George Eastman — born Luigi Montefiori on August 16, 1942 — is an Italian actor, writer and director who took on his Americanized name after appearing in several spaghetti westerns in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. He’s known for his menacing glare and towering height — he’s 6 foot, 9 inches tall.

After working with Joe D’Amato on the film Cormack of the Mounties, the two began a professional relationship that extended throughout the next few decades. Probably Eastman’s best-known role is playing Klaus Wortmann, the insane cannibal killer in D’Amato’s Anthropophagous. He played a similar role — now named Mikos Stenopolis — in the spiritual sequel/Halloween ripoff Absurd and also starred in Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Porno Holocaust for the multi-named D’Amato (born Aristide Massaccesi, but also known as Ariston Massachusetts, Arizona Massachusset, Federiko Slonisko, Federico Slonisco Jr., Dan Slonisko, Raf Donato, David Hills, Michael Wotruba, Dirk Frey, Robert Hall, O.J. Clarke, Gilbert Damiano, Peter Newton, Richard Haller, Kevin Mancuso (actually the name for both he and Eastman together when they co-directed 2020 Texas Gladiators), Dario Donati, Joan Russell, Robert Yip, Lim Seng Yee, Boy Tan Bien, Chang Lee Sun, Fu She, Hsu Hsien, Leslie Wong and certainly many more that no one has figured out were really him).

Eastman didn’t just appear in Italian exploitation films. He also was the nemesis for Charlton Heston in 1972’s The Call of the Wild and played Goliath in the 1985 version of King David, which stars Richard Gere.

NOTE: Thanks to Matthyou Stern on Facebook for mentioning that he was also the minotaur in Fellini’s Satyrcon.

After a string of 1980’s appearances, mostly always as the heavy, he moved into directing and writing with films such as 1990’s Metamorphosis before becoming a screenwriter full-time.

Eastman is one of my favorite actors in Italian cinema. When he shows up in a film, you’re guaranteed that he’s going to bring all of his scene-chewing insanity to every moment that he’s on-screen. Here are but a few of my favorite roles that he’s played.

ACTING – Arno Treves in Baba Yaga: The first time I ever saw Eastman in a film was in this 1973 adaption of Guido Crepax’s erotic comic book. He plays Arno, a director who is the friend and lover of photographer Valentina Rosselli (Isabelle De Funès), who comes into the orbit of Baba Yaga (Carroll Baker), who may or may not have occult powers. Grab it from Blue Underground.

WRITING – Keoma: Eastman wrote the original treatment for this Enzo Castellari directed and Franco Nero starring spaghetti western that at once is the end of the era of those films and also was the potential for an entirely new look at the genre. Endlessly dark and influenced by Shakespeare, Sam Peckinpah and Bob Dylan — quite a cocktail — it’s a film that deserves a much larger cult. You can check out the new blu ray release from Arrow Video to see why (and there’s also a mini-doc, Writing Keoma, that features a new interview with Eastman).

ACTING – Rabid Dogs/Kidnapped: This 1973 film by Mario Bava wasn’t released until after his death, due to rights issues and no final cut having ever been completed. Taking place mainly within a car filled with criminals who all have their own agenda, Eastman plays Thirty-Two (named for the size in millimeters of his member), a drunken rapist and murderer whose madness sets the plot into overdrive. You can get it from Kino Lober.

ACTING – Antropophagus: Also known as The Grim Reaper in its cut down US release, Eastman owns every frame of this movie, appearing as mad cannibal Klaus Wortman. How many other actors eat their own intestines and rip open a woman’s belly to eat her unborn child, much less both in the same movie? This movie has so many titles, even I can’t keep track of them, like Antropofago, Man Beast, Man-Eater and The Savage Island. It’s also one of the 39 category 1 video nasties, which you can read about right here. Want to see it for yourself? Severin Video has you covered.

ACTING – Absurd: Eastman plays Mikos Stenopolis, a man experimented on by the Vatican, who begins the film by being impaled on a fence before killing every single person in his path. If this seems a lot like the movie directly above it, that’s no accident, as it also comes from the D’Amato/Eastman alliance. This one, however, is the only Halloween ripoff that has a Pittsburgh Steelers came as its backdrop. Severin Video has also rereleased this on blu ray.

ACTING – 1990: The Bronx Warriors: Anyone who makes fun of this Enzo Castellari post-apocalyptic film gets thrown out of my house on their ass. Eastman plays Ogre here, dressed in the finest Mortal Kombat fightwear years before that actually was a thing. Lucky you — you can get this movie and Escape from the Bronx and The New Barbarians on this new blu ray reissue from Blue Underground! Or watch this on Shudder and thrill to a movie that is somehow even better than the multiple movies that it’s ripping off.

ACTING – Ironmaster: In case you ever think that this world sucks, here’s a heartwarming thought: at one point in the mid-1980’s, Umberto Lenzi and George Eastman, wearing a cape with a lion head, were running wild inside South Dakota’s Custer State Park making a complete ripoff of Quest for Fire that eschews any realism and goes straight for the throat. Life can be wonderful, you know. Buy this from Ronin Flix and find out for yourself.

ACTING – The New Barbarians: Released in the US as Warriors of the Wasteland, this may be my favorite role that Eastman ever played. As One, the leader of the Templars, he murders, rapes, pillages and tortures his way through what’s left of the world after the bombs have fallen. Between him and Fred Williamson’s Nadir, the main hero Scorpion can only come across as second rate. Seriously — you have not lived until you see Eastman go full-on maniac and scream out batshit dialogue when he’s not murdering someone every two minutes. Essential viewing. Also available on that aforementioned post-apocalyptic Blue Underground three-pack.

