Well, I can’t recall precisely how this event swum into my view, invaded my consciousness or indeed leaked all over my social feeds. But I know for certain when.
The supermarkets were full of plastic spiders. Haribo were systematically receding the gums of the under-fives with something called “Horror-bo.” And the nice people at Starbucks were ruining the domestic budgets of single parents about the land with £7.40 for a Pumpkin Spiced Latte. For t’was Oct 16th and we as consumers creeped slowly towards Hallowe’en.
Doom scrolling – as I believe the “kidz” call it – late one night, idly thumbing, swiping, sighing and eye-rolling at whatever hypnotic guff an algorithm had decided was “must see news” for a grey man in his fifties, an advertisement slid upwards onto my screen and some choice key-words – London / Horror / Nasty / Video / Cannibal – caught my thumb and I paused, hovered and gingerly double clicked. Hey-ho, I thought. This looks right up my alley…
I should explain. I’m not particularly brave or broad in my Social Media usage. A late-ish adopter to Facebook (mid 2000’s), that’s sort of been it really for my “socials”. I was encouraged to get “active” on ‘Twitter’ in 2010 in some sort of feeble attempt to get an “online presence” when my third novel Conman was published. And then my eager publishers pushed me to double down on my “1 tweet a month” and ‘up my hashes’ when the book was nominated for a Gold Dagger Award. But I have never understood Twitter. Its purpose, methodology or mechanics are lost on me. And as, by and large, I heard less and less pleasant stuff about life amongst its posts and pillorying, I drifted away. I don’t think it noticed. I understand it’s now a troublesome “X.” And like many men of my age, I have enough of those in my life already.
Instagram became a place to shove images of Jeff Goldblum when I entirely failed to change the world of animation and popular culture with a short-lived online set of JG Funko Pop animations in 2010.
But I have wearily realised that “Insta” has become just another vehicle for the world to explain to me how I’m not “…effectively monetising a side-hustle…” So I don’t bother with that much. Other formats? Well SnapChat seemed to be a way of teenagers to send pictures of their underwear to each other. And from what I can glimpse, TikTok appears to be the platform primarily if you want to wear Hello Kitty leggings and share a dance you invented in your bedroom with the population of mainland China. So I remain, like many Gen-Exers – just a Facey-book sort of chap really. I follow several excellent Horror movie pages and Video Nasty posts but rarely do more than dip my toe in their oft both righteous and riotous online debates about “which franchise has to go?!” or “Who was the best Freddie?” or “Vote now on your favourite final girl!” and memes about Ringu.
But as I say, my interest in all things Nasty clearly has me flagged on some kind of Se7en-esque FBI watch list as, there on my feed last October, popped an advert for an upcoming Lecture in Central London.
The ad didn’t give away much. “Cannibal Error – A Social History of the video Nasty.” Scanning the details, it appeared that for no more than nine of my British pounds, I could trot along to the charming Conway Hall in London’s Holborn and settle in for an hour or two in the company of some likeminded Cineasts who would take me and my brethren through an engaging historical lecture of the 1980s Video Nasty scare, its causes, impacts and social reverberations. I needed merely to order a ticket (or two) and wait patiently for 36 days.
Well this as you can imagine, dear reader, was the nippiest of catnip to your author.
Having had a go at a potted-history of this fascinating subject myself, click here for BANNING FOR BEGINNERS, it seemed bootless to think there wouldn’t be lots more to learn from expert folk who really know their stuff. And plus you can’t get an hour’s worth of anything in London for £9 these days, so a decision was made.
I plumped for just 1 ticket as I’m an anti-social SOB and I have neither a loved-one, confrere or confidant who I knew would confidently share my enthusiasm for this sort of nerdy trope-talk. But ticket purchased, email confirmation received, I bunged it into my phone’s calendar and promptly forgot all about it.
Thirty-six days rolled inevitably around, as astronomers promised it would.
November 21st. I found myself donning sturdy walking brogues, a handsome bit of tweed, a natty waistcoat in a Ruperty Fox-Hunting check, some Elvis Presley cufflinks and my blue-tooth travelling headphones for the trip into that there London. (My wardrobe is full of this sort of mock-eccentric twaddle. But it was a toss up between “landed gentry” or my other sartorial go-to: aging, dodgems-oiling Teddy Boy. And I didn’t fancy the zips and boots on a stuffy SWTrain). So north I headed into the chilly November night with hope in my heart, Hawley on my headphones, horror on my mind but no real idea what to expect.
