The Cannibal Man - 1972

 Thus we come to the first of what I assumed would be multiple of these- a film where I think...this got labeled a Video Nasty?  Why?

Also known as Week of the Killer and The Apartment On The 13th Floor.

Yeah I mean, first the name is misleading.  There is a scene where our main character is eating soup with human meat in it unbeknownst to him, and he specifically stops when he discovers this.  He is not a cannibal by any real choice.

Marcos is a hapless man in a plot which I think is pretty brilliant, a man forced through almost comedic circumstances to become a serial killer.  It begins with a man assaulting his wife, and Marcus killing him on accident.  Then the wife wants to tell the police, so kill her, then the people who come poking into his life after the two disappearances preceding.  He gets rid of the bodies by taking them to his meat processing plant where he adds them to the sausage.  With basically no crazy blood or nudity, one does have to wonder about the labeling and prosecution this one got.

The most interesting aspect to this for me was that it was directed by a gay man, and there are absolutely homosexual undertones to a lot of what happened in this flick.  And you know what?  I'll say it, it was hot as fuck.  Dude, I wanted these guys to go at it, show nudity, have them touching each other cocks, FUCK!  Get me all riled up over here...

This is a original movie with a great premise, its maybe a tad slow and/or long, but its not that bad by any means.  Its very much of its era, and the dubbing and the production all feel very enjoyable in the B grade, trying for A grade sorta way.  It has some decent kills and its almost kinda sorta a proto-slasher, giallo leaning in some ways, but wholly original as well.  

Nast-ometer:  0/10

Argument for or against Video Nasties:  Against.

I give it a 4!

Flesh for Frankenstein - 1973

 (Googles current popular artists)  I mean, I haven't heard of any of these guys, so this goes back a little bit, but what if Banksy officially endorsed and produced a relatively low budget, X rated version of fuckin' The Creature from the Black Lagoon?  What if Taylor Swift put out a 3D Video Nasty version of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde?  Wouldn't the world be better?

Andy Warhol did not have much to do with this movie which is alternatively titled Andy Warhol's Flesh for Frankenstein, but still man, this was a bit of a controversial move I have to imagine.  I guess Rob Zombie is maybe the modern version of this, but the music was not a far cry from the cinema, so it does not compare.

Flesh for Frankenstein was a Italian, American and German co-production for a super underground film that got rated NC-17 and X, got on the Video Nasty list, and also helped launch Udo Kier's career.  I'd seen this one before, perhaps over 10 or even 15 years ago, as this is on many lists of "most disturbing" and "most cult" movies.  I didn't remember anything on this rewatch.

This movie is minimally going for satire, and I think its also an early example of meta, self aware, excess for the sake of excess type thing.  I wanted to look up early self aware movies, and just on the initial screen the things they cite are not far and away far off from this things 1973 date.  This certainly has a comedy of extremes, satirical leaning to it, there isn't a ton of outright humor but there is certainly an air of "having fun with the material", a wink and a nod.

There's plenty of nudity and some surgery scenes, there's a scene where Udo Kier has sex with a dead body, but overall this is pretty tame.  I think if anything it is the oddness of tone and the way this film almost feels like a comedy that makes the disturbing parts stand out.  Part of you really wants this movie to pick a lane, and from modern aspects I think it did, its just we were not ready for THIS lane yet.  But in that way this is super ahead of it's time.

There's an aspect of moral panic to some of these for sure - not that the content is not disturbing, but this could be seen as a little bit more of a skew towards moral censorship certainly.  There's homosexual content in here as well, and there's a bit ol' dick that you can see for a little while. 

While this movie is popular mainly because of the big name attached to the front of it, this is a fun and self-aware, strange and somewhat boundary pushing film.  It also succeeds because of the name in front, lets face it that something with a big name will bring in a bigger audience, and we may have this film to thank for bringing cult movies a bit more into the spotlight.  4 stars.

Nasty Meter:  2/10

Argument for or against Video Nasty:  very mildly For.

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century - 1977

 I'm trying to watch whatever free pre-1990ish Yet, Sasquatch, and Bigfoot movies are available.  But does this one really count?