ACTING – Blastfighter: You may have watched ripoffs of Rambo: First Blood before. But have you ever seen one with a magical gun that can shoot darts and grenades? Or one that has Michael Sopkiw, who was the childhood friend of Eastman, and is just trying to live out his life in his cabin and leave his blastfighter under the floorboards, but poachers won’t leave well enough alone? No. You have not. So you should totally get this from Ronin Flix.

ACTING – Delirium: Lamberto Bava claims that this is one of the few movies where he had the budget to get things right. Well, he did one thing correct: he hired Eastman to be Alex, the photographer boyfriend of the main character. Then he didn’t have him do much at all. Oh well. This movie is also available from Ronin Flix. I wonder if Eastman owns stock in that company.

ACTING – The Barbarians: Cannon Films. Ruggero Deodato. The Barbarian Brothers. If these words make you excited, well, you’re at the right website. Eastman makes a quick appearance here as Jacko, arm wrestling one of the brothers in a bar. Here’s hoping he got a sweet paycheck out of this one.

WRITING/DIRECTING – 2020 Texas Gladiators: In the book Spaghetti Nightmares, Eastman derided the entire post-apocalyptic genre: “These (post-atomic) films, which were made in the wake of the various Mad Max movies, were decidedly crummy. The set designs were poor…and the genre met a swift and well-deserved death. I only wrote these awful movies for financial reasons…no attempt at originality was made at all.” On this one, I’d agree, as it’s pretty much a spaghetti western with different clothes. You can grab it at Cult Action.

ACTING – 2019: After the Fall of New York: A hero named Parsifal navigates a world where women are no longer fertile, looking to bring back the one woman who can have a child. Does this sound like Children of Men? Well, amazingly, that book and movie ripped off this movie after it ripped off Mad Max. Then again, this one also has Sergio Martino directing it and features Eastman as Big Ape, a pirate-dressed Planet of the Apes character in the midst of all this who is obsessed with finally having sex with the aforementioned fertile woman and spreading his DNA all around the brutal new world of 2019. This movie is exactly as insane as that writeup makes it out to be.

ACTING/WRITING – Endgame: Why this movie isn’t out on blu ray right now blows my mind. It’s my absolute favorite post-apocalyptic film ever — I know, I say that often and even did about Warriors of the Wasteland up above — but this movie is absolutely and utterly scumtastically perfect. Just look at that cast — Al Cliver, Laura Gemser and Eastman as Karnak, the second-greatest Endgame player of all time. Eastman also wrote this film, which is packed with utter depravity and mayhem. Grab it yourself from Cult Action like I did.

ACTING – Hands of Steel: A Sergio Martino directed movie that rips off Mad Max and The Terminator while also somehow trying to be Over the Top starring John Saxon, Janet Agren, Claudio Cassinelli (who was killed in a stunt mishap on set) and Eastman as a demented trucker: Yes. Give me all of that. You can get this from Ronin Flix, complete with a new Eastman interview.

DIRECTING – Metamorphosis: Also released as Re-Animator 2 in Spain, this Eastman directed film tries to remake The Fly while basing itself on lizards instead of insects. You can grab it from Shout! Factory.

WRITING – Stage Fight: This Michael Soavi-directed, Eastman-written slasher is perhaps the last great blast of Italian horror cinema. It’s one of the most visually stunning filsm you’ll see, packed with brutality and beauty in equal measure. It’s a movie that I can’t get enough of — the way the end plays with the viewer’s perception and even breaks down reality is truly perfect. Grab it from Blue Underground or watch it on Shudder ASAP!

I’ve skipped a few other movies, but when you’ve been involved in as many films as Eastman, this is bound to happen. I’ll probably add to this list when I get a chance to check out his work in movies like Erotic Nights of the Living Dead, Porno Holocaust, Emanuelle Around the World, Emanuelle and Francoise, Caligula: The Untold Story and the two Django films that he appeared in.

Did I miss anything? What’s your favorite Eastman movie? And when is he going to act again? I realize that he reprised his role from 1986’s Christmas Present in 2004’s Christmas Rematch, but he should totally be still acting!

NOTE: Thanks to Twitter user Sjekkie Sjen for telling me: “It’s spelled Joe d’Amato not Joe D’Amoto.”

Once Quentin Tarantino gained an industry foothold as a new, unique voice in cinema, he set forth to pay tribute to his celluloid senseis—beyond the homage-plethoras within his own films—and the video store candy that served as his “film school” and shaped his cinematic philosophies. Courtesy of the enthusiastic backing of the Brothers Weinstein, Tarantino created the Miramax-distributed specialty imprint, Rolling Thunder. He named the newly-minted company after his favorite film (well, one of them) and one of the ‘70s hicksploitation’s finest films: Rolling Thunder, penned by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) and directed by John Flynn (Brainscan).

The company’s edict: To create a new theatrical experience for films that fellow film buffs knew only through their VHS incarnations—or maybe not at all. The initial plan: Release four films a year; those plans were stymied when Miramax began taking on losses as the films released by Rolling Thunder were not generating enough critical or box office interest.

During their 1995 to 1998 existence, Rolling Thunder reissued six films: Lucio Fulci’s stomach churner, The Beyond, Wong Kar-wai’s introspective crime drama, Chunking Express, Arthur Mark’s Blaxploitation romp, Detroit 9000, the Shaw Brother’s King Kong rip, The Mighty Peking Man, Takeshi’s Kitano’s yakuza drama, Sonatine, and Jack Hill’s juvenile delinquent potboiler, Switchblade Sisters.

