10 Video Nasties That Shouldn’t Have Been Banned

Evilspeak is the 1981 male alternative to 1976’s Carrie. It’s a film about a bullied young man at a military academy, played by Clint Howard, taking violent revenge on those who bullied him through a pledge to Satan himself. It was film that caused quite a stir, especially because it came recommended by Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey himself.

Whilst a violent movie in its own right, but no more violent than other films that stayed off of the "Video nasty" list, there were more reasons as to why Evilspeak was banned outright: the satanic plot thread. In 1980s conservative Britain, moral panic was rife, and during this time there was a massive fear over satanism in teenagers, known as "satanic panic". The rise in popularity of Anton LaVey’s Church Of Satan in 1980 was a massive worry in the minds of conservative politicians, so when they saw the chance to ban a satanic movie that the BBFC deemed as overly graphic, they were champing at the bit.

Evilspeak was only released uncut in 2004 after a heavy period of being heavily censored: 3 minutes and 34 seconds were removed before it could be deemed ‘watchable’, and that was with every scene of death taken out of the movie in what can only be described as blatant overkill.