Apparently some Italians heard that there was going to be a sequel to the 1976 King Kong movie and they decided to rush production on this "would be ripoff" except that the sequel movie in question was never made and now this is an odd curio from 1977.  

In this, a frozen creature thought to be a Yeti is thawed, promptly comes back to life, and goes on a rampage.  I mean, that sounds fun and whatever, except that the Yeti itself is instead a giant regular man, and once he's raised he quickly acts as much like King Kong as possible, including falling in love with a human woman and doing all that typical bullshit.

Featuring stodgy effects and ridiculous acting, there is a B grade drinky smoky aspect to this, but its a little slow, and a big section of the movie where the monster gets sick and has to be put on oxygen really grinds the momentum to a halt.  Its also just like...not a Yeti.  It is more like a giant neanderthal and plays like any "giant" monster movie, especially perhaps obviously like King Kong.

Its whatever.  Kinda boring.  I give it a star.

Night of the Bloody Apes - 1969

 Also known as The Horrible Man-Beast.

What was the deal exactly with our views of the tenuous line between man and animal, as well as our struggle with identity that fed into such things as Doctor Jeckyll and movies like this?  Movies where a brain are put into a another body make some sense, but I love the idea of an animal brain into a human, vice versa, and I love animal heart into a person like in this movie.

Video Nasty is attributed because of some pretty gross stock footage shots of a real heart transplantation, and because of a couple pretty insane rape scenes with lots of nudity.  Definitely the fact it is an ape-monster raping a human woman doesn't help the case. This fits nicely into the "surprise" theory of my Video Nasty project, people were expecting some stupid Mexican ape movie, not real and graphic gore.

Night of the Bloody Apes feels like a Mexican version of a Hammer Horror movie, in a good way.  Stuffy Mexican actors stand in for British ones, such as Santa Claus from MST3K's Santa Vs The Devil wants to raise his son from the dead and swaps his heart for that of a dead ape.  Kiddo transforms into a horny and destructive half ape half human monster, and by that I mean completely human except with ape makeup on.  The monster goes on a destructive rampage, the humans have to stop it.

The Video Nasty components are good, and the original movie was good, I argue.  Without the insane parts this is still like a late 60s monster movie which I would tend to enjoy.  So with those, its just an added bonus.  Its also blessedly short and quick moving.  The 80ish minutes did just fly on by.   I give it a solid 3.

Nasty Scale: 3/10

"For" or "Against" Video Nasty as a Concept:  For

Mardi Gras Massacre - 1978

 Yet another proto slasher, and another I've never really heard of mentioned.

I coulda sworn I'd seen this in some dumbass idea of "watch all the themed horror movies" especially if they were built around either a holiday or a bizarre device.  Microwave Massacre, Death Bed, New Years Evil, Valentine...you get it, the ones that're built around something specific.  How did this escape me?

These movies seem to get labeled a Video Nasty easier if they mix violence and sexuality, and also if they throw in some Satanism.  It made me think if Video Nasty was related at all to Satanic Panic, and they certainly were both in vogue at the same time, the DPP list was in 1984 and Satanic Panic started in 1980.  If people think we live in Conservative times now, remember this shit!  At least these were released!

This is a extremely simple movie of this guy John trying to track down "evil" women and sacrifice them.  He picks up a girl, he takes her home and kills her.  He picks up another and does it again.  His method is to strap them naked to a black table and go into the other room, change into a weird Mayan-esque mask and outfit, come out with a little sword and cut them open, removing their heart.

The violence is a bit extreme, I guess, and we have plenty of close-ups to scar our precious little innocent eyes. There's also some weird confluence of strange astrological sounding music, full frontal female nudity, and stiff weird acting to generally invoke an overall uneasy feeling which honestly, I will give quite a bit of credit for.  I sorta wish the movie had slightly more to it, because it is seriously just one thing for 90 minutes, but you know...oh well.