In addition to reissuing those favorites from his video store youth, Rolling Thunder branched into original works featuring scripts Tarantino felt had unique qualities and deserved to be seen: Hard Core Logo, a Spinal Tap-influenced, mock-docudrama concerning a once-popular Canadian punk band, and Curdled, about a female crime scene cleanup worker tracking a serial killer (starring Pittsburgh native Angela Jones, who played the same character in Pulp Fiction, but drove a cab with Bruce Willis in the back seat). Keeping with Tarantino’s kung-fu roots, Rolling Thunder also supported Jet Li’s 1994 remake of Bruce Lee’s 1972 classic, Fist of Fury, known as Fist of Legend.

So, for B&S Movies “Tarantino Week,” let’s take a look at the films Quentin jockeyed as a video clerk and emulated with his later films.

The Beyond—much cooler in its Italian-vernacular title of E Tu Vivrai Nel Terrore! L’aldilà (And You Will Live In Terror! The Afterlife)—is a 1981 supernatural horror film released in the U.S (and criminally edited) as 7 Doors of Death; the film serves as the second film in Lucio Fulci’s “Gates of Hell” trilogy and it’s bookended by City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery. The 1995 reissue to the silver screen and DVD served as Rolling Thunder’s christening.

If you need a deeper explanation to this film’s insane craziness, as well Fulci’s eye-injury fetishism (Fulci likes eyes, Tarantino likes feet), then read the full B&S Movies’ review of the film.

Chungking Express, while released in 1994 in its native Hong Kong, received a limited theatrical run in North America in 1996—courtesy of Rolling Thunder. The imprint’s subsequent DVD features bookmark-commentary vignettes by Tarantino discussing Wong Kar-wai’s body of work. Criterion Collection reissued the film to DVD in 2008, but the Tarantino accouterments are not included.

The story concerns the love and loss of two Hong Kong Policemen: “Cop 223” (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and “Cop 663” (Tony Leung). In the first tale, Kaneshiro’s obsession over his recent breakup leads to his romantic involvement with a drug smuggler. In the second tale, Leung deals with the breakup of his flight attendant girlfriend and he begins to travel the wrong path. Both are linked by their mutual relationship with Faye (played by the “Heavenly Queen” of Chinese/Canto-pop, Faye Wong) who works at the Midnight Express food stand.

Detroit 9000 is a 1973 blaxploitation response to the likes of the successful crime dramas Magnum Force and Bullit. The film stars the gravely-voiced Alex Rocco, best known for his portrayal of Moe Greene in The Godfather, who teams with an educated, yet streetwise black detective to investigate the half-million-dollar theft from a black candidate’s political fundraiser. Are there lots of car chases and shootouts? You bet—with a final, bullet-strewn confrontation in Detroit’s Elmwood Cemetery.

Rolling Thunder reissued the film to theatres in 1998, then to video in 1999. In 2013 the film was reissued by Lionsgate as part of their “Rolling Thunder Triple-Pack” tribute with Switchblade Sisters and The Mighty Peking Man.

The Mighty Peking Man is a 1977 monster film whose Mandarin title, Xingxing Wang, translates as “Gorilla King” in English. Yep, you guessed it: made to cash in on the 1976 King Kong remake. While Rolling Thunder reissued the film in 1998, it initially rolled out as a second-biller on the U.S Drive-In circuit in 1980. It’s the same old story featuring greedy explorers who exploit a very large Himalayan Yeti—with a twist: Peking Man raised a beautiful, Tarzaneque woman orphaned in a plane crash who pals around the jungle with a pet leopard. The climax: The Peking Man takes a header off Hong Kong’s Jardine Tower in a hail of helicopter gunfire and jet bombers.

In a production twist only a B&S Movies reader can love: Koichi Kawaktia, the film’s assistant director, later worked on Yonggary, the 1999 South Korean remake by Hyung-rae Shims of Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967). The film’s co-scripter is Marty Poole, who wrote the 1997 Richard Lynch-fronted Rollerball homage, Ground Rules.

Sonatine is a 1993 Japanese yakuza gangster-noir written, directed, and edited by Takeshi Kitano and inspired by Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. Kitano stars as a burnt-out yakuza enforcer who discovers his newfound, lackadaisical attitude towards his profession has led to his bosses wanting to get rid of him.

The film found its way to U.S screens in 1998 and video in 2000 through Rolling Thunder.

Switchblade Sisters is a 1975 teen exploitation film concerning an all-female high school gang, the Dagger Debs; the film also made the rounds on video and television as The Jezebels. The usual street brawls and lesbian prison warden hijinks ensue.

How wild is this movie? According to the accompanying Rolling Thunder-issued commentary tracks, Jack Hill states William Shakespeare’s Othello served as the film’s framework and Patch, played by the eye-patched Monica Gaye (Nashville Girl: part of the ’70s hicksploitation cycle), is modeled after the play’s main protagonist, Iago. Hill even incorporated elements of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead as narrative inspiration. So give Quentin’s Kill Bill another watch and you’ll see the analogous qualities between his Elle Driver and Beatrix Kiddo and Hill’s Patch and Maggie characters.

Sadly, Hill’s bad girls romp served as Rolling Thunder’s final reissue.

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If not for the Miramax-Rolling Thunder fallout, who knows what films Tarantino would have released? Well, B&S Movies has a pretty good idea. Check out our “The 37 Films that Make Up Kill Bill” and “Exploring: Movies that Influenced Quentin Tarantino” features. There’s not a doubt that more than one of these films—surely from our “Kill Bill” list—would have ended up on the Rolling Thunder release schedule.

So, if Quentin holds true to his recent decree of not making any more films after his 10th film, you still have several years of “film archives” to enjoy—all thanks to a fellow movie dork behind the counter slingin’ the VHS at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. And what other films would he have made? Read our “Exploring: The Films of Rick Dalton” feature and ponder. . . .

