Doctor Karen Oughton here with part two of a two part interview/review series about Severin Film’s VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE Parts 1 & 2. In the second of two interviews with VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE director Jake West and producer Marc Morris, Dr Karen Oughton finds out what the pair think about monstrosity and otherness in horror and the outer limits of extreme cinema world wide.
DR KAREN OUGHTON (DO): A number of the Video Nasties are about gender, sex or sexual difference. In terms of modern films like DOGHOUSE, what are your ideas about otherness in horror in terms of representations of women as this kind of weird species and also in terms of gay characters?JAKE WEST (JW): With DOGHOUSE we were setting out to have a kind of ‘battle of the sexes’ type idea. Dan Schaffer (of INDIGO VERTIGO) is very pro strong women. So with DOGHOUSE we decided to take it from the other angle because his girlfriend bet him that he could never write anything from a bloke’s angle because he doesn’t understand men!
The original notion of the script was that we needed a virus which would only affect one gender. We had to choose who was going to become the zombie. We could either play it from the point of view of a bunch of women characters who have to fight off men or we’d have to play it as a bunch of guys who have to fight off women.
Now, we actually think men don’t generally have as much intellectual and emotional understanding as women. A lot of men are intimidated by women and they’re, like, all nervous and they don’t actually interact very well with them, so we though that was, like, really funny. But whoever was going to get the virus… effectively their voice would be lost. So then there’s an issue of balance and people who got upset saying, “You didn’t balance it out enough because the only female character who goes with them on the journey is the bus driver” – she has to ‘turn’ because part of the narrative conceit is that it has to affect her, so it ultimately became about laughing at the way men bond in terms of friendship.
MARC MORRIS (MM): And then the men change by the end of the film.JW: Well the idea is that wherever they started off they would then end up the opposite of. So you have Danny Dyer, who is the most misogynistic character at the beginning and at the end he goes, “That’s not very PC, is it?” You’ve the gay guy who wants to fight at the end.
The idea is that it’s the people who have the capacity to learn the least who generally live longer, and that was certainly laughing at horror films because in horror films it’s normally the opposite thing. It’s the person who sleeps with the woman that is going to get killed first. So we just wanted to subvert what we thought were the idiotic stereotypes of that gender.
DO: The thing that intrigued me is the way we identify with the monster/outsider. In so many of the video nasties you can recognise why the characters are doing what they are doing.
JW: I think this is one of the reasons that a lot of those video nasties got picked on – because they do represent this sort of slightly subversive narrative structure. They go outside of what Hollywood films’ comfortable narrative where everything’s sown up. The video nasties generally don’t do that and they are actually on the side of the wrong people. The video nasties generally have the idea that the world is fucked up to start off with. The characters you’re following are often the damaged people, you know. Like DON’T GO INTO THE HOUSE - he’s a Norman Bates-style killer; he’s picked on by his mum – you might have a little bit of sympathy for him because he’s picked on by his mum, but he’s a horrible character.
DO: It’s almost like a weird kind of anti-fairy tale, cautionary tale thing.JW: I do definitely think that is one of the reasons the video nasties get picked on, because they did not give you comfortable characters. Where some of the films are ‘wrong’ is that actually they do empower the female characters a lot more, normally.
You know the whole final girl thing? Obviously there will be female victims as well, as once again these are entertainment so you are going to get a body count and it’s likely that in that body count there will be women. Look at Dario Argento’s films for instance. He’s going to terrorise beautiful women, but because his films are so artistic, it’s like looking at a beautiful painting. It’s not… they’re not really set in the real world. They’re set in a world which is…. has an otherness in it in itself.
I think that people who get upset by those films… can’t make the imaginative leap into the narratives. I always used to like the films and maybe that’s why I follow the people with the wrong attitudes!
DO: Is there a horror film that you’ve not been able to get through?
MM: Only because they are so bad!
JW: I’ve found the worst horror films are boring films.
MM: The worst horror films for me were some of the films that I’ve had to sit through and watch. At Cannes you just go out and watch something else instead.