I also wonder how many of these have this in common, slightly hard to explain...Because of the amateur nature, they have both these strange upsetting moments but then they're still making a movie that they want to crossover, so they include some bizarre and lighter-hearted 70s movie moments, such as a full musical sequence montage where people dance, etc, and its not that these are unsettling its more that the wide variance between the two totemic extremes of this film are SO much more than MANY movies.  It speaks to that "surprise" factor I've noted before, these are movies you can predict.

 This movie is relatively monotone, but that tone is a bit odd and certainly could be described as disturbing.  It also makes you think about rib cages and Mon pubis, which is....something.  I give it a 3.5.

Nasty Scale: 8/10

"For" or "Against" Video Nasty as a Concept:  For

The Werewolf and the Yeti - 1981

 Also known as The Curse of the Beast, Night of the Howling Beast and Hall of the Mountain King.

This took me a while to get through because Fawsome, the streaming app, sucks.  Don't use it.  It has more ads than the others and didn't remember where I was, and then at one point when I went to resume this movie it started playing something else....  I also had to restart this movie twice.  I seriously considered not finishing this and leaving a review anyways.  

This is part of Paul Naschy's Werewolf series, a movie I've visited on this review site before.  These were a somewhat long running series of B or C par Spanish werewolf movies that were relatively modest in scale and success, but like some series just kept going.  

Again, this returns to my "surprise" theory about why these would be labeled as Video Nasty.  They felt like this was a fairly whatever schlocky Spanish werewolf movie, and were just not ready for it to have a bit more gore effects.  This is pretty mild overall, I will have to maybe rate the Nasties on a Nasty Scale, maybe from 1 meaning not nasty to 10 meaning mega nasty each?  This is kinda fun to make this up as I go along.  Anyways, this is like a 1.  One sorta weird skinning scene is I'm sure what did it, it has as much disturbing content as a average monster movie.

Perhaps obvious by the title, this is a movie where Naschy is turned into a werewolf in Tibet and has to fight pirates as well as a Yeti.  Well, supposedly.  In the last 5 minutes of the movie they have a 1 minute fight scene in the dark that sucks.  

The thing with this, is despite the hokey Halloween mask effects and some weird campy stuff going on, this just feels like an absolute chore.  Nothing is explained and nothing seems to matter.  Things just kind of happen and you just keep watching.  It’s basically the opposite of engaging. 

Nasty Scale: 1/10

"For" or "Against" Video Nasty as a Concept:  Against

The House by the Edge of the Park - 1980

 Ruggero Deodato may be the only recurring director on the Video Nasty list...we'll wait and see if there's others.  But I know he did Cannibal Holocaust, which I will rewatch for this list, I guess.

House by the Park is a slightly similar vein to Cannibal, being like a trial in extreme filmmaking.  Its in the argument "for" there being a Video Nasty list of prosecuted films versus the argument "against" which I'll try to put all these into camps of from now on.  Evilspeak is against, Blood Rites is for.  

The reason this is an experiment and that is "for" Video Nasty is that this movie is basically wall to wall sexual violence.  It begins with a rape and murder and kinda just goes from there as serial killer and rapist Alex, a twisted and sadistic psycho who invites himself to a customers houseparty where he and his friend Ricky begin to get teased by the people at the party.  They react in the way they know how: with violence.

If you're a girl in this movie, you will be nude, raped and possibly injured or killed.  Its just what the movie is, and it made me really think about casting.  I realize that Hollywood is the goal of many a star-eyed naive person, but what do they think of these roles, that this is a step in?  I just don't see this being the launch pad for a real star, and this is low budget Italian schlock, how much were they paid?  I just wonder sometimes.

This is also a dialed up less stylized Funny Games, a couple of movie I like both of, and certainly the sexually charged home invasion angle is very prevalent.  Straw Dogs, etc.  The goal of these in part is to shock, offend and titillate, and 46 years later this movie is still doing it, which in effect is the sign of immense success.  An unnecessary twist ending was a strike against, but in the end I give it 4 stars.  

Nasty Scale: 10/10

Evilspeak - 1981

 This is the second one of these Video Nasties where I have had a thought about the labeling and targeting these were subject to.  Much like in Blood Rites, is it a lot of the incongruity and frankly the unexpectedness of these films level of violence that gets them labeled as problems?  Here you have a seemingly normal sci-fi, fen enough fantasy film, why does it have a scene of pigs eating guts?  In Blood Rites its a Agatha Christie talky been there done that plot, why the grisly death scene?  