And our obsession with all things Tarantino continues with our “Video Archives Week,” well, maybe even two, running from Sunday, May 14, 2023, to who knows when, as we pay tribute to Roger Avery and Quentin Tarantino’s weekly Video Archives podcast. Definitely check out the site as you can “select” actual VHS tapes from the (virtual) shelf to learn more about the film, where to watch it online, and hear the podcast about the film. You’re an aspiring filmmaker wanting to learn more about film? Then this is the premiere website to school you.

“If you like my stuff, you can look at it as, this is where mine came from.”
— Quentin Tarantino

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Here’s the rest of the films we reviewed for “Quentin Tarantino Week” in commemoration of the release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood:

R.D.’s Reviews:
Four Rooms
Reservoir Dogs
True Romance

Sam’s Reviews:
Django Unchained
From Dusk Till Dawn
Grindhouse: Deathproof
Grindhouse: Planet Terror
The Inglorious Basterds
Kill Bill: Volume One
Kill Bill: Volume Two
My Best Friend’s Birthday
Natural Born Killers
Pulp Fiction

* “Hollywood” Banner by R.D Francis/courtesy of Font Meme.com

Update: February 2021: Many thanks to Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, the hosts of the award-winning, Dublin-based podcast The Movie Blog, for mentioning B&S About Movies (using our site as a research reference) by way our “Exploring” feature on Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder Films. It’s in the context of their discussion of Wong Kar-War’s In the Mood for Love. It’s been a while since I’ve watched it and it needs to be reviewed at the site. You know Kar-War by way of Tarantino’s fandom of Chungking Express.

Additional thanks to the readers who sent their appreciation via Facebook regarding this overview on Quentin’s old shingle. It’s always a pleasure to chat about film, with you. And I drop a “shingle” if Quentin popped me a message. . . .

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies, as well as the sites Garage Hangover, It’s Psychedelic Baby, Magazine, and the music print publication, Ugly Things.

No matter how you feel about Quentin Tarantino’s films — obviously, I’m a fan — you have to admit that he’s been able to get more eyes on films that many folks would never watch otherwise. Thanks to The Quentin Tarantino Archives, The Grindhouse Archives and some other interviews spread all over the internet, I’ve been able to put together this list of some of the films that have inspired Tarantino’s oeuvre.

Rolling Thunder (1977): Tarantino told Cinescape, “I saw it in just about every grindhouse in Los Angeles at one time or another. It’s a great revenge movie and has one of my favorite shoot-outs at the end. It’s a great combination of both action movie and character study.” William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones return home from seven years as POWs in Hanoi, only to discover that the real war has been waiting for them back in Texas. Directed by Joe Flynn (Brainscan), Tarantino is such a fan of this movie that his production company, Rolling Thunder Pictures, was named for it. It also features James Best, who owned the acting school that Tarantino attended and any time one of his films refers to the Acuna Boys, it’s really about the gang in this film.

Five Fingers of Death (1973):  Tarantino said of this film, “That’s one of the greatest kung fu movies ever. That’s up there with Coffy in terms of [being an] audience participation movie and one of the first of the kung fu movies to be released in America.” This Shaw Brothers movie predates Enter the Dragon and was on the very cusp of the kung fu craze that would grab America in the early 1970’s.

Coffy (1973): Tarantino’s love of Pam Grier was related in our review of Jackie Brown. He’d later say, “It stars Pam Grier and is one of my favorite Blaxploitation movies. It has a violent power over an audience that’s very unique. People get swept up in it where they’re screaming for blood by the end of the movie.”

They Call Her One-Eye AKA Thriller – A Cruel Picture (1973): Elle Driver’s eyepatch-centric fashions in Kill Bill are a tribute to this Swedish exploitation film, a movie that Tarantino has declated “the roughest revenge picture of all time.” I agree — Christina Lindberg’s overwhleming desire for justice and her transformation into a literal angel of death makes for one of the greatest of all grindhouse films.

Master of the Flying Guillotine (1975): Tarantino went on record with his love of this film by saying, “Jimmy Wang Yu was the first martial arts superstar that came out of Hong Kong. More than any of the other kung fu movies, it captured the flavor of this Marvel Comics, Jack Kirby universe. I’ve seen it like 20 times.” Gogo Yubari’s unique weapon can also be traced back to this movie.

The Psychic (1977): Tarantino has named this film to several lists of his favorite grindhouse movies. It’s probably Fulci at his most restrained, working within the constraints of the giallo while also pushing at it from every direction. The theme from this film — also known as Seven Notes In Black — shows up in Kill Bill, while Fulci’s The Beyond was re-released by Rolling Thunder Productions.

Rio Bravo (1959): This Howard Hawks film has done more than just inspire Tarantino. So much of this film, as well as the character archetypes that Hawks established, influence John Carpenter, whose films Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13 also end up on Tarantino’s lists of favorite movies. When asked of this film, Tarantino replied, “When I’m getting serious about a girl, I show her Rio Bravo and she better fucking like it.”

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966): Sergio Leone directed what Tarantino has called “the best directed film of all time” or “the greatest achievement in the history of cinema.” Tarantino has created homages to this film numerous times in his work, but perhaps the most obvious are the opening of Inglorious Basterds when Landa and the farmer are talking, which echoes the meal between Angel Eyes and Stevens, and the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs which is pretty much the same as Angel Eyes’ men menacing Tuco. Throw in a Mexican standoff in nearly every Tarantino film and you can see just how important Leone is to his work.

Carrie (1976): Tarantino frequently claims Brian De Palma as one of his key influences, with Blow Out and Carrie making several of his lists of favorite films. The latter shows up on his 2002 and 2012 Sight & Sound polls. Like DePalma, Tarantino has endured critiques of his use of homage and ultraviolence. Any time you see a split screen or time moving at a non-linear pace in his films, you’re seeing the influence of DePalma.