Now, a word on the splendid Conway Hall, WC1, home of The Ethical Society since the 1920s. I knew the venue from wayyyyy back, as I attended it a half dozen times in my spotty youth.
An intimate pop concert, perhaps a Billy Bragg benefit gig (not for the benefit of Billy Bragg you understand. He appears to be financially stable. Some well-meaning charity or other). I think I may also have swung by with an elder brother to a Smiths convention in the 1990s where badges and bootlegs were bought and sold and quiffs envied and admired. In my memory I recalled the building as a drafty, academic affair. Lots of cold ironwork bannisters, heavy fire-doors, wood-panelling and the still-lingering whiff of labour party rallies, Sellotape, socialist ranting, tea-urns, ‘up-the-workers’ inky leaflets and stern Victorian talks about Presbyterianism, pledges and the evils of gin. I arrived at its sturdy deco door just before 7pm and was pleased to note that yes, it was still exactly like that.
Some keen and friendly Conway folk let us through (I was loitering in the echoey doorway with what appeared to be a like-minded couple with more than a passing enthusiasm for corn-syrup and Jesus Franco) and we headed over the cold tiles and passed the groaning iron plumbing to the Brockway Room where it appeared we were to settle in for the evening.
Ahhh, this is more like it. We were ushered to the small, functional function room of the ‘beige, modern 6th form social-studies’ lecture type, about 80 school chairs arranged in four or five rows in front of a raised dais. Two empty chat-show chairs awaited our hosts, Parkinson style, and a biggish-screen TV promised an upcoming slide-show.
The floor criss-crossed with sticky yellow and black tape adhering mic cables and video wires to the floor, which all snaked to the camera, mixing desk and AV-Club set up, manned by a techie of the most capable type. To one side at a front table, a prompt and professional lady sat keeping charge of the petty-cash box, card-swiper and a table of what appeared to be a dozen particularly hefty copies of the Yellow Pages. A closer nose and I realised no, these were the books for sale, accompanying the talk. And fucking lumbering monstrous things they were. Well over a kilo and thicker than I am, 588 pages of small-print and illustrations, it was clear whoever had penned this encyclopaedic tome (Davids Kerekes and Slater)
- a. had spent a fuck of a long time researching and writing it. And
- b. Bloody well knew their stuff.
So I found a chair and unwrapped scarf and unbuttoned overcoat, taking a mo to grab my pen and pad for nerdy note taking and cast my specs about the room to see what other sort of folk considered an evening discussing corpses, cuts, chronology and censorship a top-night out.
The room did not disappoint. Pale faces, heavy coats. Lots and lots of wool. Hats & scarves, piercings & tats, couples & loners, it was a rag-tag team of enthusiasts. Across the 80 seats, hair was either long & straggly, unkempt, receding, missing, bobbed or dyed. Spectacles were thick-lensed, heavy framed, bifocal and in no short supply. A smattering of birthmarks and moles, a bag of knitting, silver jewellery, Frankenstein t-shirts, classic British dental work and a lone fedora from the Kim Newman Menswear department. If Sissy Spacek and Terry Pratchett had been left alone to breed, 45 years later, this would be the family reunion. Nicest, gentlest, kindest people in the world, horror fans. These are my people, of course, and I feel I belong and was privileged to be counted in their number.
We sit and wait patiently. Horror fans can be an awkward social bunch, so not a great deal of boisterous “hi, where are you from? Or “What’s your favourite dismemberment from Bay Of Blood?” as we were mostly all happy to busy ourselves with phone screens, knitting needles, the worlds noisiest bag of crisps (you know who you are) or to leaf contentedly through a 1981 back-issue of Fangoria.
As the clock hauled its big-hand north, a staff member went chair to chair handing out a flyer pushing “what’s next” announcements of events to come. I took one and then was immediately detracted by a small clinking sound below me. It was a penny. Dropping.
Ahhhh. These guys…
The flyer revealed we were in Fortean Territory. If that means anything to you.
