8 March 2014

Glasgow Frightfest 2014 Review: Video Nasties: Draconian Days


Genre:
Documentary
Distributor:
Nucleas Films
Rating:18
Release Date:
1st March 2014 (World Premiere, Glasgow Film Festival) June 2014 (UK DVD)
Director:
Jake West
Cast:
Marc Morris, Kim Newman, Christopher Smith, Neil Marshall, Alan Jones

For those of us left unsated by the critically acclaimed Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship, & Videotape, director Jake West and producer Marc Morris return for a second instalment of the revealing documentary. This time the duo tackle everything that came after the 1984 Video recordings Act, filling in the blanks on how the horror fan base reacted to the Nazi-like censorship of the so-called Video Nasties.

For any younger horror fans, those of us who didn’t live in the treacherous times of home raids, jail time for ownership, and the troubles of cross-continental smuggling, Draconian Days seems just as preposterous as Moral Panic. By that I’m referring to the sordid mess of legislation enacted by a group of self-righteous conservative moral rights activists to ban flagrant use of tit and gore, not the documentaries themselves. The world Morris and West present to us is worrying indeed.

Where the first documentary ended on a note of caution, contextualising the Video Nasties mess as a frankly mind-boggling encroachment on civil liberties, Draconian Days, looks at the fallout of the act and the effects it had on forming the modern-day horror fan base. A plethora of intriguing interviews and footage make this just as fascinating and entertaining a watch as the first, and once the film has dispensed with a ten minute recap of the first (which seems oddly wasteful) the film drive forward into mostly new territory.

Arguably the recycling of previous interviewees keeps much of the film bogged down in defending its own right to exist as a sequel, but in the second half West appears to quickly discard these issues and allow the film to take shape in its own right. Draconian Days, as the title may suggest, is bothered by the excessive demonization of horror movies in the 80’s and early 90’s. The vitriol of an outraged generation seeps through the celluloid, taking a stand against not only a point in history that the horror fans have almost buried, but daring anyone to try it again.

For horror fans, Draconian Days is a must, not simply as a cautionary tale paralleling the modern day issues of copyrighting and censorship, but as a well-conceived, well-humoured, and often insightful glimpse into a specific point in Horror history. If you weren’t bothered for the first then this is surplus to requirement.

★★★★

Scott Clark





1 comment:

  1. he video nasties atrocities



    in the hysteria of film censorship back in

    the early eighties
    where morality was at it’s highest where

    there were violent
    atrocities going on in England like the

    coal miners strikes
    in cities and violence of protests going

    on in Utoxteth
    and Brixton and the war in the Falklands

    over its control
    of between England and Argentina and mass

    employment
    that former factory and mine workers took

    their severance
    pay by starting up in the video rental

    service due to the birth
    of home cinema was booming with it’s war

    between vhs and beta
    that vhs won hands down but their were no

    censoring on graphic
    horror movies including nightmaresin a

    damage brain that led distributor
    David Hamilton grant went to prison for

    18 months due to hosting an
    distasteful guess the weight of a human

    brain contest that tied in with
    the illegal uncut version uncensored and

    at his trial film columnist Derek Malcolm

    was asked
    by the qc about what he thought of the

    films merit and Malcolm said it was
    an well executed film so the judge

    exploded well executed and the judge

    continued
    about some Nazi atrocity was well

    executed and that lead the path of
    the department of public prosecutions

    issue an motion of the video recordings

    act
    lead by conservative politician graham

    bright to censor graphic horror with

    campaigner Mary Whitehouse as collaborator

    by labelling it under the obscene
    Publicaton’s act 1957 the same treatment

    as horror comics by the hysteria of

    turning children into serial killers and

    fabricating a list of real titles with

    made up ones for school children as

    research lead by guy Cumberbatch but

    Clifford
    hill was furious with the research and

    author and professor martin barker
    was set up by the newsociety magazine a

    government funded publication
    but tricking him to sumerise an article

    about female revenge horror film
    I spit on your grave so he got tormented

    by the press for three days solid
    that lead these stories as fine

    ingrediants for an tell all documentary
    compendium dvd set back in 2010 and now

    in 2014 comes the continuation.

    Frankie Dandridge Smales

    smalestv uk

    ReplyDelete