His Girl Friday (1939): This movie also appears on both of Tarantino’s 2002 and 2012 Sight & Sound polls. He told Flavorwire.com, “One of the things I’ll do, if it’s appropriate in a movie, is I’ll just get the actors together and I show them His Girl Friday — just to show them not that we have to talk that fast in a movie, but you can talk that fast.” That’s true — he showed the cast of Four Rooms, Death Proof and Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth the film before their scenes in Pulp Fiction.

Battle Royale (2000) Tarantino has often said that this is his favorite movie to come out in the last 20 years. “If there is any movie that has been made since I’ve been making movies that I wish I had made, it’s that one,” he exclaimed. That makes sense — Gogo Yubari is pretty much Takako Chigusa from Kinji Fukasaku’s film, wearing the exact same clothes and played by the same actress, Chiaki Kuriyama.

Dazed and Confused (1993): Tarantino has referred to this as “the greatest hangout movie ever made,” which is high praise. He told Entertainment Weekly that “It’s my favorite movie of the 90s. Maybe the only movie that three different generations of college students have seen multiple times.”  When writing Pulp Fiction in Amsterdam and feeling lost and lonely, he rented the film. “All of the sudden I wasn’t lonely anymore. It’s a real hang out movie and you really get to know this whole community of people in the film. Those people have become my friends.” He echoed that same statement when he picked this film on both his 2002 and 2012 Sight & Sound Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time list, further saying, “There are certain movies that you hang out with the characters so much that they actually become your friends. And that’s a really rare quality to have in a film…and those movies are usually quite long, because it actually takes that long of a time to get past a movie character where you actually feel that you know the person and you like them…when it’s over, they’re your friends.”

The Great Escape (1963): Steve McQueen oozes the effortless cool that Tarantino has been able to bestow on so many of his actors in this film. In fact, Rick Dalton, the hero of Once Upon a Time In Hollywood almost was digitally added to the film, but Tarantino finally saw that as some level of sacrilege. When asked to pick his top five World War II movies by the Associated Press, he said of The Great Escape: “Probably my favorite war movie. That’s one of the most entertaining movies ever made and was kind of the touchstone goal for Inglorious Basterds to one degree or another. Make a World War II movie that’s just entertaining, that you just enjoy watching the movie.” Want more? You can watch Tarantino and Craig Ferguson discuss the film for over 12 minutes in this clip.

Originally, I had this listed as the movie Butch watches when he comes home from his match. I was 100% wrong — it’s Nam’s Angels (a.k.a. The Losers). Thanks to Joe Hoferka, one of our readers, for pointing out that this was wrong.

Taxi Driver (1976): Another film that appears on both of Tarantino’s 2002 and 2012 Sight & Sound polls, the director has gone on record numerous times to share just how much he loves this film. “One of the things about Taxi Driver is that it is just so magnificent. I actually do feel that it may be the greatest first-person character study ever committed to film. I mean, I really actually can’t even think of a second, or a third or a fourth that can even come into contention with it. Scorsese, at this time of his career, had a connection to cinema and no matter how dark the material was, there was such an exuberance to filmmaking that I don’t know if anyone will ever quite have the run of films that he had in the 70s leading into the 80s.” In fact, he considers it better than any film he’s ever created and can’t even imagine making a movie this good, pondering that in this statement: “Truthfully, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to make Taxi Driver.”

They All Laughed (1981): This Peter Bogdonovich directed film may have bombed with critics and audiences, but it reached Tarantino, who has placed it on numerous best of lists and even cited it as an inspiration for Jackie Brown. Along with the failure of films like Heaven’s Gate, Cruising and One from the Heart, this movie spelled the end of the director-driven studio films of the New Hollywood as the world changed post-Jaws and Star Wars.

Jaws (1975): Speaking of Jaws, Tarantino included the film on his 2008 Empire list of the greatest movies of all time. Movies — and the career of Steven Spielberg — would be forever changed by this film, as it is the dawn of the blockbuster, a tidal wave that would be fully embraced by Star Wars two years later.

Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948): Tarantino’s films are all marked by a strange juxtaposition between humor and violence, something that he may attribute to seeing this movie in his formative years. He said, “I remember the first movie I saw on television when I was, like, “Oh wow, you can do this in a movie?” was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. That was my favorite movie when I was five years old. The Abbott and Costello stuff was funny, but when they were out of the room and the monsters would come on, they’d kill people! And the big brain operation when they take out Costello’s brain and put in Frankenstein’s Monster’s brain was scary. Then this nurse gets thrown through a window! She’s dead! When’s the last time you saw anybody in a comedy-horror film actually kill somebody? You don’t see that. I took it in, seeing that movie.”

I also adore this handwritten list that Tarantino submitted to Empire. Simple, to the point and right in line with so many of the lists of films that he’s selected in the past.

Did I miss something on this list? Are you Quentin Tarantino and wish to discuss Fulci movies with me? Did I get something wrong? Let me know!

We started telling the story of video nasties in this article, discussing how the UK media was obsessed with them destroying the children’s morals. The section 1 films that we covered were successfully prosecuted. Now, we’re moving on to section 2.

Any movie seized under Section 2 would make its dealer or distributor liable to be prosecuted for disseminating obscene materials. If the court found the film obscene, it coud lead to its dealer or distributor being fined or jailed, with the film unable to be released or sold until the obscenity charge was defeated. Usually that would mean cutting the offending footage from the film.

The 39 films on the section 1 list that we aleady covered were successfully prosecuted and remained banned, while the 33 section 2 films were unsuccessfully prosecuted. They were then dropped to section 3, which we’ll get to soon, which are movies that could not be prosecuted for obscenity, but were liable to seizure and confiscation under a less obscene charge. Any VHS tapes seized under Section 3 would be destroyed after distributors or merchants forfeited them to the authorities. Seeing as how there are 82 movies on the section 3 list, that’s going to take a bit to get to.

