FORMAT: BLU-RAY (REWATCH)
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
(As posted on November 5th, 2017)
(NOTE: This documentary was included on the Night of the Demon Blu-Ray)
David Gregory is one of the great horror film documentarians of our time. A director of several behind-the-scenes DVD special features, he has been entertaining and informing for decades, giving us in-depth documentaries on some of the most popular horror movies ever made. With Ban the Sadist Videos, Gregory gives us a comprehensive look at Britain’s crackdown on horror videos in the ‘80s.
Gregory begins with a glimpse of just how wide open the video market was in the early ‘80s. Since the major studios were a little slow on the uptake, independent companies were able to flood the market with exploitation titles like Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, and Cannibal Holocaust. Video stores were practically everywhere at the time, so these films were readily available to just about anyone. Soon, moral crusaders took it upon themselves to ban the movies in an effort to “save the children”. This led to a government crackdown on violent videos and police raids on mom and pop video stores, which gave the videos instant worldwide notoriety.
In America, we didn’t have this sort of hubbub. Our battle was mostly with the MPAA who cut out all the nasty bits before the movie could even be released. As a Yank, I found this documentary to be highly informative, but the real reason to see it is for all the cool archive footage of the old video stores and seeing goriest snippets of the films in question. I also enjoyed the interviews with filmmakers like Jess Franco, Wes Craven, and Dario Argento, who talk about how it feels to have your work censored. I just wish there was more footage of them because most of the directors interviewed take the censorship kind of personally.
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