Video Nasties

I can’t really remember the day we got a video player. Obviously in the early 80’s. Rented as we did with the TV. Everyone in the UK pretty much rented any kind of tv stuff back then in the UK. Radio Rentals or some such. The explosion of Rental Video shops meant every little corner shop was getting on the band wagon before the big boys like blockbuster moved in. Our local village one was called Franks video store. The curmudgeonly owner of the shop went from occasional visits for people to buy newspapers, bread and sweets, to dropping everything for shelves of the garish and wonderful art of VHS tapes. He continued to sell the sweets, but the real winner was the Fish and Chio shop next door. The main UK takeaway of choice until the invasion of MacDonald, there were three in the village. This one hot paydirt every weekend, with everyone popping into Franks to get their tapes, and then hitting the chippy for the food to watch the movies.

They were the days of static crackling TVs as we turned it on, flickering VHS tapes, and the smell of greasy chips with cheap pop.

Now, as many of you may know, the VHS boom was a bit of a wild west world until Mary Whitehouse and her National Viewers and listeners association and gutter press like the daily mail brought about the downfall of this with the video recordings act.

They were glory days of visiting the rental shop with its unclassified tapes and lurish covers. My parents would pick up anything with a great cover, action, horror and sci fi. They did love a good horror movie, and we spent most of our Fridays watching the horror double bill on the BBC. This was Hammer Horror, old black and white stuff and the occasional 70s gem like The Crazies, Amityville horror etc.

These of course paled into insignificance once we started renting these vids. The one standing out the most for me of course, Evil Dead. It did get banned at one point as a video nasty as I have mentioned before. However, all the Italian exploitation stuff was essential (Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond, Suspiria etc) plus standard stuff I never got to the cinema as I wasn’t old enough. (Alien, Xtro, American Werewolf in London). I was only 10 or 11 at the time.

My parents had always loved Horror and sci fi stuff. They had a pretty easy going attitude to that stuff. They were cool with gory monsters, action and over the top gun battles. Sexual violence was a no! I did not see I spit on your grave or The Exterminator until years later. They would send me out of the room for any sex related stuff. I was always a bit bemused but totally understand now of course. I wasn’t bothered as I would just get some crisps or something. I just wanted to see monsters eating peoples arms and heads exploding. I think I must have loved being scared as some of these films terrified me so much, I would sit there sweating with fear, hands over my face, peaking between my fingers. My t-shirts soaked with sweat and splattered with chip shop grease. Much to my brothers amusement. My parents and brother still laugh about it today, no matter how terrified I was though, I always wanted more.

I’m sure we picked up more dreadful movies than good, forgotten in the mists of time. The main label that seemed to have some of our faves was Medusa Video.

Horror, action, post-apocalyptic mad max rip offs abound the wonderful Italian movie posters by artis such as Casaro adorned the walls of the video shop. I even wrote to them at one point to ask if I could have any poster. Once a month, they would send me a tube of the glossy posters for the new releases. What a label! At 11 years old I had some of the greatest bedroom walls, full of obscure Italian movies, while everyone else had the latest music sensation. Heady and wonderful times.

Once the Video Recordings Act came into place , many titles where either banned or censored. Shops shut down and the fun was taken away as the major studios just put out the big movies and the small distributors disappeared. It was all Disney Movies and Steven Spielberg.

However, there was a burgeoning underground video distribution service that I will talk about on another date.

If you want to see what a local shop in the UK would have looked like, check out 80’s store in Alfreton.

Keep Creepy everyone!

Dan