RETHINKING THE ‘VIDEO NASTIES’: ECONOMICS, MARKETING, AND DISTRIBUTION MARK MCKENNA A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Sunderland for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2017 February 2017 2 CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS _________________________________________________________ 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS __________________________________________________ 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ___________________________________________________ 6 ABSTRACT _______________________________________________________________ 9 INTRODUCTION: A VERY ‘NASTY BUSINESS’ _____________________________ 10 PART ONE: RATIONALE AND CONTEXT __________________________________ 16 1 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW: INTRODUCTION ___________________________ 17 1.1 The Established History of the Campaign _________________________________ 17 1.2 Complicating the Established Narrative __________________________________ 27 2. LITERATURE REVIEW _______________________________________________ 37 3. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES: INTRODUCTION _________________ 51 3.1 The New Film History ________________________________________________ 52 3.2 Production Studies ___________________________________________________ 54 3.3 Beyond the Text_____________________________________________________ 56 3.4 The Old Film History ________________________________________________ 57 3.5 Summation _________________________________________________________ 58 4. TECHNOLOGY AND POWER _________________________________________ 63 4.1 Introduction ________________________________________________________ 63 4.2 Tracking Home Video _______________________________________________ 64 4.3 The ‘Betamax’ Case _________________________________________________ 70 4.4 Home Entertainment Before Video ______________________________________ 74 4.5 The Last Picture Show ________________________________________________ 75 4.6 The Major Distributors _______________________________________________ 77 5. INDEPENDENCE AND INDUSTRY _____________________________________ 79 5.1 Beyond the National _________________________________________________ 79 5.2 Markets and Economics _______________________________________________ 83 5.3 The Politics of Independence __________________________________________ 88 PART TWO: _____________________________________________________________ 92 MARKETING AND BRANDING____________________________________________ 92 6. HISTORICISING THE NEW THREAT __________________________________ 93 6.1 Definitions, Origins, & The American Marketplace For Exploitation Cinema ____ 98 6.2 Cinema, Video and the British Marketplace for Exploitation Cinema __________ 104 3 6.3 Hammer Horror And Cultural Specificity Of Promotions ___________________ 109 7. Marketing ___________________________________________________________ 115 7.1 Trailers, Taglines, and Tactics: ________________________________________ 115 Selling Horror Films on Video in the Early 1980s ____________________________ 115 7.2 Complicating the Promotional History __________________________________ 116 7.3 An Analytical Model to Measure Promotion _____________________________ 119 7.4 Applying the Model _________________________________________________ 121 7.5 Sex and Violence and Ballyhoo________________________________________ 124 7.6 Publicity as Paratextual Marketing Campaign ____________________________ 147 8. Branding _____________________________________________________________ 154 8.1 Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 154 8.2 The Branding of Video Companies in the Early 1980s: Logos, Idents and 8-Bit Aesthetics____________________________________________________________ 155 8.3 The Branding of Video Companies in the 1990s: A Comparative Analysis of Redemption and Vipco _________________________________________________ 161 8.4 The Branding of Specialist Video Companies in the 2000s: Brand Equity: Categories, Meanings and Associations ______________________________________________ 175 PART THREE: __________________________________________________________ 184 GENRIFICATION AND GENTRIFICATION ________________________________ 184 9. Genrification ________________________________________________________ 185 9.1 Introduction _______________________________________________________ 185 9.2 Genre ____________________________________________________________ 186 9.3 The Video Nasties: Politics and Genre __________________________________ 189 9.4 The Institutions of Genre _____________________________________________ 194 9.5 A Discursively Constructed Genre _____________________________________ 196 9.6 An Industrially Reinforced Genre ______________________________________ 204 9.7 Video: The Genre __________________________________________________ 214 10. Gentrification _______________________________________________________ 220 10.1 Introduction ______________________________________________________ 220 10.2 Criteria for Canon Formation ________________________________________ 222 10.3 The New Media Renaissance ________________________________________ 224 10.4 The Perception of Value in a Cinematic Canon __________________________ 230 10.5 Cinema and Snobbery ______________________________________________ 233 10.6 The Art of Exploitation _____________________________________________ 242 4 10.7 The End of Exploitation ____________________________________________ 253 CONCLUSION: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE _______________________________ 255 Bibliography _____________________________________________________________ 261 Appendices ______________________________________________________________ 280 Appendix I ____________________________________________________________ 280 Films Prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act in 1984 Department Of Public Prosecutions (Dpp) 39 __________________________________________________ 280 Appendix II ___________________________________________________________ 288 Films Listed in the Department of Public Prosecutions List but not Prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act in 1984 _________________________________________ 288 Appendix III __________________________________________________________ 294 Dpp Section 3 Titles ___________________________________________________ 294 Appendix IV ___________________________________________________________ 303 Locations Of The Premises Of Video Distributors That Released The Dpp 39 ______ 303 Appendix V ___________________________________________________________ 308 British Videogram Association Full Members As Of 24th September 1986 ________ 308 Appendix VI ___________________________________________________________ 309 Theatrical Exhibition of ‘video nasties’ prior to their release on video ____________ 310 ABBREVIATIONS 5 ASA Advertising Standards Authority BBFC British Board of Film Classification (formerly British Board of Film Censors) BFI British Film Institute BVA British Video Association (formerly British Videogram Association) DPP Department of Public Prosecutions HoC House of Commons HoL House of Lords IDA Indecent Displays Act 1981 MPAAMotion Picture Association of America OPA Obscene Publications Act 1959 VCR Video Cassette Recorder VRA Video Recordings Act 1984 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: The Driller Killer VHS cover..................................................................................................... 19 6 Figure 2: ‘The men who grow rich on bloodlust’ - The Daily Mail, 4 August 1983 ............................... 23 Figure 3: ‘Two or Three Things I Know About the Video Nasties - BFI Monthly Film Bulletin (1984) ... 42 Figure 4: ‘Sarnoff sees No.1 wish come true!’, Time 15 February 1954. .............................................. 66 Figure 5: Mom and Dad (1945) ........................................................................................................... 101 Figure 6: The Quatermass Xperiment UK Cinema poster ................................................................... 109 Figure 7: Dracula cinema hoarding (Hearn 2010: Frontispiece) ......................................................... 111 Figure 8: Pulp cover comparison......................................................................................................... 127 Figure 9: S.S Experiment Camp VHS cover .......................................................................................... 128 Figure 10: Beast in Heat VHS cover ..................................................................................................... 129 Figure 11: Man's Epic - February 1965................................................................................................ 131 Figure 12: For Your Eyes Only cinema poster and I Spit on Your Grave VHS cover ............................ 134 Figure 13: Horror Stories front cover 1940 (Robinson et al 2002:336) and Bloody Moon UK VHS cover 1980 .................................................................................................................................................... 137 Figure 14: Assorted images from the covers of The Pan Book of Horror Stories ................................ 139 Figure 15: E.T.n. VHS cover ................................................................................................................. 141 Figure 16: ‘Guess the brain weight’ (author’s own archive) ............................................................... 142 Figure 17: The Last House on the Left VHS cover................................................................................ 145 Figure 18: Horror on Screen.com’s ‘Horror Genres