any number of mainstream Hollywood films” (McKenna 2017, 132-134).

Here, I first present work conducted by Marcia Belsky to highlight the historic and widespread extent of the practice of only incorporating sexually coded parts of women’s bodies in the promotion of films and TV shows. I will then compare the artwork used to promote ISOYG with a Hollywood film that was released at approximately the same time.

In 2016, American comedian Marcia Belsky exploited the potential of social media and started a project with the inventive and humorous name of Headless Women of Hollywood, which is devoted to the collection of media and advertising imagery which sexualizes and exploits the female form (Rao 2018). The project has garnered mainstream media attention and

“seeks to bring attention to the...practice of fragmenting, fetishizing and dehumanizing the images of women we see in film, TV, book covers, and advertisement” (Belsky 2016).

The project invites followers to post examples of such exploitation and catalogues historical as well as contemporary examples of the practice. Rao (2018), argues that that the project

“has assumed greater importance amidst the ongoing conversation about institutionalized sexism in Hollywood in the light of the Harvey Weinstein revelations” (Rao 2018).

After originally being made aware of the phenomenon by one of her professor’s years earlier (Ibid), Belsky continued to notice that a significant number of films were being promoted with imagery that only depicted sexualized parts of women’s bodies such as breasts and buttocks in posters and video covers. The phenomenon can be observed across numerous film genres such as comedies, historical dramas and horror, and in films targeting specific ethic groups (Mckenna 2017). Many of the predominantly young 79 and attractive women that appear in these posters are depicted without heads, giving the project its name. Belsky believes that

‘by decapitating the woman, or fragmenting her body into decontextualized sexual parts, she becomes an unquestionably passive object to the male gaze’ (Belsky 2016).

She further opines that

‘the consistent fragmentation of women’s bodies, with particular focus on the boobs, butt and lips, separates the sexualized female body parts from her wholeness’ so that ‘the viewer does not have to morally reconcile the woman who is being objectified with her complete humanness’ (Ibid).

The trend of using women’s bodies in a sexualized way in film posters is nothing new. Indeed, headless women and their body parts have been adorning poster campaigns and artwork for many decades (Mckenna 2017).

Fig. 39: MUNCHIES (1987).56 THE TUDORS (TV SERIES) (2010).57

McKenna lists several Hollywood films that have adopted the practice of depicting headless women in their advertising campaigns including FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981), which was directed by John Glen. This film is particularly appropriate for comparison with ISOYG, in that both films were released on video in 1982. ISOYG came out in the UK in January 1982, while Warner Home Video, the home entertainment division of

Warner Brothers released FOR YOUR EYES ONLY in December of the same year (McKenna 2017, 133).

ISOYG is one of the most famous of all the 72 ‘video nasties’ and its artwork was along with other famous ‘nasties’ such as DRILLER KILLER (1979), SS EXPERIMENT CAMP

(1976) and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980) paraded by British politicians before the British

80 public as depraved and sordid proof of what was contained on the video tapes, while the poster and video cover that was used to promote FOR YOUR EYES ONLY was not met with any dissention or protest. Both films were marketed with posters and video covers that show a headless woman from behind, clearly exposing the young woman’s bum. The bodies are both of healthy white women in their 20s, with buttocks and legs that are not only visible, but are also toned and eroticized (Ibid).

Fig. 40: VHS covers: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981).58 ISOYG (1978).59

There are however, other notable similarities. Both women hold a potentially lethal weapon in their right hand. The woman in the bond film holds a crossbow by her side, while the woman in the ISOYG artwork carries a long knife (Ibid). The women are both centrally positioned and dominate the image. The woman in the bond poster is clearly coded as a threat as Bond is pointing a gun straight at her. She sports glamorous high heels and as she is in the foreground of the image is much bigger and appears more powerful than Bond. She stands straight and static with her feet planted firmly on the ground, while Bond’s body is unbalanced and appears to have been surprised. This could easily be interpreted to convey that the woman is in control and is unfazed and doesn’t regard Bond as a threat. The woman in ISOYG carries a knife, but she could be out hunting and poses no immediate threat to anyone as she is alone in the image. It is only on reading the text and taglines that adorn the cover of ISOYG that we learn the woman has already committed some gruesome murders in an act of revenge. The advertising design for the Bond film was adopted internationally and was even used in countries like Egypt that are traditionally not as tolerant of women displaying their bodies in public. It should be noted that the image in the Bond poster is illustrated which is perhaps less threatening and the buttocks are more concealed in the Egyptian version of the poster. 81

Fig. 41:British poster.60 Egyptian poster.61

Having presented and analyzed the similarities between the two advertising designs, an argument could be made that ISOYG was treated unfairly, in that its promotional material was ridiculed for its misogyny and depraved nature, when mainstream Hollywood productions were using very similar imagery and coding. The decapitation and sexualization of the female form was and is not only evident in the artwork of the video nasties. It continues to be a firm favourite among contemporary producers and advertisers.

