Book Review: The Art of The Nasty – Author Nigel Wingrove

Written by Nigel Wingrove, Marc Morris
Published by FAB Press
Publication Date: 2009
Format: Color – 160 pages
Price: $34.95

Today I received a rather impressive collection book in the mail from the fine folks at FAB press. Now while it’s true that alot of cool books comes across our hands so that we can give em look and inform the world, it’s pretty safe to say that this is one of the cooler books I’ve received this year. Being an artist myself, I love the ways of the old especially when it comes down to the old school poster art. These are pretty easily recognized as back in the day, they didn’t have computers so they straight out hired painters and illustrators to provide the advertising materials. Nope not something thrown together in an evening but at times spread over several months of labor and detailing precision.

So if you ever wonder why these poster feel so “classic” or “retro” then now you know. Sadly a lost art has been abandoned somewhat in the process as many of these poster artists are much older now and can’t compete with the advertising firms for turnaround time. That aside, its still evident that the work speaks for itself. In fact these have become collector items to display proudly on connoisseur wall hangings like a virtual museum of all things classic. Well “The Art of The Nasty” is chock full of this stuff. So much that I might have to get another copy that doesn’t have drool spilled over the pages.

So that brings us to the content. As some of you may know there was a time in our horror video culture that censorship was in full bloom on films that were deemed unsuitable for home viewing. This lead to several of these films being pulled, cut or banned for distribution. Upon doing some fact checking this little bit from wikipedia best sums it up:

“Video nasty” was a term coined in the United Kingdom in the 1980s that originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by various religious organizations, in the press and by commentators such as Mary Whitehouse. While violence in cinema had been subject of censorship for many years, the lack of a regulatory system for video sales combined with the possibility of any film falling into children’s hands led to new levels of concern.

Many of these “video nasties” were low-budget horror films produced in Italy and the United States. The furore created by the moral crusade against video nasties led to the introduction of the UK’s Video Recordings Act 1984 which imposed a stricter code of censorship on videos than was required for cinema release. Several major studio productions ended up being banned on video, falling afoul of legislation that was designed to control the distribution of video nasties.

So zip us forward into the 21st century, where some of these banned scenes can be seen even on prime time television these days. The violence of course, rather than the sexual content. In any case, these films have resurfaced on some front s and re-issued on others. In the dawn of unrated versions and classics that were unsuitable, they have found new audiences to indulge.

The intro to the book gives us plenty of back history into these films and the past issues surrounding them. Well articulated and comprehensive you get pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the banned 39 video nasty films

This brings us to the book which features the covers of the whole lot of video nasties. Each comes with some brief notes on the releases, alternate titles and facts of importance.

We get the horror, the erotic, the cult, the taboos and a whole mess of what I call some pretty cool films to put on the list. The artwork reproduced in this book is fantastic and full of color. If that doesn’t do the trick then you can also consider this a lost reference book into finding the best of the worst films to seek out and fry your brain cells just bit. Well FAB does it again, knocks my socks off and makes me do a chicken dance with some of the finest print books on the planet. This one has X-mas present written all over it!!!

For clarity I’ve included the famed video nasty list:

1. Absurd
2. Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein
3. The Anthropophagus Beast
4. Axe
5. The Beast in Heat
6. The Beyond
7. Blood Bath
8. Blood Feast
9. Blood Rites
10. Bloody Moon
11. The Bogey Man
12. The Burning
13. Cannibal Apocalypse
14. Cannibal Ferox
15. Cannibal Holocaust
16. The Cannibal Man
17. Cannibal Terror
18. Contamination
19. Dead and Buried
20. Death Trap
21. Deep River Savages
22. Delirium
23. The Devil Hunter
24. Don’t Go in the House
25. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone
26. Don’t Go Near the Park
27. Don’t Look in the Basement
28. The Driller Killer
29. The Evil Dead
30. Evilspeak
31. Expose
32. Faces of Death
33. Fight for Your Life
34. Forest of Fear
35. Frozen Scream
36. Funhouse
37. Gestapo’s Last Orgy
38. The House By the Cemetery
39. House on the Edge of the Park
40. Human Experiments
41. I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses
42. I Spit on Your Grave
43. Inferno
44. Island of Death
45. Killer Nun
46. The Last House on the Left
47. Late Night Trains
48. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue
49. Love Camp 7
50. Madhouse
51. Mardi Gras Massacre
52. Night of the Bloody Apes
53. Night of the Demon
54. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker
55. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain
56. Possession
57. Pranks
58. Prisoner of the Cannibal God
59. Revenge of the Bogey Man
60. The Slayer
61. Shogun Assassin
62. Snuff
63. SS Experiment
64. Tenebrae
65. Terror Eyes
66. The Toolbox Murders
67. Unhinged
68. Visiting Hours
69. The Werewolf and the Yeti
70. The Witch Who Came from the Sea
71. Women Behind Bars
72. Xtro
73. Zombie Creeping Flesh
74. Zombue Flesh Eaters
75. Zombie Holocaust

http://www.fabpress.com/