What I'm saying is that Texas Chainsaw was not on the Video Nasty list, and that's probably because they knew what they were getting in for, they were ready.  It didn't come of left field like it does in this movie and Blood Rites.  Its unexpected here.  Is that why they didn't like it?

Evilspeak I had seen before and had pretty much lumped in with the Ice Cream Man and a few other early Clint Howard B grade horror movies.  Movies that were capitalizing on his weird look and presence and yet real acting talent to have him be a top heel in some whatever level thriller.  

Which Evilspeak very much is, its some whatever level thriller, and thus the gut eating scenes are a bit pushing the envelope, this type of territory should be barely rated R, the type of thing you end up showing to 13 year old because its not that bad and you're a cool uncle or whatever.  The plot is some silly trash about Satan in a computer giving superpowers and theres a touch of nudity and its all very much the type of rated R thing people like me saw when they were 10...except for those few gore scenes.

Evilspeak is an interesting, out there thriller that is fun and off kilter enough.  Feels like the type of 80s trash we all grew up with.  2.5 stars.  Nasty Scale:  3/10

The Driller Killer - 1979

 Watching this and looking it up made me wonder, just how many directors who started out in porn are even left?  How about, how many directors that started in porn and achieved some degree of mainstream success?  It can't be all that many.  Truly a dying era.

The Driller Killer was the first real film of Abel Ferrara, a director who is an art house fave and had a few slightly almost mainstream successes.  He had directed porn before this and it was a pretty normal transition at this point to switch over to low budget horror.

Ferrara himself stars as Reno Miller, a mouth breathing weirdo who is sorta uninterpretable.  He seems like he's on some sort of drugged out trip, things affect him in bizarre ways.  Dissonant rock music, sexual misunderstandings, fussing over hanging a painting, homelessness.  These seemingly normal things just keep making him have some sort of break from reality which eventually turns him into the homicidal Driller Killer.

There's moments where talent shows through this thing, mostly in some editing choices and tinges of atmosphere, but overall this is a terrible slog.  A lot, maybe 50% of this movie is just a terrible band playing badly engineered rock music.  Another 20% is random people having inane, pointless, slurred conversations.  A mostly unexplored killer doesn't exactly give you a rock to hold on to either.

When the kills come, they're fine and an easy highlight to this, but that's mostly because the rest of this is almost pure drivel.  It made me think of how movies could be described by just some moments, and someone might come out of this proclaiming it had violence, gore, nudity, lesbian sex, mental disease, crossdressing, filth, etc.  What they would not say is those are 20 seconds each and the rest of the film is just stupid bullshit.  I'll give it 1 star.  Nasty Scale: 1/10

Blood Rites - 1968

 Also known as The Ghastly Ones. 

Well, no promises. That’s my intro to this, a random entry I could find online from the infamous DPP list of Video Nasties. These were the 39 actually prosecuted movies that ended up in court. Luckily a lot of them crossover with other things I’ve watched, such as a bunch of these are also Zombie series movies. Here’s the list.  Underlined titles are what I have seen, complete with links:

1. Absurd also known as Monster Hunter, Anthropophagus 2, and Horrible
2. Anthropophagous: The Beast also known as The Grim Reaper, Man Beast, Man-Eater, and The Savage Island
3. Axe also known as Lisa, Lisa and California Axe Massacre
4. A Bay of Blood also known as Twitch of the Death Nerve, Blood Bath and Bay of Blood
5. The Beast in Heat 
6. Blood Feast 
7. Blood Rites also known as The Ghastly Ones
8. Bloody Moon 
9. The Burning 
10. Cannibal Apocalypse  also known as Invasion of the Flesh Hunters
11. Cannibal Ferox also known as Make Them Die Slowly
12. Cannibal Holocaust 
13. The Cannibal Man 
14. Devil Hunter
15. Don't Go in the Woods 
16. The Driller Killer 
17. Evilspeak 
18. Exposé also known as House on Straw Hill
19. Faces of Death 
20. Fight for Your Life 
21. Flesh for Frankenstein also known as Andy Warhol's Frankenstein
22. Forest of Fear also known as Toxic Zombies and Bloodeaters
23. Gestapo's Last Orgy also known as Last Orgy of the Third Reich and Caligula Reincarnated As Hitler
24. The House by the Cemetery 
25. The House on the Edge of the Park 
26. I Spit on Your Grave also known as Day of the Woman
27. Island of Death also known as Devils in Mykonos and A Craving For Lust
28. The Last House on the Left 
29. Love Camp 7 
30. Madhouse (but not the one I watched!) also known as There Was a Little Girl
31. Mardi Gras Massacre 
32. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain also known as Nightmare
33. Night of the Bloody Apes
34. Night of the Demon 
35. Snuff 
36. SS Experiment Camp also known as SS Experiment Love Camp
37. Tenebrae also known as Unsane
38. The Werewolf and the Yeti also known as Night of the Howling Beast
39. Zombie Flesh Eaters also known as Zombie and Zombi 2

This is mostly so that I do not have to keep looking it up myself.  So like I said, a lot of the Zombie series is on here and a lot of other random stuff I've seen like The Burning and Night of the Demon. 

Plot wise this movie is the admittedly overdone "buncha people can inherit a fortune if they stay overnight in the creepy house" or whatever.  Fuck, I wonder what the originator of that is?  We've seen it before.  Its completely incongruous with the insanity of the first 5 minutes in which video nasty becomes apparent as a insane man with a meat cleaver murders two people in the woods.  

Which I'll say...is fucking NUTS with sped up footage and really great effects, its downright unsettling and no wonder it was censored!  And that nutcase is the helper at the house the family has to stay at.  A few minutes later we have ahead of its time topless scenes and Texas Chainsaw-esque disturbing mental disease and/or weirdness which is not to be underrated in terms of creep factor.  There's also a pretty violent rape scene that begins later and its like....yikes.

This is barely 70 minutes long and with all that stuff going on it flies by.  This feels like half a talky Agatha Christie early 60s "horror" and half a mid late 70s exploitation flick.  No wonder they freaked out!  The insane parts are really insane and then the rest is calm as a pleasant stream.  Which is to say its uneven 1000%, it barely gets more uneven than this.

But there is one more thing to say, and I would not have expected it.  This is also a huge proto slasher.  Absolutely.  This has a body count with a mysterious masked killer, it has a big reveal at the end with a exposition dump concerning the "why" of it all, it is hugely in that vein.

This movie is many many things, and all in all that's jam-packed into 70 minutes and suffice to say like, you will have a good time.  With one of the many things this is.  So I dunno what else to give it...?  

Nasty Scale: 9/10

Trollhunter - 2010

 Found footage came and went, and what were the standouts from this genre? Beyond Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, and Cloverfield I would argue that this was the only other big one.

I heard about this movie pretty soon after it had come out as a comedy documentary Norwegian found footage film about trolls and I was immediately interested. I believe I rented this on Netflix DVD and have watched it a few times, and it’s been a few years so I re-watched it now. Trollhunter is truly the perfect mix of Christopher Guest meets found footage horror doc.

Early on in the film, we meet the three filmmakers, main character Thomas boom mic operator Johanna and cameraman Finn. They are investigating the poaching of bear, and they stumble upon a man they think might’ve done it, only to discover he is in fact something far more interesting than a common poacher.

The real reason for the crossover success of this is that this movie moves. I paused it just now and I’m 15 minutes from the end and I thought I was maybe 15 minutes into the movie. It has a fantastic pace and it really grips you with compelling characters and well written dialogue. This is not laugh out funny but it does have a funny wit to it, and one that is not like very much else I’ve seen.

They clearly had a pretty low budget and were selective about when to use CGI and in what way, and it really lends itself to the filmmaking style.  Lots of night shoots, nightvision cameras, darkness, and shadows. This is an expertise use of easy effect done cheaply that looks fantastic and has aged extremely well.