8.7 Accusing THE ACCUSED (1988).

Here, I and challenge the assertion that ISOYG is an anti-feminist narrative. ISOYG has often been accused of being misogynistic towards women and anti-feminist

(Zeisler 2008, 72). The film’s original title, DAY OF THE WOMAN, already reveals Zarchi’s intentions of granting agency to women and giving them the stamina and resolve to go out and get justice. By comparing Zarchi’s 1978 film to that of THE ACCUSED (1988), Bindel (2011), makes the case that ISOYG is a far more feminist movie than the Jodie

Foster vehicle that received praise from critics and feminists on its release. THE

ACCUSED (1988), directed by Jonathan Kaplan and starring Jodie Foster was based on real and tragic events that occurred in Massachusetts in 1983. A young woman was abused and raped up against a pinball machine in a bar by two assailants while another small group of men looked on and cheered. The attack was later reported by the victim and the attackers and the bystanders who had witnessed the attack but done nothing to stop it were arrested and brought to trial. Rumors and stories about the victim’s promiscuity and alcohol problems spread around the small community of New Bedford like a disease, and as the high-profile trial was televised, the identity of the victim could not be concealed from the public. The rumors about the woman’s lifestyle caused locals to vilify the young woman for her allegedly licentious behaviour.

The woman’s attackers were convicted and received custodial sentences, but the bystanders were acquitted. News of the acquittals reached the community and a march was hastily organized by the good people of New Bedford to run the harlot out of town and celebrate the men’s acquittal (Bindel 2011).

The acquittal of the onlookers is where real events diverge from those that are depicted in the film. The onlookers are convicted in Kaplan’s film and justice is seen to be served. A witness comes forward in the final act and testifies on behalf of the victim helping the prosecution to get the onlookers convicted. THE ACCUSED, Bindel argues, “is a fairytale about how we would like things to be” (Bindel 2011) and served as a comfort and fantasy ending to the feminists of the late 1980s who were weakened and ignored by the Thatcher government. It attempts to create the myth that rape will always be punished was applauded by feminists at the time. However, as described previously, the film was based on a case where the onlookers were not only acquitted but were welcomed back into their community (Ibid). Mary Whitehouse and campaigning politicians such as Martin Bright MP claimed that they did not have to watch video nasties like ISOYG to know that they were evil and depraved, but it is perhaps more than coincidental that a film where the main female character becomes strong and powerful and gets revenge her way should have been so ridiculed and despised in Thatcher’s Britain.

ISOYG, in contrast, does not that claim that the courts will get it right in the end or “present the criminal justice system as a friend to women” (Bindel 2011). Jennifer Hills is prevented from calling the authorities, as Stanley kicks the phone receiver out of her hand just as she is about to call for help. This, along with the gang’s repeated abuse pushes Jennifer over the edge. She realizes that she must take matters into her own hands and plans and executes the murders her four assailants with cold and calculated resolve. She does not wait for judges, lawyers or surprise witnesses to appear and punish her abusers. This is the type of justice that men and rapists should fear (Ibid). Life was seen to imitate art during a trial in the 1990s in Britain where a woman who had stabbed and killed her child’s rapist was acquitted by the jury although the judge had urged it not to do so (Ibid).This shows that such justice can sometimes be had through the courts, but the sad truth is that the jury’s verdict was an something of an anomaly, and that many rapists get away with their crimes. Jennifer becomes a strong woman who relies only on her resolve, determination and creativity to exact revenge and restore balance, while Sarah Tobias (Jodie Foster) needs the help of

83 several men and a system that she has no control over to find justice, in a film that is based on real events where justice was not served to non-intervening bystanders.

