12A + R18 = Huh?: A Guide To BBFC Classifications

For the two people who read this, here's a brief primer on the BBFC classification system.  (For anyone in the UK who happens to drop in, have some tea and biscuits and we'll get back to the important stuff in a little while.  And save me a cup of that tea, I could do with a spot myself.)

Originally, the BBFC had only two classes: U for Universal and A for Adult.  Either way, they were just an advisory, with no restrictions on admissions.  These stood from 1913 until 1932, when another classification was added: H for Horror!  78 years later, I think this one should be added to our ratings system here, make the admission the same as that of an NC-17 film, and finally get an uncut release of Murder-Set-Pieces.  Anyway, in 1951 they changed H for Horror to X for No One Under 16 Permitted, Kid, Get The Bloody Hell Out Of Here, the first rating that restricted admission based on age.  In 1970, A stood for Advisory, AA stood for No One Under 14, and X stood for I Don't Care If You're 17 Now, You Gotta Be 18 To See This Picture!

If this is confusing, don't worry, it just gets more complicated.

In 1982, there's U, PG (Parental Guidance, of course), and now three age-restricted categories: 15, 18, and R18.  The R is for Restricted, because (being, you know, classy and polite) P for Porno was a little too lowbrow.

All that above only applied to films released in theatres.  Here is a statement from the BBFC itself regarding the advent of the VCR and the insurgence of exploitation films on video:

"At the time there was no formal requirement that videos should be classified by the BBFC, with the result that a number of small and enterprising companies exploited the loophole by releasing strong horror films onto the video market without submitting them to the BBFC. Not only did the lack of video classification mean that material that had been cut or rejected by the BBFC (or which would not have been classified by the BBFC) was freely available. It also meant that such material was available to persons of all ages, including children."

The above quote is taken from an article relating to the classification of Cannibal Holocaust on the SBBFC website, a BBFC resource for film students.  The language strikes me as contradictory, stating that there was no requirement to submit films for video, then calling the lack of regulation a "loophole".  A lack of regulation isn't a loophole, it's a lack of regulation.  Loophole implies that laws were already in place and they found a way around them.  But I digress.

I have seen Cannibal Holocaust, and I strongly agree with the BBFC that the film should not be available to children.  Watching the film is an upsetting experience, even for an adult, and a child exposed to it would undoubtedly be traumatized.  When the film was finally submitted for a formal classification in 2001, it was passed with an 18 and had nearly six minutes cut from the running time.  We'll explore what those cuts were and why they were made in detail later, but I think it is also important to acknowledge that the BBFC saw that the film, while despicable and disturbing in many ways, also has something to say, and a film that brings across the message in as strong a manner as Cannibal Holocaust is nearly impossible to ignore, whether you appreciate the film itself or not.

So in 1985 the classifications were revised again to include video as well as film, with some films being cut more for a video release due to home viewing being a more accessible arena for the young.  The only addition to the ratings was the Uc for Universal particularly suited for young Children.  This has since been discontinued.  The 12 was added in 1989 (No One Under 12 Admitted), and the 12A in 2002 (Under 12 Admitted With Adult Supervision).

That's the history.  To sum up, here's what the classifications are as of today:

U (Babes In Toyland)
PG (Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure)
12 (Sweet November)
12A (Something's Gotta Give)
15 (Speed)
18 (My Own Private Idaho)
R18 (Pizza Boy Gangbang, which does not feature Keanu Reeves.  Unfortunately.)

Few of the films on the list of Video Nasties has been released with a certificate lower than 18, often requiring cuts to achieve even that.  Hopefully this leaves you a little less lost when the subject of certificates is broached.  Until next time, I'll be here waiting for you if you need me.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

And So It Begins...

Video Nasty #1

Blood Feast

1963

NOTHING SO APPALLING IN THE ANNALS OF HORROR!

NTSC Running Time: 66:55

Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis

Written by A. Louise Downe, with uncredited story contribution from Lewis & Friedman (The A. stands for Allison.  She was Mrs. H.G. Lewis until 1971.)

Produced by David F. Friedman

Starring: Thomas Wood, Mal Arnold, Connie Mason, and numerous victims.

Body Count: 7

Naked People: 1

Availability: Easily acquired on DVD from Something Weird Video.