Okay, so a fast cul-de-sac here. I don’t know when I first came across the term “Fortean Times.” I imagine p’raps as a schoolboy. I never quite got what it was. Firstly, the pronunciation. Was it like “14 times?” Or “Fort-Ian Times?” Like a guy called Ian lives in a fort? I always assumed the latter as the weirder (probably spelt wyrder) and more magical (spelt magickal) the better for those types.
I knew it as a…thing. A magazine? A fanzine? Something akin, perhaps, to the US’s National Enquirer? A bit oddball? A little on the culty side? I always sensed somewhere on the edge of popular-culture, in a backroom near Camden lock, a person with a silver topped cane would be running a mimeograph in a room smelling of incense and carbon paper. Using the Necronomicon as a paperweight, Aleister Crowley on the speed-dial and cuttings from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not tucked in the wallet and on the run from the FBI. It was that. Long coats. Hush hush. The truth is out there. Have a roll-up. That thing. That world. Meetings above pubs, conspiracies, leafleting…all with the whiff of Real Ale and a buckled tin of slim Panatellas.
It seemed there was some tie-in with this event and the Faerie Fortean folk, if the flyer flagging talks on Timeslips and Vampires was anything to go by. In fact, nipping to the gents for a wee just prior to the start, I noted on the list of “forthcoming Conway Hall attractions” I’d already missed evenings here with preeminent experts on The Uncanny, Divination and Mudlarking. Was I getting out alive? Or at least., without a 12 month subscription?
Well no time to worry about that. The clock struck seven. Our gracious host took the stage with a moment of the sort of “settle down class” awkwardness of the bookish suddenly thrust into showbusiness. Whistly microphone feedback as AV Club tech was sorted and we all sat up straight. A bit of matronly housekeeping about the live-streaming and the fire exits, a nod to the table of books for purchasing and some introductions to the speakers. Once again, coppers tumbled to the linoleum as pennies dropped. I was not only in the forbidden Fortean forest, I had also it seems turned up at a promotional book launch for Headpress Publishing.
Now I’m no stranger to the promotional book-launch. Christ, I spent – what was it now – about 6 years in the London book trade myself as a professional, working on in-store signings, readings, author-tours and school-visits, and then later full-time book-event marketing. This was in the bookish period of, if memory serves, 1997-2003. If you want to picture the industry then, it was pretty much the pre-Amazon era of the high-street. Waterstones, Foyles, Books Etc, Borders, Blackwells, Ottakers, Hatchards…
Raking in the hard-earned book-buyer dollars during my stint were Angela’s Ashes, John Grisham, The Celestine Prophecy, Bridget Jones, Nick Hornby, Harry Potter, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Hannibal, Life of Pi and of course The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to name but a few. I had the stress and pleasure of trying to excite, entice, gather, corral, placate and tolerate London crowds myself as I chaperoned some of the nicest people in the book-business through celebrity signings and events. For 2 years I swapped fashion tips with Ronan Keating, talked hair products with Victoria Beckham, joked with Bruce Forsyth, drank with Harlan Coban, dined with James Patterson, gushed with Stephen Fry, punned with Michael Palin, got psychoanalysed by John Cleese and danced with one Joanne Kathleen Rowling. Happy years.
Getting off the subject somewhat here. Do forgive. Point is, I know an event with a commercial hustle when I see one, but was more than happy to be part of a lovely, lively evening among experts & enthusiasts, debating and discussing a topic close to my heart for an hour or two. And hell, if I could help them shift a few copies of the tie-in book at the end, as far as I was concerned, bring it on.
And on the it was promptly brought.
The next 40 minutes or so were brought to life by two very knowledgeable, well versed, opinionated (but in the good, fun way,) welcoming horror-buffs and it flew by.
Dr Jennifer “Jen” Wallis – I hope she wont mind me saying – is struck from a familiar mould, for folk familiar with the scene. In fact I’m pretty sure if you contact Fortnum & Mason and request a deluxe “Horror Academic double pack set” then you get the secretary specs, the black leggings and the cool shiny Doc Martens thrown in plus Jen’s accompanying action figure – David – replete in requisite baggy cargo pants, natty suede trainers, a stripey shirt, specs, piercings and beard that Gandalf would happily to borrow for weddings and parties.
