B - Brains
If you like your craniums to be intact, then don't venture near the Video Nasty list! There are two stand out scenes in the Video nasties that are so renowned, they deserved a special Entry under B for Brains. The first scene is in infamous 'Lets goggle at morbid things' Mondo Movie - Faces of Death, the original 'Death' movie that inspired an onslaught of sequels and copycats. Humans feasting on fresh monkey brains? Now that's good Mondo! Made for the Japanese market, the film makers did not want to upset the Japanese people by showing them South East Asian people eating monkey brains. Instead, they roped in a bunch of Westerners, sat them at a table in a Middle Eastern-ish looking restaurant and got them to bash in a rubbery monkey's skull, laughing all the way. A piece of cauliflower serves as the monkey's brain and the Westerners tuck in. Yes this is simulated cruelty against animals and I should probably not snigger but the scene is so controversial and has had so many people wondering is it fake or is it real? - I had to mention it. The scene is 100% fake. No monkeys were harmed during the making of this film. A similar brains eating Video Nasty scene which deserves a mention is Giovanni Lombardo Radice's demise in Cannibal Ferox. Once in the grip of the cannibal tribe he has been antagonising (to put it mildly), Mike (Radice) gets his manhood chopped off and eaten in front of him. Later on in the film, he manages to escape from the cannibals' village into the jungle. However, it is not long before he is recaptured, tied to a tree and is relieved of his right hand by the natives. Being a baddie in the movie, he has to cop it big style. At the film's climax, in a show of Grand Guignol, Mike's head is forced into a sinister apparatus and the top of his cranium is sliced off. The jubilant natives feast on his brains. Probably for the best. What man wants to live a todger-free life? Is your head sore yet?
C - Cannibals
Probably the most associated sub-genre of films with Video Nasties, cannibals are indeed everywhere on the DPP 72 list. I think that in 1982/1983, just having the very word 'Cannibal' in the title of your film was enough to get it banned. The quality of banned cannibal films ranges from very good - Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Apocalypse, Deep River Savages (well I liked it!) to the absolutely terrible - Devil Hunter, Cannibal Terror. There are certain motifs that mark out the cannibal film sub-genre. Third World locations (usually South America), natives with 1970s bowl hair cuts (except in Devil Hunter and Cannibal Terror where the lazy directors used very inappropriate looking European men - so much for verisimilitude), cruelty to animals, nasty Westerners debasing the natives, the natives rising up against the Westerners and cannibalising them (the baddies, usually the goodies escape). This is all intercut with shots of stunning jungle scenery and wildlife and this is frequently juxtaposed against a 'First World' busy city. There is usually also rape and torture in abundance. Cannibal Apocalypse doesn't follow these conventions, and whilst dealing with cannibalism, plays more like a straight horror movie. Most of the cannibal films are available in the UK today with cuts - mainly for animal cruelty.