8.8 North, not South: DELIVERANCE (1972)

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE was not the first rape-revenge movie although for many people it was the first on their cinematic radar because of its infamous notoriety (Maguire

2018, Chapter 3). The film exhibits similarities with John Boorman’s DELIVERANCE (1972) which Rikke Schubart (2007) opines is the film that kickstarted the rape- revenge canon of movies (Schubart 2007,85). The film pits the country against the city, includes a simple country retard and the scene where Andy sits on a rock playing his harmonica is reminiscent of Boorman’s famous banjo duet scene. ISPYG even carried the original tagline “More devastating than Deliverance” (Maguire 2018, Chapter 3). However, Zarchi decided not to set the film in America’s deep South. He did not embrace the trope of tobacco chewing and moonshine swigging Southern rednecks and retards driving around in banged up pickup trucks, tropes that can be observed in SOUTHERN COMFORT (1981) or even EASY RIDER (1969). In ISOYG, Jennifer rents a summerhouse in the peaceful countryside, a mere three-hour drive from Metropolitan New York, and the gang use modern motorboats to travel up and down the river. This has the effect of keeping the threat of such male behaviour and abuse close to the city. Traditionally, such depravity was reserved for distant swamps and bayous. Zarchi reminds city dwellers that rape, revenge and strong women are closer than hitherto taught by the movies.

8.9 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE as Anti-cinema

An argument can be made that Zarchi incorporated “anti-cinema” elements and techniques when making his film (Oldridge 2003, 123). Oldridge observes the total lack of diegetic or non-diegetic music in the film’s opening act, which contributes significantly to the documentary feel of the film. The rape scenes are protracted and excruciating for viewers to sit through as they record the rape using long static shots, without any musical accompaniment, giving the feeling that the rapes are rendered in real time, making the entire spectacle even more uncomfortable to endure (Kerekes & Slater 2000, 191).

The first music in the film is that of a harmonica as it wafts over the forest after the first attack. It is initially unclear whether the music is diegetic or non-diegetic. This uncertainty is welcoming for the audience as it “distances the audience from the

84 realistic depictions of the assault and its aftermath” (Oldridge 2003, 123). The music signals a brief return to cinematic conventions and “the film becomes filmic” (Barker 1984, 115). When it becomes clear that the music is diegetic, and that Jennifer can hear it, the mood becomes one of hope and possible rescue for Jennifer, but these hopes are cruelly dashed as we learn that music was made by rape accomplice Andy, who has lured Jennifer like a snake charmer to a clearing where he proceeds to sodomize her over a rock. It seems that Zarchi is reminding the viewer that “you can’t hide the reality of rape behind a mask of filmic devices” (Ibid). Oldridge agrees with

Kerekes and Slater (2000) in their assertion that “I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is “very anti- cinema” (Kerekes and Slater 2000, 191). Zarchi is also praised by the authors for his “intelligence” and “willingness” to experiment and not present his audience with expected cinematic devices and horror tropes (Ibid).

Such cinematic techniques are common in pornographic films and can normally be attributed to a porn producer’s wish to save time on camera set ups and money in post- production. Kerekes and Slater (2000), argue that Zarchi intentionally aimed to unsettle audiences when they write that “the film uses the convention of pornographic loops to further alienate its audience” (Kerekes and Slater 2000, 191).

The reactions of journalists and politicians to ISOYG have predominantly been to condemn the rape scenes as violent pornography. Coding the rape scenes in such a way distances Zarchi’s scenes from conventional or normal pornography which provides what some people would consider a valuable service to society, sparing its condemnation. Writing in the British science fiction magazine Starburst, critic Alan Jones did not hold back his disdain in 1982 and felt that

“The protracted rape… is as degrading and squirm inducing as anything I’ve seen in the exploitation field…. This irresponsibility would give the ‘violence against women lobby’ enough ammunition to successfully campaign against anything they wished to” (Jones, quoted in Starr 1984, 49).

Numerous giallo, slasher and horror films that were produced in the 1970s and 80s used camera angles to mimic the subjective viewpoint of the murderer. Zarchi also incorporates subjective camera angles in his film but he more often shows what Jennifer sees while running from her assailants and during the horrific rape scenes. The spectator is forced to look into the eyes of Jennifer’s rapists as they writhe upon her with contorted and euphoric faces. The spectator identifies with the victim who is experiencing the most horrific and degrading moments in her life (Oldridge 2003, 116).

