 Originally Posted by EvilNed
Since the conversation drifted to Italian sleaze and exploitation, I thought I'd give you guys a tip; Stunningly Savage.
It's an artist who does much of the artwork for Arrow BluRays and other releases. I ordered a few posters of Fulci films;
Ah yes, Rick Melton. He doesn't do the covers for Arrow Video anymore (hasn't done for a few years IIRC - his cover for "Inferno" was met with a fair amount of fan controversy - the scene was pretty accurate to a key scene in the film, aside from the rather incongruous nudity in his version). I dig his stuff generally, although some of his covers were a bit hit and miss (the one he did for The House by the Cemetery was pretty rough - with more OTT nudity). I don't mind the nudity at all, but it's when it's used in the wrong context for the film or the scene being depicted ... it's attention grabbing, sure, but it was sometimes not the best route to take while at other times it was (e.g. his cover for Island of Death). So some of his artwork didn't fit at all well, while other artwork was spot on.
In recent years he's done work for other companies and has produced some fantastic pieces - lots of classic monster or Hammer Horror stuff, for example. 
Originally Posted by shootemindehead
The likes of Whitehouse represents the worst of that curtain twicher type. She had far, far too much influence on politcal affairs, largely because Thatcher was willing to give her the time to vent her spleen on, largely, mickey mouse issues. Even as a small child I recall thinking just how strange that this old lady could be on the tele telling people how bad something was and that she was going to get it shut down. In fact, too much power to control affairs of culture was readily hand over to that "type" of person. For 15 years the BBFC was run by a guy who flat out refused to have certain scenes remain intact in a film, regardless of what that film was! Now, I've no doubt that James Ferman was a man of his convictions and believed he was doing "good", but he's not the kind of guy I would want as the arbiter of my entertainment. In fact, even though I'm Irish, his influence made my video buying days a bloody minefield of nuisance and disappointment. Every single time I bought a video in HMV, Virgin or wherever, the risk that the heart and soul was cut out of it was quite high. Pretty galling when one had to fork out up to £15.99 for a video in the 90's.
When the whole thing was dredged up again in during the Jamie Bulger case, by the Lib Dems this time, I was again taken aback that politicans/busy bodies were willing to use this appalling incident as a springboard for their own crusade and careers. The films in the target sights this time were even more inoccuous. 'Childs Play' apparently could make kids murder other kids. Luckily that amendment was shot down pretty quickly as it would have led to even more stringent censorship.
I agree as well, that the old school Mary Whitehouse moral cursader has been replaced by a newer/younger online type. I'm constantlly rolling my eyes at the likes of the alt right and what I call the alt left and the noisy bleating they engage in. Many of whom are "professional offendees" who say and write the most farcical nonsense in the guise of political debate. There's a disturbing rise of single issue identity politics going on as well and while these shouters are usually contained to an online presence, they have enough like minded folk that nod their head in agreement and none of them seem to have a single grasp of what has come before them from a political point of view.
Hilarious to think that stuff happened and how quaint it all was. Being alive during the rise of the web and the fact that one can see the most awful examples that mankind can sink to, it's astonishing to think that during those times the worst parents had to worry about was whether their kid was playing a violent video game. In many ways I was lucky. My folks had me late, in their 40's, and they just didn't know what to do with me a lot of the time, so nearly anything went in my house. I was kind of allowed to find my own level as it were. Now, I'm not saying that's the formula for raising a child, but I do get antsy when I see parents scolding their kid's curiosity about something they themselves find uncomfortable or objectionable and I don't believe that banning things from teenagers works. It just heightens the desire to find out more often resulting in dire consequences.