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Wall-to-wall dismemberment of women who are going to be cannibalized.

What was cut: 23 seconds of a woman's bare back being whipped.

Current UK status: The uncut version received an 18 certificate on April 5, 2005.
Blood Feast was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 (OPA), making it one of the DPP39.

At long last!  The trip through the Nasties begins!

When nudist camp movies weren't pulling in the money they used to, H. G. Lewis and his business partner David F. Friedman hit on an area of film that had yet to be explored: Gore.

Blood.

Guts.

Grue.

Viscera.

First shown in Peoria, IL in July of 1963, Blood Feast is beautiful in that special "so bad, it's good" kinda way.  The Setup: Fuad Ramses sells a book called "Ancient Weird Religious Rites" through mail-order and murders the nice young girls who answer his ad.  He's using one piece of each victim to prepare the Feast of Ishtar...which he will feed to a bunch of unsuspecting partygoers...because he's also a caterer!  Will Fuad achieve his dream of serving up the Blood Feast?

Played over-the-moon bonkers by Mal Arnold, Fuad is a great, kitschy villain.  He speaks like a crazy person (which he is) and loves to say "Five Thousand Years Ago!" whenever possible.  There's a new corpse about every nine minutes, and the camera makes sure to linger on innards and mutilated victims...and lamps...and landscapes.  Every shot is held too long to pad the running time, and it adds to the campy appeal.

The gore effects are surprisingly good for a film that cost less than Clerks, and the blood here is a bright crimson that should be used more in splatter movies.  Brains, guts, a tongue, what might have been a spine, a leg, and assorted squishy red things occupy a decent portion of the running time.  The loose plot is an excuse to have women attacked and dissected, the rest doesn't matter.  Lewis shot the film himself, and the camera jerks, zooms twitchily, and at one point a scene ends in such a way that I think he ran out of film.  The dialogue will have you chuckling, especially that of the cops, who bumble through everything like refugees from a Police Academy prequel, ignoring clue after obvious clue.  This movie was, for the filmmakers, a shameless cash grab, and it worked: Since no one else was supplying copious blood on the big screen, Lewis and Friedman raked in 160 times their budget at drive-ins coast to coast, guaranteeing that more of the same would follow.  A new kind of film had been born, and its' success helped push the boundaries of what could be done in the movies.

I really enjoyed Blood Feast, and I was surprised.  I've never been much for the campy side of movies, but this one was so earnest in its' gratuitousness that it won me over completely.  I love movies that say "I'm trashy and proud of it!  How about a hug?" and this one did just that.  Don't look for subtext, don't look for logic, don't look for anything of quality, just hang in there for that next gross-out sequence.  If you've been exposed to modern horror films (and I'm gonna bet you have), this will probably not freak you out, but if you appreciate film history, it's important to see, and if you appreciate unintentional comedy, you're stoked for an hour.  A solid beginning to my endeavour.

I'm hungry.  Anyone know where I can get a decent rare steak at this hour?  Good thing I keep some emergency food supplies close at hand.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Back To The Beginning...And Then Straight To Hell!

After much deliberation, I've decided to begin with the two films on the list that I want to see the least: Herschell Gordon Lewis' 1963 groundbreaker Blood Feast and John Alan Schwartz's 1978 pseudodocumentary Faces Of Death.

The former was the first American "gore" film, which means that it was the first (successful) film that was made behind the idea of "I could sell a metric shitload of tickets if I made a movie that had people being ripped apart in it".  It is the oldest of the 72, one of four Nastys produced in the 1960s, making it a logical place to start.  I'm hoping to be able to include a trailer.  Let's see...




Faces Of Death is the only one on the list I just flat-out do not want to see.  I can take gruesome, disturbing, gory...I'm writing an internet column about the Video Nastys, consarn it!  It's the "Mondo" documentary idea that makes my stomach churn.  For those who don't know, a Mondo movie shows you shocking documentary footage from around the world for the express purpose of shocking "civilized" folk.  All the footage in Faces Of Death was purportedly real, but that's been shown to be mostly false, and the genuine footage is mostly confined to animal cruelty.  The footage of actual human death is therefore minimal, but at this juncture I am unsure just how much and what it will consist of.  Here's a trailer for a rerelease three years ago...