If one needs to put faces to names and back again, here he is in 2014 expertly introducing Cannibal Holocaust, proving as always that a film that requires no introduction shouldn’t stop it getting one:
Back and forth the couple ping-ponged in their earthy Mancunian twangs, each taking turns to roll out the history, the key players, the big decisions, the legislation and backdrop to how the arrival of home-video equipment on British shores, a lack of cultural understanding, a sensation-hungry public, a Ripper-haunted atmosphere of violence and panic plus container-ships full of the nastiest exploitative gore and grue created both a cottage industry and a short lived tabloid frenzy.
You’ll know the basic story of course, so here I’ll recap and recount the highlights of the talk which Jen and David brought to life with slides, images and academic insight. In short, here’s what we all learned that we didn’t already know. (If you can imagine thorughout, a half-dozen horror nerds nodding, smiling and making smuggy “ha-haaa, D’Amato’s Anthropophagouse, of course…” noises to show off their credentials , then you’ll get an idea of the atmos…)
Cartrivision™ came screaming into the world the same year I did. Which I didn’t know. 1972 saw not only the birth of the first “home cartridge movie media set-up” for the lounge, den or rumpus room, but it saw the birth of a pale baby who would, 52 years later, go on to write this guff about it. The slide Jen shared showed a monstrous looking wood-effect cabinet that made a big box CRT Grundig look like an iPod Nano.
You couldn’t get much content for these boxy behemoths. But by 1983 VHS had put 6 million players across British homes.
Jen recommended, and not for the first time, we could fill-up on deeper TV and video history and much more besides by dipping into a book called “Rewind, Replay” by Jonnie Walker (not that one. Or that one, either). Sadly, as ever, academic treatise on nichey subjects tend to make for cripplingly expensive tomes and you won’t get much change from £80 for the hardback.
Anyway, onwards. We learned it was a combination of many ingredients that, stirred into a pot of rumour & lies, heated by the frenzy of Whitehouses and tabloids that led to the “Ban This Filth” panic of the early eighties, rather than just images of zombies and cannibals. Growing fears about the violence against women in the imported, uncertified, under-the-counter video offerings all played out against the real-life backdrop of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe’s attacks in the late 70s which combined to make a stew with a very bitter taste. How could the public be genuinely concerned for safety, condemning police inaction and being “shocked and disgusted” at one turn…only to be cueing up the Sony Trinitron and a JVC SR-V101 top-loader with Deodato’s The House On The Edge Of The Park a moment later? Add to this that the viewing material of this sort of nature moved from the, as it were, respectable “public” cinematic arena where one could be “observed by peers” and have to hold oneself and one’s tastes to account…to the private, behind the curtains, sordid sitting-room solo voyeur experience which rather changed the mood of the whole thing. It all got rather seedy.
We learned 3 particular movies seemed to be the Holy Trinity of shockers that poked their spools over the parapet and got non-experts and busybodies interested. Or at least, opinionated. These were two obvious ones – 1979’s Driller Killer (dir. Abel Ferrara) and 1978’s I Spit On Your Grave (dir Meir Zarchi) plus the less well-known Death Trap (dir. Tobe Hooper) from 1976.
NOTE: To date, reviews still to come of these, review hungry readers, although at this rate, who knows when, as I have – to date – 8 movies between now and Death Trap, 35 before ‘I Spit’ and 47 before I get to ‘Driller…’ If you want to know why this is taking so long, ask Aldo Lado. That guy and the unwatchably grim “Late Night Trains” nearly derailed the whole damned project.
Anyhoo, t’was these three that were all reported and prosecuted for obscenity due to “…ultra-sadistic horror and terror rather than straightforward sexual pornography.”
At this point, David explained, the now infamous DPP list appeared. Or rather…didn’t. And this is where it all gets more interesting and it was great to have David and Jen “dig in.”
Apparently, we learned, no-one interviewed by Davids Kerekes or Slater claimed to have ever seen the fabled official 72 list. There is doubt in fact there ever was a definitive one, despite rumours and table-thumping from the Holy James Anderton.