JW: When I was younger I’d always watch a film through to the bitter end, but now because we buy films you sometimes just can’t take it. MM: Life’s too short. But no, I’ve never had to turn a film off because it was too extreme or too controversial. I’d more be inclined to want to watch it even more.
JW: I often think it’s always the idea of when someone says a film is really extreme, the reputation the film has is what makes you feel perhaps more nervous before you watch it. But I’ve never felt…
,br> MM: There are examples. One American guy is trying to push the envelope of what an extreme movie should be, but you just can’t get through them. They’re all supposed to be based on this found-footage type theory – someone’s gone out to make some snuff movies somewhere and he’s lost his tape and it’s been found and it’s all unedited and it’s just, like, at random. Then there a film where the guy abducts a woman and keeps her in his flat and all sorts of stuff.
DO: Sounds good. *Sounding unconvinced*
MM: It’s really quite horrible, but I turned it off because I thought it was poorly made and boring. Trying to do extreme acts on someone for the sake of it... it felt like there was no point to it.
JW: They’re not really the kind of film I’d watch… because they don’t offer any real story and I’ve never…
MM: Yeah, they’re just trying to push the boundary for the sake of it.
JW: How about you? You know, there’s stuff that I wouldn’t choose to watch, but I would watch it. I don’t think there’s anything I think I can’t watch.DO: I’m a slight oddity in that I actually cherish my sheer cowardice! It took me three attempts to get through the first LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, two attempts to get through the first I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and with THE BEYOND I think I got half way through and went back and watched it again.
MM: It was brilliant.
DO: It’s just so beautiful.
JW: Beautiful, Fulci’s, yeah. It’s a dream isn’t it? Yeah it’s a nightmare.
DO: That’s exactly it. It’s… if you try and watch it straightforwardly…
JW: Well, once again you have to adjust your brain into different gear and I think that’s what the good films are, because they approach… but if you can’t get into the mindset you can’t do it. MEN BEHIND THE SUN and stuff like that are basically just torture and they’re horrible.
MM: They were. Like FACES OF DEATH and Mondo films as well. There are other ones that are not really saying anything new and it’s just going through the motions of trying to upset people.
JW: But if stuff is being made just to upset people as opposed to telling a story, to me, I find it, you know… I’m a sucker for watching a film because it has a story.
DO: Awww, what an old-fashioned concept!
JW: Yeah, I know. I do like being entertained even if the material is difficult. For me, A SERBIAN FILM is perfectly acceptable whether you like it or not or whether you are offended or not, it doesn’t really matter. The point is it is actually setting out to tell a story.MM: You’ve got Lucifer Valentine – he’s got this condition – emetophilia – where he finds girls being sick a turn-on, so he makes films like SLAUGHTERED VOMIT DOLLS about girls being sick a lot, and like getting themselves really, really horribly sick.
DO: What would you think of Pink films like, say, BEAUTIFUL GIRL HUNTER?
MM: Oh, that’s inherent in Japanese culture and market - the sexual violence, the bondage. It’s only recently we’ve been able to see these films on DVD as a result of Japanese Film Festivals. A lot of it is really shocking.
JW: If you look at Japanese society it, it hasn’t fallen apart because of it. They have a more extreme view, certainly on mental torture and bondage.
MM: There was a series called TOKUGAWA. Teruo Ishii and Norifumi Suzuki made a whole load of them. I managed to get them as I’d first heard about them as they were banned in Germany and I thought, “What’s that all about?” So I got a couple of them sent over and they were all in German.
JW: They’ve never been released over here, though, have they?
MM: No, they won’t stand a chance of being released here.
JW: The BBFC would never allow… they’d have a cardiac arrest if they saw those. There’s no way they could get those in…But once again isn’t that interesting? How you could have a different cultural condition? And that does show… But in England we would say, “Well, you can’t do that because people will copy it and society will fall apart”. That’s the bit I don’t believe… MM: Another guy who makes those types of movies is Koji Wakamatsu. He made a film called VIOLATED ANGELS. It was a black and white film and he went on and made loads and loads of films on a similar theme and they all got more and move violent. I had this guy in Japan sending me stuff and there’s one called THE MAN RAPES THIRTEEN WOMEN (AKA SERIAL RAPIST), and that’s the title of the film!