With these two less-than-appetizing films out of the way, I will breathe much easier...but not too easy.  The remaining seventy films will be digested in a recognizable but offbeat order yet to be determined...and there's more than enough real footage of evil acts, depraved stories from Beyond the realms of good taste, and shameless exploitation profiteering Beyond these two nuisances...the iceberg's tip we have yet to encounter, this be only a light dusting of snow.  Are you all ready?  I sure am.  Cuz my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

The Lay Of The Land (Of The Dead)

So a quick perusal of the Netflix and my personal collection shows that I have ready access to forty-seven of the seventy-two!  I did not think the number would be that high, and I am quite pleased.  Here, for your perusal, are the twenty-five films that are a bit harder to acquire (in alphabetical order by their Nasty titles):

Blood Bath (aka A Bay Of Blood, Twitch Of The Death Nerve, many more.  Netflix offers a "save".  I was surprised, as I have rented it from them before.)
Blood Rites (aka The Ghastly Ones.  Again, NF offers a "save".  On DVD from Something Weird Video.)
Delirium (aka Psycho Puppet.  Unavailable on DVD.  Not to be confused with Delirium (1972) or Delirium: Foto De Gioia)
Evilspeak (Actually, NF has this, but I'm holding out for the yet-to-be-released-anywhere 103-minute Directors' Cut.)
Expose (So far, this has yet to see any kind of US release, but I've picked up some rumors that one is forthcoming in the near future.  It is the only UK film to have made the list.)
Forest Of Fear (Original title: Bloodeaters, available on DVD as Toxic Zombies. NF offers a "save".)
Frozen Scream (Unavailable on DVD.)
The Gestapo's Last Orgy (Available on DVD under the title Caligula Reincarnated As Hitler.  Yikes.)
Human Experiments (Unavailable on DVD.)
I Miss You, Hugs And Kisses (That title is not a typo.  Starring Elke Sommer, this Canadian film has been released on VHS in the USA as Left For Dead.  It's also gone under the title Drop Dead Dearest.)
Island Of Death (Available on DVD from Image.)
Love Camp 7 (Available on DVD from Something Weird.)
Mardi Gras Massacre (Availability sketchy.  DVDs are probably bootlegs, VHS long out of print.)
Night Of The Bloody Apes (Available on DVD from Something Weird.  NF offers a "save".)
Night Of The Demon (Available on DVD, prints rumored to be of very low quality.)
Nightmare Maker (aka Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker and Night Warning.  Unavailable on DVD.)
Nightmare In A Damaged Brain (aka Nightmare.  Unavailable on DVD.)
Possession (Available on DVD from Anchor Bay.  NF offers a "save".)
Pranks (aka The Dorm That Dripped Blood. Available on DVD.  NF offers a "save".)
Revenge Of The Boogeyman (Available on DVD as Boogeyman II in an altered version.  NF offers a "save", but I am hoping to find a non "redux" version, as that was what made the DPP list.)
The Slayer (Availability unknown.  May never have received a USA VHS or DVD release...even though it's an American film!)
SS Experiment Camp (Available on DVD from Exploitation Digital.  NF offers it on a sourced-from-VHS pan-and-scan version.)
Terror Eyes (aka Night School.  Unavailable on DVD.)
The Werewolf And The Yeti (aka Hall Of The Mountain King and Night Of The Howling Beast.  8th in the Waldemar Daninsky series.  Unavailable on DVD.)
The Witch Who Came From The Sea (NF offers a "save".)

I bet you might be asking what the other 47 films are.  You can find out with a little detective work of your own (you are on the internet, after all) but if you're a patient soul who loves surprises (as I do), just stay tuned here.  The fun hasn't even begun yet!  I'm so excited!  Until next time, friends, my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

...And you will face the sea of darkness, and all therein that may be explored...

The words above, spoken by a disembodied voice near the end of Lucio Fulci's masterpiece E Tu Vivrai Nel Terrore...L'Aldila, are important to me because they are true.  We will face the sea of darkness, and all therein that may be explored.  We each owe a death, and what we will find Beyond is anyone's guess.  Fulci shared his stark vision of it in 1981, and while American audiences were originally given a butchered print going under the name 7 Doors Of Death in 1983, twenty years later the full film was unleashed under its' actual title: The Beyond.