Now I remember Anderton largely for two things. Firstly he was the chief constable of Greater Manchester from 1976 to 1991 who claimed to have a personal direct line to God and was guided by this holy hand in his decisions and actions. But also of course, like many folk my age, he is immortalised and ridiculed by geniuses Fluck and Law in ITV’s irreverent squashy satire, Spitting Image.
The so-called “Banned 72 List” was likely a selection of carbon-copied scraps passed about, scribbled, amended and edited as it was jiffy-bagged about various counties and Constabularies. This meant there was little to no real protocol when it came to seizes or raids of video shops, resulting in a wild seizure of anything without an official certification on the “better safe than sorry” technique. David then shared everyone’s favourite hoary old anecdote about the mistaken bin-bagging of Dolly Parton’s The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.
Apparently all this was being whipped up and exaggerated as the media got its celluloid in a twist over The Exorcist’s release (rumoured apocryphal vomiting and hysteria) and even poor old creaky Wild Geese (1978, dir Andrew V. McLaglen) got its goose cooked as watchdogs targeted films that “glorified” mercenary behaviour. For heaven’s sake.
Well this, as you can imagine, was all great stuff for the Conway crowd and D&J had us in rapt eager anticipation for further insights and illustrations. Jen and David went on with a couple of juicy case studies. Talk moved specifically to the “real on-screen killings” of Snuff (Michael Findlay 1976), and its marketing of a rather tawdry shocker. Likewise the hilarious marketing at trade fairs of Nightmares in A Damaged Brain. (Romano Scavolini, 1981) and the “guess the weight of the brain in a jar” circus-barker peddling.
A quick detour took us to something about which I was utterly in the dark. The Obscene Publications Act – which if you recall had pulled Driller, Spit and Trap from the shelves – was not quite the archaic bit of crumbling parchment I had assumed and was still in force when it made its last sweeping ban as late as 1992. The book to face the bonfire? Something entitled Lord Horror.
Now this is not a title familiar to me – maybe to you – so I have since dug in to discover what lay between the black hardcover pages of this notorious novel that could have had courts removing it from the shelves the same year we could harmlessly enjoy Candyman, Pet Semetary 2, Hellraiser 3 and House 4? Well I wish I’d never looked. Suffice to say, if novels involving manufacturing codpieces from the hollowed out feet of Jewish women; the adventures of a still-living Hitler in an alternate post-WWII world in which the insane Fuhrer deals with his giant mutated penis, which has become a living creature he’s dubbed Old Shatterhand; and androids made from the bodies of murdered Africans… Well then Lord Horror is worth a WHSmith Book Token.
As an asthetic aside during the lecture, I personally discovered that – just as Hugh Laurie once noted wisely in his stand-alone novel “there is nothing in any of the world’s great museums that looks quite as ancient as 10 year old photocopier” (The Gunseller pp. 112), there is nothing quite as pervy, dirty, seedy or grubby as 1970s Letraset, specifically what looks like a peeling Helvetica italic. Like this:
Urgh. You get the idea. Peeling lino and cigarette smoke, static caravans and signet rings.
A round of applause and the talk was done. Much thanks and smiles from Jen and David and we all felt thoroughly informed and enlightened. We were however, but halfway through what was proving to be a grand evening among the horror-hungry, as our host genially opened up the floor to a bit of the old Q&A, as Alex DeLarge might have said. It was a little shy and slow to start due to, as mentioned, the quieter and shier end of the fandom being present and we’re not – unless fuelled by cider and surrounded by likeminded t-shirted Kermode-alikes at Frightfest, Comic-Con or tucked into the corner of Soho’s Coach & Horses – a gregarious bunch by and large. But a few brave souls removed their fingerless gloves and Great Frog jewellery for long enough to put a hand up and get us rolling. Some examples of the questions (and occasional answers) below…
Why is there still the interest in this subject 40 years later? A personal story from David about “Tenebrae” followed (cue audience’s Real-Ale murmurs of “mmmm, Tenebrae, of course…” like it was a hoppy brew). Jen suggested it was the illegality? The hunt for the mythical list? Just nostaligia? Jen defended that these movies “are not all bad.” Surely however, she can NOT be talking about Aldo Lado’s 1975 rapey drear-fest Late Night Trains. More of which sadly to come…
How much were Firman, Whitehouse and Anderton really to blame for the panic? Is there a real list out there somewhere? Had either Jen or David explored the now released Mary Whitehouse archives? (The diaries were donated to the Bodleian Library by Mary Whitehouse’s son, Paul). Was the “Nasty” impact largely on smaller retailers? Did your bigger distributors manage better?
