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Some (many!)
In Britain at that time, you have job losses, you have welfare being cut.
People were living in poverty, she says.
This political reality serves as a tangible through-line inCensor, which follows a relatively simple conceit.
The crescendoCensoreventually hits offers one of the more unsettling denouements in recent horror cinema.
Film censorship happens everywhere, but the moral hysteria around video nasties was specific to England in the 80s.
Can you tell us a little about that history?
The birth of VHS led to a boom in low-budget horror becoming available.
For various reasons, the U.K.s reaction was one of the most conservative in western countries.
Its amazing how the tabloid press was about to whip up this moral panic around these films.
Its what I see when I look at that footage.
We dont watch a horror film and then completely lose all of our morals.
The reason people do terrible things is not that simple.
Its such a simple explanation to just blame horror.
The idea that games likeGrand Theft Autolead to shootings …
But the period and what was going on is just too rich not to set it then.
But youalsohave distance from it.
And then it was video nasties.
And then it was video games.
Its been Marilyn Manson; its been rap music.
Sometimes the fear of what theyre going to do causes more of a problem than the technology itself.
Maybe were just a frightened species.
I think about this a lot.
Some people love it, and some people just cant stand it.
I know from my perspective its not so much about the gore.
Theres something very physical about watching these kinds of films.
I think horror is the most similar, of all film genres, to a roller-coaster ride.
For me, Im really interested in trying to understand why people do bad things.
Im really interested in dark minds and picking them apart.
I dont have a hard-and-fast answer.
Im still trying to work it out.
Looking back, do you think the nasties can be framed, and appreciated, as art?
I think some of them can.
The video nasties, as a whole, are quite varied in terms of their art.
Some of them were impressively bad.
They have a real kind of vision behind them.
And theyre quite sophisticated filmmaking in their own way.
Its a real range.
Theres the really schlocky ones, and there are some really fun, wild ones likeBasket Case.
But even then, theres art inBasket Case, you know.