I saw The Beyond by myself in my bedroom on a videocassette, which is appropriate.  I was familiar with some of Fulci's other films, and was a fan of his, and Italian horror in general.  But after I saw The Beyond, that was it.  There was no going back.  I had been shown a feverdream of epic proportions, a nightmare captured on celluloid that refused to budge from my seething cerebellum.  From the sepia-toned opening of a lynchmob (actually a nailchainquicklimemob) to the final shots of The Beyond itself, I was a captive of a masterwork that never should have been.  By all accounts, the film was made much like his others: fast, cheap, and without location sound...but there is something different about it.  Something awe-inducing.  Something terrifying.  Detractors will scoff at the effects (which were great for their time and place), the story (it doesn't have one), even the acting (effectively rendered into pantomime due to the dubbing, another point of contention for naysayers).  The reason they detract is because they missed the point: The Beyond doesn't care.  Like Death Itself, The Beyond is intractable.  You don't like it?  Too bad, you have to deal with it anyway:

"What I wanted to get across with this film was the idea that all of life is often a really terrible nightmare and that our only refuge is to remain in this world, but outside time." ~ Lucio Fulci on L'Aldila

But that's not why I'm here.  Not yet.

I'm here because of Great Britain.  I've lived in California my whole life, and the closest I've been to England is British Columbia.  But the story of the BBFC and the Video Nasties rocks my brain in a way I can't explain.  American film classification is voluntary: If you make a movie and can convince a theatre to show it, you don't need to submit it to the MPAA.  Not so in the UK.  The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) issues certificates with ratings, but if you don't get one you're outta luck, Jack.  When the Video Cassette Recorder appeared for home use in the early 1980s, there was no regulation.  Video distributors got B-movies cheap, and sensationalism always sold.  Gory, lurid advertisements for films like The Driller Killer (power drill going into a guy's forehead) and SS Experiment Camp (naked woman hung upside down by her feet) drew the ire of conservatives, and the newspapers (fueling public fears about the warping of children by media) garnered this new menace with the moniker "Video Nasty".  The board got tough.  Local constabularies were authorized to seize offending materials and given no real guidelines beyond films that were "obscene".  Video shops got raided all over the country, with the less-than-film-savvy bobbys reportedly seizing The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas because they figured it was a porno.

In 1984, legislation was drafted to regulate the home video industry, and the final tally of films to have found their way on to the list of the BBFC and Director of Public Prosecutions rose to 72, including The Beyond, with two more (Xtro and Shogun Assassin) often included, because while they were seized by some constabularies and rumored to be Nasties, they were never on any official list.

In the end, it came down to two things that the board just could not abide: Sexualized Violence and Genuine Animal Cruelty.  On these two elements, the BBFC stands firm, and some of these flicks are still banned completely to this day.

It is my quest to endure all 72 of the Video Nasties in their unexpurgated state.  This will take a while, due to issues of availability and the desire to retain my sanity.  In some cases (such as The Last House On The Left) entire scenes have been lost, and we have to settle for what remains...which is still more intense than one can stand on a daily basis.

A few things you might want to know: I'm not a lunatic who only cares about gore or a snot who loves to point out flaws or an anonymous ranter who slams for the "pleasure" of slamming.  No.  I love all kinds of movies.  I love exploitation movies because they make no bones about what they are: sleazy entertainment, thank you very much, and if they've thrown in some social commentary or a neat filmmaking trick, it's a bonus to be appreciated and applauded.  Some of these movies contain genuine film of animal cruelty, and at least two contain documentary footage of human deaths as well.  There will be rape, murder, monsters, zombies, cannibals, Nazis, serial killers, werewolves, incest, racism, madmen, madwomen, revenge, possessions, Udo Kier, and a lot of movies with "Don't" in the title.  I'll try to explain why the films were targeted, what you can expect from them, and how difficult they were to obtain.  And don't forget: just because it's not a Nasty, doesn't mean it isn't nasty, and there will be chartered trips to many other bizarre, perverted and terrifying corridors of film.  C'mon.  It'll be fun.  Just be prepared, like me.  My name's Justin.  JustinCase.

AND REMEMBER: To avoid fainting, keep repeating to yourself - "...It's only a movie...It's only a movie...It's only a movie..."