T - Trash
Here we have to be honest with ourselves and admit, most of the Video Nasties are trash. They may be fun to watch, but they are trash movies. I concede that Cannibal Holocaust is a good film. Mario Bava and Dario Argento have no business being on the Nasties list. Kudos to Cannibal Apocalypse, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Last House on the Left... but most of the movies are trash. Show me a good Nazisploitation movie and I will show you a decent Simpsons episode that has been made within the last three years (they don't exist). Apart from Holocaust and Apocalypse, the rest of the Cannibal movies are cliched and boring. Terror Eyes, Forest of Fear, Don't Go In The Woods Alone, Blood Rites, Pranks, Madhouse - they are not worth seeking out - not even for nasty purists. Such trash has been given legendary status due to the 1984 Video Recordings Act. To put Don't Go Near the Park on a par with Cannibal Holocaust affords it a cult status as a disturbing horror movie that it truly doesn't deserve. It's not fit to lick Holocaust's boots.
U - Unusual
Every now and then, when you are perusing the Video Nasty list, there comes a deliciously off-skew film that does not fit into the usual nasty territories of slash and stalk, Nasty Nazis or Cannibals. Two examples of this phenomenon are Andy Warhol's Frankenstein and Witch Who Came in From The Sea. There has been a lot of controversy over the direction of Andy Warhol's Frankenstein - how much of it was Antonio Margheriti and how much of it was Paul Morrissey? Well anyway, in the film Baron von Frankenstein is trying to create the perfect female and male prototypes for a master Serbian race. He is unhappy with the non-existant libido of his male creation. The film follows his exploits to enhance the creature's sex drive and his ultimate demise due to the backlash of his chicanery. An absolute riot of a film, Andy Warhol's Frankenstein possesses a ripe sense of humour that is rare among the Nasties. It is actually quite light hearted and silly, as well as being well made. A rare turn up for the books in the world of Nasties. The Witch Who Came From the Sea is a rare film in that the stalk and slash conventions are over turned and this time it is men in peril - at the hands of a woman. Molly is a disturbed and psychotic young woman who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her alcoholic father. She works at a Californian sea food restaurant and embarks upon a series of sexual encounters with men that end with much gruesomeness.... Not especially a horror film - more a depiction a la Roman Polanski's Repulsion - of a sexually abused woman's descent into insanity, The Witch Who Came From The Sea is a pretty trippy film, with its TV commercials telling Molly to kill and its weird flashbacks. Genuinely unnerving and an unflinching depiction of the effects of child abuse, The Witch Who Came From the Sea is unlike any other Video Nasty.