10 Video Nasties That Shouldn’t Have Been Banned

Italian director Lucio Fulci’s infamous Gates Of Hell trilogy consisted of City Of The Living Dead, The Beyond, and The House By The Cemetery, and two out of three movies ended up on the BBFC’s banned list because of the violence within. Whilst it can certainly be understood why The Beyond ended up on the list, because that film is very violent from beginning to end, The House By The Cemetery is an oddity. In comparison to the other films in the trilogy, The House By The Cemetery is more psychologically frightening than gory to the nth degree.

Whilst it does have a few particular scenes of graphic violence - because Lucio Fulci is named the godfather of gore for a reason - the rest of the movie is more atmospheric than wall to wall blood and guts like City Of the Living Dead or The Beyond. Despite this being the case, in 2009 The House Of The Cemetery was the last film of the trilogy to be released uncut in Britain because of one scene of violence, while other films got away with a lot more in 1984 and weren’t banned at all. This may have been due to the film’s atmospheric build-up before the scene in question making it more effectively disturbing, but, again, The Beyond was considerably more violent, and it secured an uncut release before The House By The Cemetery did. A mystery to be sure.