10 Video Nasties That Shouldn’t Have Been Banned

Dead & Buried is a little gem of a horror movie that stands out thanks to the fact that it was one of Robert Englund’s early roles, and the fact that it was written by Dan O’Bannon, writer of 1979’s Alien and director of Return Of The Living Dead. It was very different to anything else from its time, being a very clever slasher movie that threw out plot twists with each minute of runtime. Critics loved the movie at the time, and cult horror fans love the movie today, but in 1984, the conservative parliament did not.

Despite being passed uncut for cinema, Dead & Buried was banned thanks to the film’s "shocking" content, despite the fact that Dead & Buried is one of the least gory films to be featured on the list of banned movies. There was very little blood onscreen, and what shocking content was featured in the movie was more akin to 1990’s Misery than Cannibal Holocaust or Anthropophagus. Dead & Buried was more subtle than most when it came to the film’s more violent moments, choosing to feature less gore and more uncomfortably violent scenes that would make a viewer cringe.

Nonetheless, Dead & Buried was banned with the same reputation as highly gory films despite being completely different, and with more to offer than just blood and guts.