The suggestion that Zarchi wants the audience to identify with Jennifer is strengthened further through close analysis of a scene early in the film before the series of brutal attacks. Jennifer lies in bed late one-night reading when she thinks she hears a noise outside in the woods. She gets up, puts a dressing gown over her long nightdress and proceeds out onto the porch to see who or what made the noise. She is clearly a little concerned but tries not to show any fear. Once outside Zarchi chose to shoot the scene in two static long shots (Maguire 2018, Chapter 1). Zarchi does not employ any of the common tropes of a slasher or giallo, films that commonly use shots that mirror the gaze of the killer and objectify the scantily clad and sexually promiscuous female victims. Jennifer is dress and does not so much as flash a knee when getting out of bed. There are no POV shots of the stalkers peering through the undergrowth and no heavy breathing (Ibid).

Oldridge (2003) argues that ISOYG has seldom been viewed as a piece of art by academics. He argues that the sequence that leads to the murder of Matthew shows artistic merit in the way in which Jennifer is presented as an “avenging spirit” that has come back from the dead to dish out justice. Jennifer remains calm and in control when Matthew approaches her with a knife and by simply undressing before him, she wipes his mind clean of murderous intention and seduces him into submission. The fact that Matthew is the first of the four gang members to be killed by Jennifer is also significant. Being a retard, Matthew was the “least culpable” of the four men. The others had to pour alcohol down his throat before he even plucked up the courage to undress. His failure to follow Johnny’s order and kill Jennifer saves her life. Being the first to die makes Jennifer’s plan of revenge seem utterly relentless. Oldridge cliams that

“By killing Matthew first, Zarchi confronts the audience with the terrible impartiality of his heroine’s actions”. Oldridge 2003, 118).

Jennifer uses her sexuality and sex to literally disarm Matthew and take total control of events. Her sexuality empowers Jennifer, but it is very discomforting after having witnessed Jennifer being raped in previous scenes and the audience cannot simply condone the killing of a simpleton. Oldridge suggests that these elements are not accidental and were weaved together by Zarchi to create “one of the most disturbing sequences in modern horror cinema” (Ibid).

When Jennifer confronts Johnny and makes him strip at gunpoint he challenges her and blames her for his actions for flaunting her body and flashing her breasts, and that any red-blooded man would have done the same. She is at the right end of the

86 gun but appears to buckle under Johnny’s arguments and hands him the gun in an apparent act of submission. He does not assault or shoot Jennifer as she lures him back to the cabin with the promise of sex. Having witnessed the murder of Matthew only moments before, the audience knows that Johnny is doomed.

Both scenes exemplify in Oldridge’s opinion, an inversion of traditional cinematic conventions of “plot and composition”. Handing over the gun to Johnny emulates the trope of an emotionally fragile character succumbing to the logic and attraction of the “perceptive hero”, but rapist Johnny is no hero and Jennifer’s use of sexual promise to placate Johnny only accentuates the notion of Jennifer’s power and control. Oldridge likens the scene of Matthew wielding a knife as he follows Jennifer to that of countless giallo or early slasher offerings, but here it is the one with the knife that it is soon to be the victim (Oldridge 2003, 119).

It is very unfortunate that deliberate techniques and Zarchi’s artistic exploration that make ISOYG so subversive and brilliant are unfortunately the very same that have been focused upon by male critics, journalists and politicians to denounce the film as depraved and corruptive, smearing the film with such a long-lasting and unfair reputation (Oldridge 2003, 123).

8.10 Remakes and sequels

The outrage and controversy that surrounded the film quickly spawned similar narratives. The Turkish production İntikam Kadını / A WOMAN’S REVENGE (1979) was made within a year of ISOYG’s release. This Turkish edition to the rape-revenge canon sees the young Aysel (Zerrin Dogan) raped by four men after their car breaks down near Aysel’s farm. Having also killed Aysel’s father, the men depart for the city leaving the woman for dead. After nursing her wounds, she promises revenge and sets off after the men, murdering them one by one. Also known as Turkish I Spit on Your Grave, the film lacks the subtlety of Zarchi’s offering. The way Zarchi intentionally withheld from including music in his film to make the rape scenes feel more like documentary footage was particularly lost on director Naki Yurter. The promotional material also lacks the impact of the original and resembles artwork more akin to a soft porn flick.