A great question came up about the idea of a UK “Hays Code”, equivalent to the US Motion Picture Production Code, the set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It largely spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States. It seemed however the answer was no. Until the BBFC stepped in, that wasn’t the British way.
The pair had fun with a question about what a DPP List might look like in 2024, to much chuckles. The suggestions were made that it would no doubt feature a new Trinity: Jörg Buttgereit’s 1987 NEKRomantik would be up there; A Serbian Film directed by Srđan Spasojević in 2010 alos likely. And you can’t go home withouth the family fun fest which is Gaspar Noé’s 2002 effort Irréversible.
I haven’t seen any of these. Again, you have Aldo Lado to thank.
Questions continued as we warmed up a bit. Now the hand-held mic was darting back and forth like a hot potato. We all had something to ask or add.
Were movies like Porkys ever embroiled in the list? Did the outrage and scandal influence future creators of horror to meet the bar or exceed it? Which movies – if any – remain still banned to this day?
This was an interesting one that got chins a-stroking. Jen and David hummed and ahhed before puzzling over whether the Nazispolitation awfulness of Gestapo’s Last Orgy (Cesare Canevari, 1977) was out there in any recognisable form? Research since undertaken reveals, swastika and salaciousness fans, it passed Italian censors in1977 however was refused a UK DVD certificate by the BBFC in January 2021 due to “pervasive sexual and sadistic violence in a clearly anti-Semitic context.” So now you now. You can stop asking about it.
My question? Well I was in the mood to join in and had a genuine head-scratcher that had occurred to me when I was writing Banning For Beginners. So I put it to David and Dr Wallis. Given the Cartrivision™ launched in 1972 and the BBFC didn’t begin their painstaking certification of home VHS until the Video Recordings Act of 1984…what was the delay? 12 years to get around to deciding that Wes Craven’s Last House On The Left really shouldn’t be available to rent to 8 year olds? What was it? Workload? Willingness? Worry? David and Jen sucked on this one for a while and this opened up a conversation about how other formats had been handled. After all, VHS was not the first way the British public could play film at home. What of commercially available 16mm and 8mm/Super 8 film reels? Or even the bulky, industry preferred U-Matic which Sony introduced in 1971? It was decided the world simply moves too slowly. The Video Nasty scare did not appear fully formed overnight with a Daily Express headline. It was a slow burn that managed to creep up on everybody with lone voices on both sides battling morality & censorship, taste & decency, regulation & religion. The BBFC got around to it when it was too difficult not to.
As the night grew darker and scarves pulled tighter, we ended with another book recommendation:
Horror Holocaust by Charles “Chas” Balun, a snip to pick up used online for about £95. C’mon guys! I know you have mouths to feed, bills to pay, vintage Laserdiscs to invest in and Betamax to transfer but blimey. Would a Kindle or PDF kill you?
So we gave another round of applause, the crowd broke up for much milling and loitering, friends being made and hands being shaken now we had all bonded over our shared fandom, fetishes and fondness for the frightening, freaky and forbidden. I threw two discs in my spine trying to lift a copy of David and David’s excellent “Cannibal Error” paperback (available with a click here from the tremendous Headpress) which he kindly dedicated.
Chairs scraped, coats buttoned, scarves wrapped, the 80 strong throng headed out into the Holborn night with talk of pubs, pints, peanuts and public transport. I popped my pods back in to enjoy some haunting Richard Hawley and a rattling train home. An earlyish train. Not a late night one. Not since Aldo Lado ruined those for me.
A thoroughly great night in lovely company. I’d like to thank David Kerekes, Dr Jennifer “Jen” Wallis, the staff of Conway Hall, the oddballs at Fortean Times and everyone who smiled and made me welcome.
Be kind. Rewind. x
Richard Asplin | Nov 27th 2024 | Surrey
letsgetthebannedbacktogether.uk 