This blog is obscene

All video recordings sold in the UK must be classified by the Board of British Film Censors (BBFC). The BBFC have the power to refuse classification, effectively banning a film from release. I think the BBFC do a pretty good job and it's not one I envy.

I'd imagine that when someone takes a job at the BBFC they'd be thinking 'Ace, I get to sit around watching movies all day before they've been released, uncut!'. Little do they release that 10 years later they'd be sat in a small screening room watching a marathon of Dad's Army episodes. (In case you're interested, the boxset is 80 episodes. Therefore at 8 hours a day that's a whole working week of back to back Dad's Army). It would be like hell programmed by UK Gold.

The BBFC have only had the remit to classify videos since the introduction of the Video Recording Act 1984. Before this the sale of a film on VHS could only be blocked using the Obscene Publications Act. According to wikipedia, the act defines 'obscene' as something that will "tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it".

Local police forces used this somewhat broad definition to carry out raids on video stores, seizing video's that their bosses deemed to be obscene. In one case Dolly Parton's 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas' was seized as pornographic material. Because of the varied interpretation of the law the Directory of Public Prosecutions made a list of films that had been successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act or were awaiting to be tried in court. After Mary Whitehouse coined the term 'Video Nasty' the list came to be known as the DPP list of 'Video Nasties'

The list itself is a mixed bag of up to 72 films (the list changed over time). Some films clearly shouldn't of been in the list ('Evil Dead': a slapstick over the top horror comedy), some to this day are questionable ('Faces of Death': A compilation of snuff footage, mostly fake) and some are just plain sick ('Last Orgy of the Third Reich'). Of the 72 films, 61 have been released in some form or another (no surprises that 'Last Orgy of the Third Reich' is still banned).

So why am I telling you, the single person who reads my blog, about this? I've decided that i've needed something other than my uninteresting life to blog about, and the list of 61 films is it. I'm going to attempt to watch all 61 released films by the end of the year, and write a review for each one. If Mary Whitehouse was right, by the end of the year I will be a disgusting broken husk of a man who can only express himself through violence, sex and swearing. If i'm right, i'll spend the year watching some brilliant, some bizarre but mostly poor films.

Full disclosure. Of the 61 films i've seen 5 before (mostly good) and I already own 2. As I can't bring myself to contaminate our Love Film rental list i'll be buying most of the films, as cheap as possible. This shouldn't be difficult. The first film I typed into play.com (Obviously 'The Anthropophagous Beast' AKA 'The Grim Reaper') was £1.00 delivered. If anything, I'm going to have some cheap nights in.