All: *Laugh*.
JW: So what’s it about then?
MM: I wonder! Well it’s just completely maaad! It’s a completely mad sort of concept.
JW: So if you need anything, Marc’s the guy to ask. Because he knows, he has everything.
DO: I will give you your due…WOW!
JW and MM: *laughter*
JW: And yet Japanese society hasn’t fallen apart.
DO: Below is my review of VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE Part 2!
Available on DVD from Severin Films!VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE Part 2 (2014)
Directed by Jake WestReviewed by Dr Karen Oughton @DrKarenOughton
The screen is awash with Emily Booth bound up in black tape, film photos parading across the screen and talking heads chiming back and forth about cultural travesties committed in the name of censorship. Nucleus Films’ follow up to their VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE. Part 2 picks up where the other left off and takes us up past the noughties to very near the present day.
The film begins with a whistle-stop recap of the first video nasties scandal by way of clips from the first documentary and sets the emotional tone by referencing those priceless segments with the people who fought the censors. However, this second documentary very much has its own identity. The feel is much less shits ‘n’ giggles censor-baiting and it feels far more pressing as a result.Part 2 has huge scope. It contextualises the films against the legislation but also against the agitational community culture that sowed the seeds for the modern horror scene. We get footage of trade fairs and a detailed discussion of fanzines together with an absolute gem of a find in footage of Kim Newman anchoring a news report for a midnight screening. It helps us to understand exactly how the culture grew as it did. This is, in turn, set against the political and social background of the time, from the Hungerford massacre to the murder of James Bulger.
Bias has abated here and West’s editing deserves praise for his treatment of James Ferman, who is in many ways the film’s core subject. The information features both criticism and compliments of the censor’s character and rarely resorts to the filmic rhetoric of the previous documentary. We hear of exploits ranging from his agenda against RAMBO through to the promotion of porn that eventually led to his dismissal. Key scene faces are shown to grudgingly praise Ferman’s PR prowess and while his preacher’s zeal may rankle, footage of his exchanges with Ali G shed light on the sense of down-to-earth humanity evident from his knowing smirk. That said, his other ‘works’ are investigated in impressive detail, such as his involvement with the case of HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. Similar treatment is also given to other censors discussing titles such as THE NEW YORK RIPPER and there is a tone of respectful disagreement rather than mere mockery of the enemy.
Luckily, the level of detail is lightened by the additional faces newly included in the narrative, from censors (sorry, certifying examiners) through to fanzine editors and the younger generation of academics working in the area. The result is a clamour of voices whose accents, topics and style indicate the overarching and indeed class-bridging nature of the scandal that is often somewhat erased by London-centrism in similar features. These folks add flavour and reflect the circumstances they were and, (in some cases) are still in, from the electric indignation of Spencer Hickman through to the conviction of Carol Topolski. A subtle highlight is the hugely charismatic Pervirella director Alex Chandon, who tries to be terribly proper and get his mouth around “cunningulus” while recalling being eaten alive by a right-winger on a TV show back in the day (bless the poor bugger!).That said, this is still very much a Nucleus Films-style documentary and there is plenty of blood, boobs and bravado to go around. Several small sections of the ‘b’ roll do appear to have been reused from the first film, but this actually works by giving viewers a break to just marvel at the awesome artwork when the information has been coming thick and fast.
VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE Part 2 has a seriousness that gives a holistic account of the censorship storm that engulfed England and continues to have repercussions now. It is thoughtful and fun and has a huge extras package including more specially-filmed feature introductions and segments on other aspects of horror film culture. It’s a testament to the international fright film community that Severin’s release has happened. Long live the nasties!
Look for our bi-weekly rambling about random horror films on Poptards and Ain’t It Cool on AICN HORROR’s CANNIBAL HORRORCAST Podcast every other Thursday!