Here are the 33 section 2 movies and just why they upset people so much.

1. The Beyond: 2 minutes of this Lucio Fulci journey into surreal violence was trimmed from the film in 1987, allowing it to be released. It was also released by Thriller Video under another title, Seven Doors of Death, which has a new musical score and plenty of the film’s murders toned down. That’s also the version of the film that Aquarius Releasing showed when the film finally made it to the US in 1983. No matter what version you see it in, it’s a film that makes little narrative sense yet one that has striking visuals. You can watch this on Shudder or order the Grindhouse Releasing triple disc from Diabolik DVD.

2. The Boogeyman: While this film played UK cinemas uncut, 44 seconds needed to be removed for a 1992 rerelease. That said, this 1980 remix of Halloween mixed with utter strangeness of a man walking out of a mirror, was never prosecuted.

3. Cannibal Terror: Unlike so many of the cannibal cycle of films, this movie was made by French filmmakers. Luckily — or unluckily if you are someone concerned with the morality of such films — they were aided and abetted by Jess Franco, whose movie Mondo Cannibale shares locations and cast with this movie. This lovely little story is all about a botched kidnapping, a rape and then people being eaten. It was re-released uncut in 2003.

4. Contamination: Released as the heavily edited Alien Contamination and Toxic Spawn in the U.S., the main point of contention in this film — which was finally rereleased in 2004 with a 15 rating — are the gory explosions of bodies. It’s a great Luigi Cozzi film –albeit one influenced by Alien — that you can catch on Shudder and Amazon Prime. I recommend watching it with commentary by Joe Bob Briggs.

5. Dead & Buried: This movie feels pretty much like a lost classic to me. 30 seconds were cut for a 1990 rerelease — one imagines the injury to eye scene — while the entire movie was able to be released uncut in 1999. It looks like Severin may be re-releasing this in the U.S. Until then, Shudder has you covered.

6. Eaten Alive: Released as Death Trap in the UK — this Tobe Hooper film is also known as Starlight Slaughter. In my opinion, it’s also the movie that Rob Zombie wishes that he made and keeps trying to make over and over again. While this originally played in UK cinemas uncut and was re-released that way in 2000, 25 seconds needed to be removed in 1992. You can watch it for yourself on Amazon Prime or order it from Arrow Video.

7. Man From Deep River: Three minutes of more of this film have moments of real animal murder, which have been cut from its UK releases ever since it was first kept out of theaters in 1975. This Umberto Lenzi ripoff of A Man Called Horse stars the always great Ivan Rassimov and cannibal queen Me Me Lai. As good as its title is, the alternate ones are even better: Il Paese del Sesso Selvaggio (The Country of Savage Sex), Deep River Savages and Sacrifice! You can get the Sacrifice! cut of this movie from Raro Video.

8. Delirium: 16 seconds of this film were cut when it was re-released in 1987. It’s all about right-wingers hiring a vigilante to clean up criminals and street people who finally just starts killing everyone.

9. Don’t Go In the House: Somehow, this burst of insanity was released uncut to UK theaters before three minutes needed to be taken out for a 1987 reissue. I can only imagine how UK censors took to the scenes of women being chained up and set on fire in this truly unsettling movie. You can get the blu ray from Ronin Flix.

10. Don’t Go Near the Park: Directed by Lawrence D. Foldes at the age of 19, this nasty is all about two cursed cavepeople who live in a park and devour people for over 12,000 years. It was finally released uncut in 2006.

11. Don’t Look In the Basement: SF Brownrigg created this movie — about insane asylum patients unsure of who is a doctor and who belongs in the institution — in 1973, but age didn’t keep it off the video nasty list. Also known as The Forgotten and Death Ward #13, it played UK cinemas with some cuts before an uncensored version came out in 2005 with a 15 rating. You can get this on blu ray from Brink.

12. The Evil Dead: Two minutes of Sam Raimi’s classic had to be cut for a 1990 rerelease, despite this movie playing UK cinemas intact. Luckily, a 2001 version was released uncut, tree assault and all.

13. Frozen Scream: Zombies get frozen and unfrozen before they kill people in this not-so-well known effort. It was never re-released in the UK. A DVD with both this movie and The Executioner 2 is available from Vinegar Syndrome.

14. The Funhouse: Another Tobe Hooper movie that Rob Zombie seems intent to making over and over again, only this one is actually entertaining. This was re-released uncut in 1987 and reclassified with the 15 rating in 2007. Many think that it made it on the list by mistake, as an alternative title for The Last House On Dead End Street is The Funhouse. This movie is relatively tame by comparison. You can get it from Shout! Factory.

15. Human Experiments: While this movie was never re-released in the UK, it was also never prosecuted. It was originally given an uncut rating by the BBFC when it was released in theaters in 1979. I guess demented prison doctors shocking their patients get no respect. You can get this from Ronin Flix.

16. I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses: Also known as Drop Dead, Dearest and Left for Dead, this movie is based on the case of Peter Demeter, a Canadian real estate developer convicted in 1974 of hiring a hitman named “The Duck” to murder his wife in what may be the longest trial in Canadian history. Even better, they were both trying to kill one another to collect a $1 million dollar insurance policy and while living in a halfway house, Demeter was charged with trying to arrange the kidnapping and murder of the son of his cousin, who was managing his affairs. It was re-released with a minute and six seconds cut in 1986.