Fig. 42: İNTIKAM KADINI / A WOMAN’S REVENGE (1979).62

In 2010, Stephen Monroe directed a remake of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, and the BBFC reacted in a remarkably similar way as it had to Zarchi’s 1978 original. Monroe’s film was like its predecessor, also awarded an 18 certificate after 43 seconds were removed. The Board cut shots of female nudity just as they had done when classifying the 1978 version for its 2002 video release. The Board also decided to remove shots that emulated the point of view of the attackers during the rape scenes. An oft cited contemporary justification for such cuts is that censors are sensitive to the issue of inviting spectators to identify and sympathize with the killer, but as was the case in Zarchi’s original, such shots were included to show the horror experienced by the victim and aimed at making the brutal and degrading act of rape seem even more repulsive and abhorrent. The Board also cut shots that depicted how the gang filmed themselves as they abused and violated their victim. The BBFC have defended this decision by claiming that such scenes

“seemed to encourage the viewer to become complicit in the attacks, rather than merely an appalled spectator” (BBFC1: 2019).

Having viewed an uncut version of the film as part of my research for this paper I disagree with the opinion of the BBFC censors. The clever technological update in Monroe’s film mirrors how horrific events are often captured on smartphones and posted online within minutes of occurring. Depicting such behaviour during a brutal rape scene I would argue does not make the viewer complicit to the act but intelligently underscores how humans have developed the ability to become emotionally immune to atrocities and violent acts if they are exposed to them via a screen or TV set. The BBFC contend that the same scenes serve to “eroticize or endorse sexual violence” (BBFC1: 2019). Here too, I am not in alignment with the opinion of the Board. Monroe

88 is doubling down with his message. The pleasure had by the gang as they film their deed is not an erotic or sexually gratifying pleasure, the pleasure they feel comes from the feeling of power and control that they are perpetuating by committing everything on digital film. The BBFC were satisfied with the cuts but were not terribly comfortable with the film. Adhering to the provisions and articles laid down by the Human Rights Act, but determined to have the last word, the Board made a final throw of the dice in its crusade to protect the good British public by requesting the inclusion of the informative consumer advice that even after being censored the film still contained ‘very strong terrorization, sexual violence, and bloody violence'.

The promotional artwork for the 2010 remake of ISOYG and its two sequels ISOYG 2 (2013), and ISOYG 3 (2015) emulate the promotional material of the 1978 original. All three films depict young, headless, toned, and erotically coded women in their marketing imagery. The original film has an almost mythical reputation, and the producers at Anchor Bay were keen to perpetuate and exploit its legacy.

The promotional material designed for ISOYG DEJA VU (2019) still has many of the standard tropes for ISOYG artwork. She is centrally framed from behind, alone and dominates the image. She is young, has an athletic and sexualized body and is lightly clothed. She still carries a weapon in her right hand. There is however, one very significant difference. She has a head, twisted over her left shoulder scowling back at spectator. She is no longer decontextualized or fragmented. She possesses a face and an identity. This noteworthy change can possibly be attributed to the sensitive climate in the Hollywood of 2019, where accusations of rape and female abuse have shaken the industry to its core and the image of women is being debated and reassessed.

Fig. 43: ISOYG (2010).63 ISOYG 1-3 Boxette.64 ISOYG Déjà vu (2019).65

9. Conclusion.

The video nasty moral panic of the 1980s that led to the passing of the VRA was the result of the combined efforts of the British press, evangelical moralists and politicians. It did not see large numbers of people protesting on the streets of Britain about the content of a few horror films as they had in Toxteth or Brixton over racial tension, pay cuts and mass redundancies. It was a construct that played out in the pages of the tabloid media. The press laid claim to public opinion and pushed its own agenda. Evangelicals and conservatives lied and got away with their fraudulent practices and behaviour. Politicians quickly fell into line and passed legislation that ushered in total censorship of video content in Britain. Small distributors were fined and jailed for nothing more than making some films sleazy and trashy horror movies available to the public. Other European countries did not witness any moral panics, nor did they experience the implosion of their societies.

Moralists no longer campaign about the dangers of video, except when looking for a scapegoat for hideous crimes like the Jamie Bolger murder. The fact that almost all the 72 nasties are now freely available in music stores or online does not bother moralists, as they are more concerned about dominating and controlling the present. The video nasty scare highlights the need for what Martin Barker calls “historical memory”. Critical voices need to care about history, as the establishment and elite continue to believe that they have the right to judge over how people are entertained. This author hopes that readers will be more aware about how things were controlled and censored in the past, as history has repeated itself many times. It is only through knowledge and awareness of the past that can learn and hope to avoid such panics in the future (Barker quoted in West 2010).

Word Count (34,550).

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