10 Brutally Violent Films The Censors Tried To Ban
2. Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979)
No stranger to censorship, Italian director Lucio Fulci had 3 movies on the Video Nasties list while The New York Ripper was not only banned in the UK, the print was escorted out of the country by Her Majestys Constabulary. Zombie Flesh Eaters is his best known picture, a stylish imitation of Dawn Of The Dead that throws in all the nudity, eye gougings and zombie-versus-shark sequences that George Romero left out. The scene where Paola (Olga Karlatos) loses an eye to a wooden splinter was absent from the 1979 UK theatrical release but present on home video, much to the dissatisfaction of the recently elected Conservative government. Actually, the strong uncut version came out a year after the theatrical cuts VHS release, but that didnt prevent it from being seized and withdrawn. The film wasnt available again in its entirety until 2005.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