17. Inferno: Argento’s classic follow-up to Suspiria was released uncut in UK cinemas, but twenty seconds needed to be shorn in 1993. Luckily, a 2010 re-release was uncut. What do you expect from a movie of constantly swirling images of murder and death itself showing up for the end of the movie? You can watch this on Shudder or get it from Blue Underground.

18. Killer Nun: I think just the title alone was enough to get this one on the list. 13 seconds were removed in 1993, but by 2006 it was re-released uncut. Just reading the first line of the IMDB description, “A demented nun sliding through morphine addiction into madness, whilst presiding over a regime of lesbianism, torture and death,” is enough to prove why it made it. You can get a copy from Blue Underground.

19. Last Stop On the Night Train: This 1975 Italian revenge film from Alan Lado wasn’t permitted in UK cinemas in 1976, but was eventually removed from the video nasty list in 1984 and re-released uncut in 2008.

20. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue: Whether you call it by this title, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie or Don’t Open the Window, this film played with cuts for movie theaters, yet still made the list. It was re-released with nearly two minutes cut out in 1985 before an uncut version rose from the grave in 2002. An upcoming 4K re-release of this film is coming soon from Synapse Films.

21. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker: This blast of weird came from William Asher, who directed Beach Blanket Bingo and episodes of I Love Lucy and Bewitched. Indeed, he was married to that show’s star, Elizabeth Montgomery, for some time. Somehow he was able to escape those happy films and shows to craft an Oedipal tale of utter depravity. It helps that the original director was Michael Miller, who had previously directed Jackson County Jail. This film just bleeds insanity and the Code Red version is sadly out of print. Someone needs to fix that. Also known as Night Warning and the Evil Protege.

22. Possession: This is the only video nasty where the lead actress, in this case Isabelle Adjani, won the Best Actress Award at Cannes. Here, she and Sam Neill endure a rapidly disintegrating relationship that somehow turns into a horror movie, complete with a tentacled beast designed by Carlo Rambaldi. One assumes all the violence between the actors felt a bit too real, landing this arthouse film in the list.

23. The Dorm That Dripped Blood: Also known as Pranks, the drill killing and spiked baseball bat attacks were enough to get this film on the nasty list. It has two directors, Jeffery Obrow, who went on to direct The Power and The Kindred, and Stephen Carpenter, who created the show Grimm. It’s also the film debut of Daphne Zuniga. You can get it from Synapse Films.

24. The Mountain of the Cannibal God: Sergio Martino. Stacey Keach. Ursula Andress. Cannibals. And the final ten minutes of this film, which are assuredly why it ended up on the video nasty list. Get this — a penis is cooked and eaten while a male villager has sex with a pig and a female local masturbates at the sight of it all. Oh yeah — and then Ursula is covered with orange honey by two naked female cannibals and fed her own brother. Obviously, it’s a cannibal film, so that means that it has lots of real animal death. Why? Ask the Italians.

25. Boogeyman II: Released as Revenge of the Bogeyman, this movie probably ended up on the list because 40 of its 79 minutes were taken from the first movie. Yes, I’ve actually paid for this movie more than once in multiple formats because I’m a moron and love bad films.

26. The Slayer: This kinda sorta slasher mixed with a Lovecraftian vibe probably freaked the fuck out of UK censors. It’s one weird movie, which means I totally adore it. In fact, it’s one of those films where you can pretty much write your own theory as to what it’s really about. You can get this from Arrow Video. J.S Cardone would go on to make Outside Ozona and Thunder Alley.

27. Terror Eyes: Released as Night School nearly everywhere else, this is a movie that I’ve claimed wasn’t gory enough, so obviously I’m a dangerous person who needs mental care. It’s not bad, but believe me — the VHS box art above is a million times better than the actual movie. You can get this from Warner Archive.

28. The Toolbox Murders: Supposedly based on a true story, this film was really based on Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Isn’t it ironic that Tobe directed the remake? It had about two minutes chopped out when it was re-released in 2000, but an uncut version is available now. You can get it from Blue Underground.

29. Unhinged: This slasher — about three women taken in by a strange family after an accident — isn’t anywhere near as horrifying as the other movies on this list. Yet here it remains — shockingly banned in the UK, as the US posters screamed. British audiences must have loved this, as a remake was released there in 2017.

30. Visiting Hours: A Canadian slasher that made it through UK theaters uncut yet raised the ire of censors on home video, despite mainstream actors like William Shatner and Lee Grant appearing in it. It even caused issues as late as 1989 when it was broadcast by ITV. You can grab it on a double disc — with Bad Dreams — from Shout! Factory.

31. The Witch Who Came From the Sea: This Matt Cimber film has what the UK censors determined to be “extreme sexual violence,” so the film was banned, although there is no evidence that it even made it into theaters. Starring Millie Perkins (The Diary of Anne Frank) and written by her husband Robert Thom (Death Race 2000), this movie concerns a woman who dreams of tying up muscular men and cutting them. Those fantasies soon become reality, as these things happen in 1970’s films. It’s also noteworthy for featuring Dean Cundey (Halloween, The Thing) as its director of photography, as well as its poster art ripping off Frank Frazetta’s cover for Vampirella #11. Arrow released it as part of their American Horror Project and it’s also available as a single blu ray, as well as on Amazon Prime.

32. Women Behind Bars: I think that the UK censors just reached a point where if they saw Jess Franco directed and Lina Romay starred in a movie, they automatically threw it on the video nasty list. You can get this movie from Blue Underground.

33. Zombie Creeping Flesh: Also known as Hell of the Living Dead, Nights of the Zombies, Dusk of the Dead and Virus, this Bruno Mattei directed film — written by the husband and wife duo of Claudio Fragrasso and Rossella Drudi — was supposed to present the lighter side of zombies. One thing I can tell you for sure — Goblin’s soundtrack is completely ripped off from their past films, including Contamination and Dawn of the Dead. It also has documentary footage taken from New Guinea, Island of Cannibals just to add some more zip. You can watch this on Amazon Prime or on a double disc from Blue Underground, along with the fantastic Rats: The Night of Terror.

