10 Best Video Nasties (And Why They Were Banned)

For his first film, director Sam Raimi married gory special effects horror with slapstick comedy through a set up which would become a staple of the genre - Five teens go into the woods, bad stuff happens. In this case the bad stuff involves demonic possession and bodily dismemberment.

Made on a meagre budget and by a crew consisting mostly Raimi's friends, Dead was clearly not going to be a slick Hollywood production. Raimi understood the best way to make his film stand out would be by pitching everything over the top. This approach would not only bring box office success, it would also draw the attention of Mary Whitehouse.

After Whitehouse showed footage of the film to alarmed MP's it was placed on the dreaded list and copies were ordered for seizure. Distributors Palace Pictures were then raided by Police and hauled into the courts on obscenity charges, but the judge dismissed the case, even going so far as to criticise the prosecutions service for bringing it to court.

By 1985 Evil Dead was off the nasties list, yet the BBFC still withheld certification for several years. Its eventual release in 1990 was cut by 1 minute 55 seconds. This toned down every act of violence, especially the shots of an ankle being stabbed and where a character is sexually assaulted by a possessed tree. The film passed uncut in 2000.

Indicating how attitudes have changed since the nasties hysteria, 2015's belated follow-up TV series, Ash vs Evil Dead, ran for three seasons with no tabloid campaigns against it, despite being far more violent than the original film.