1) Yeah, the likes of Whitehouse and Ferman - and any modern equivalents - do my head in. In the case of Whitehouse it's that moral crusader bullshit, and moreso when you're decrying a film you've not seen and then, when challenged about that very fact, they say that they don't need to see it to know what's in it. Erm - billy bollocks, sunshine!  Ferman was a curious sort judging from the Video Nasty docs I've seen. He seemed to fancy himself as a film editor in some regards, and if the film was 'worthy' it was allowed to slip through and be defended - but the so-called 'low art' films, as he'd regard them, were spat upon and butchered, sometimes in the most silly ways. I've got a severely censored copy of The Evil Dead on video (that was how I first saw it - it was a 4Front releast from the 1990s) and some of the edits are sooooo wonky: skipping soundtrack, even jarring jumps within the frame (e.g. hitting a deadite on the head with a big timber).
2) Yes, that whole Jamie Bulger instance of it rising up again - the "Ban This Sick Filth!" furore - was a sorry state of affairs. The case itself was just awful, utterly horrendous, but a movie didn't make those kids do what they did - to actually be physically and mentally capable of doing those things, you've got to be a special kind of messed up. Normal people don't do the things those two scumbags did to that little boy. Just sickening ... awful.
If movies/games/whatever made you a killer, then there'd be a shitload of killers running around murderin' up a storm ... and yet there isn't. I studied these things for a Sociology project during my A-Levels, and the whole 'Video Nasty' thing, citing various bits of research that found that many school kids interviewed at the time were talking rubbish - they'd never seen these movies in many cases, and when confronted with a list of films (to point out the ones they'd seen) they identified film titles that were completely false and made up!  Naturally, some kids were seeing this stuff - but it is the responsibility of the people selling the films in shops/renting them in rental shops, and most importantly of all: the parents! I was denied seeing almost all horror movies initially. I had to sort of worm my way into them through other avenues - sci-fi/horror combos like Alien or The Thing (which I was allowed to watch because they were primarily sci-fi). I remember sneaking viewings of films like Halloween, volume way down, door shut, finger hovering over the "STOP" button on the VCR remote. Cherished memories, so they are.
3) The rise in "populist" and "post-truth" politics is terrifying, frankly. People bang on about wanting to know "the truth", yet seem so willing to swallow absolutely anything they're told by their own side without a single second of critical thought. Then you've got apparent know-it-alls who know sod all. The smartest ones are those who admit they're unsure, that they don't feel they know enough still. This whole 'extreme politics' thing sickens me - there's a cavernous void in the centre ground (where the most people can be catered for in the most reasonable fashion). The political landscape at the moment ... ugh ... "I can't even" as the witch hunters of the twittersphere might say.
4) Yep, banning anything heightens the desire to have it - just look at prohibition! Remember when there was that murder and "Manhunt" was implicated in it? The game wasn't that great and had slid off the sales charts long ago and was way down there - it got wrapped up in that controversy, there was talk of banning it, and all of a sudden it shot right up to Number One because people wanted a copy of it due to the fury surrounding it and because they wanted a copy in case it was banned! Ridiculous! Never mind that, as it was disovered, the victim was in possession of the game at the time and the crime was motivated by greed and robbery gone wrong. A tragic, awful thing to happen, but the game had sod all to do with it, to be quite frank.
There's always the curiosity in what you can't see, or aren't allowed to see - or experience etc etc etc - it's in our very nature as humans. Likewise with these 'professional offendees', as you call them, who are seeking to legislate language (as laughably stupid, but worryingly serious as a concept, as the Video Nasties nonsense), it is their very perniciousness that causes people to deliberately say offensive things. Sometimes it's just people being people, telling tasteless jokes, but at its worst it contributes to the rise of extreme political movements. Nobody likes to be nagged, ultimately.
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. Kid me knew this film as 'Rosemary's Killer', and I remember the video cover very well and also my inabiltity to actually rent it (due to the fact that we had no video player and I was way too young 
You mean "Anthropophagous" - that's where the 42nd Street doc is.
As for the Video Nasties doc, I saw that a couple of years ago. It's pretty good, even if Bright was still pushing his nonsense. IIRC, He at one stage says that the film's were "evil". 
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