Video Nasties The Home Video Boom saw the mass import of a new breed of horror film, sick and disturbing video material known as Video Nasties. Here’s where it all began! When the Conservative party came into power It was seen by many as a case of the rich get richer and the poor get […]
Video Nasties In total, 72 video nasties appeared on the main DPP list at one time or another, but only 39 films were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act (OPA), Dealers could be fined or jailed and the film itself would be declared obscene if the prosecution was successful, meaning it could not be distributed […]
Video Nasties Public awareness of the so called ‘video nasties‘ began in February 1982, VIPCO (Video Instant Picture Company) ran a double page spread in a video trade magazine featuring a still from their new release ‘Driller Killer‘, and a similar campaign by GO Video featuring the front cover of their nazi flick ‘SS Experiment […]
Video Shops Part 3 focuses on the video shop raids in the 80s that shook the UK video industry to it’s core… After an article in The Daily Mail first listed 52 films officially labelled as ‘video nasties‘ by the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The DPP list of video nasties was published, and dealers could […]
Video Shops Part 4 showcasing the history of our video shop in Stockport, Cheshire. It’s just after my 7th birthday in 1985! Things had become clearer for the video industry after the Video Recordings Act (VRA) was passed. The British Board of Film Censors became the ‘British Board of Film Classification’ and were responsible for the […]
Video Shops The second part of our journey back to the opening of our 1980’s video shop. The history of our video rental shop from 1983 to 1985 features new competition and a new partnership! It’s Halloween in 1983, Uptown Girl was topping the music charts, the ZX Spectrum was recently released and business was […]
Video Shops There were a lot of VHS horror movies released in the early 80s, but probably one of the more famous ones was released on VHS tape on the 24th February 1983… The Evil Dead. A classic 80s gore-fest featuring some stunning cover art by Graham Humphries, it was a massive hit amongst the […]
Part 1 of a story from the early 80s, when our family opened a pioneering 1980s video shop in the heart of Stockport, UK.
Movie posters are perhaps the most evocative and immediate artefacts of cinema history. For many collectors, owning an original movie poster is more than decoration, it’s a tangible link to a film’s premiere, the marketing campaigns, the era, and the cultural moment. But when you dig into the hobby, you discover that not all posters […]
Video Shops Collecting pre-cert tapes — those released in the UK before the introduction of the Video Recordings Act in 1984 — are more than just an outdated format from the dawn of home video. They’re physical remnants of a chaotic, unregulated era when horror, exploitation, and low-budget sleaze were being pushed onto shelves faster […]
Video Shops Whilst compiling our list of the best horror movies of the 80s, it shows our preferred years to be before the VRA, is that a coincidence, or is it fair to say that the introduction of the Video Recordings Act in 1984 put the brakes on a defining era in horror movie history. […]