Whew! We’re not done yet! There are still 82 Section 3 films that could not be prosecuted for obscenity but were liable to seizure and confiscation under a less obscene charge. Any tapes seized under Section 3 could be destroyed after distributors or merchants forfeited them. That’ll be a two-partner, so look forward to that in a few weeks.

To see our list of category 1 and category 2 films, you can also check out Letterboxd. Keep you eyes open for our list of category 3 reviews.

Have a comment? Did I get something wrong? Please help me learn! Thanks for reading and let us know what your favorite video nasty is.

Exploring is a new series here on B and S About Movies where we’ll go deep into a historic movie era or genre, finding out all there is to know and sharing it with you. I’ve always been fascinated with the early 1980’s UK scare of video nasties and how they relate to the Satanic Panic that was going on at the same time in the United States.

The first time I ever heard the phrase “video nasty,” it was in the ninth episode of The Young Ones, entitled “Nasty,” where Mike and Vyvyan attempt to get a VCR to show a video nasty that they’ve got their hands on. I had no idea what the phrase meant, thinking that it had to be a pornographic film.

Instead, the phrase video nasty refers to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the UK press and various organizations such as the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association.

How did these movies get into the country in the first place Well, they weren’t ever shown to the British Board of Film Classification — think our MPAA — because of a loophole that allowed video cassettes to bypass the review process. Soon, anyone — including the children, why won’t someone think of the children — could rent the most violent and depraved films possible.

Many feel that this controversy all started because Vipco (Video Instant Picture Company), the UK distributors of The Driller Killer, placed huge ads proclaiming the violence of that film, which led to plenty of complaints. They were owned by Michael Lee, the same man who produced Spookies.

Then Go Video tried to take a page out of the Kroger Babb playbook and wrote to Whitehouse, complaining about Cannibal Holocaust, a movie they distributed, to see if they could generate some negative publicity to boost sales. That backfired and she went on the warpath.

Before you knew it, The Sunday Times and The Daily Mail started their war against video nasties, blaming them for the rise in juvenile delinquency — repeating the same silly tactics that Dr. Frederick Wetham used to put EC Comics six feet under in the 1950’s.

Mary Whitehouse and the NVALA started a campaign that soon allowed local jurisdictions to prosecute certain video releases for obscenity. But how can you tell what is — and what isn’t — obscene?

Simple. The Director of Public Prosecutions created a list of 72 films that he believed violated the Obscene Publications Act 1959, as well as another list of 82 titles which couldn’t be prosecuted as they had already been acquitted of obscenity.

It all led to the Video Recordings Act 1984, which forced all video releases to require BBFC certification, yet this new law imposed a stricter code of censorship on home video than it did for actual films.

For this article, we’ll be examing the 39 films that were successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act. If you’d like to learn more, many of these films have already been reviewed on our site and we’ve provided a handy hyperlink within each title.

1. Absurd: This Joe D’Amato directed, George Eastman starring, Halloween ripping off slasher had 2 minutes and 32 seconds of gore sliced off in 1983 after being prosecuted and has never been resubmitted in the UK. An uncut version of the film was recently released in the US by Severin. I can only imagine how horrified British old women were when they watched this one.

2. Anthropophagous: Also recently reissued in uncut form by Severin, this movie has more titles than almost anything save The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. Antropofago, Man Beast, Man-Eater and The Savage Island — call it what you will, but I’m certain the British censors probably called it “that movie where a maniac eats a baby out of its mother’s womb.” It was eventually released with eight minutes cut in 2002 under another title, The Grim Reaper. Give it up for Joe D’Amato and George Eastman, folks. They hit one and two on this list with two movies that are pretty much the same film. I say that as high praise.

3. Axe: This 1974 film — originally entitled Lisa, Lisa — was bought by Harry Novak and re-released in 1978 as Axe. You may have also seen it under the titles California Axe Massacre and The Axe Murders. It’s a rape revenge film that surely challenged the morals of Mary Whitehouse.

4. A Bay of Blood: This is the movie that invented the slasher, after Mario Bava pretty much invented giallo. Even a full decade after its creation, it still had the power to shock. 43 seconds of the film were cut, although a 2010 release in the UK was uncut. Much like the previously mentioned Anthropophagous and The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, this movie was released under a ton of titles.

5. The Beast In Heat: Another video nasty, another recent blu ray re-release from Severin! Never screened in America, this tale of an evil Nazi female doctor and the dwarf sex-crazed monster that she’s created seems like the kind of film that could decimate the fragile sensibilities of even the most hardened individual. It remains banned in the UK and Australia.

6. Blood Feast: Not to be outdone by A Bay of Blood being nearly ten years old, this Herschell Gordon Lewis movie was around twenty years old when the video nasty scandal occurred. I guess there’s no statute of limitations when it comes to “a veritable orgy of blood and gore.”

7. Blood Rites: Perhaps better known as The Ghastly Ones, this Andy Milligan film was made in 1968, but perhaps the low budget gore — made with real animal organs — is what got it on the list of video nasties.

8. Bloody Moon: As the slasher grew in popularity in the early 1980’s, Jess Franco created his own version of these films. Of course, it was packed with nudity, as well as “incest, voyeurism and roller disco” to quote the fine folks at Severin, who of course released this on blu ray uncut and ready to melt brains. There’s also a scene where a head is taken clean off with a power saw that probably kept this out of the UK. This won’t be the last Franco movie on the list.

9. The Burning: While this American cash-in on Friday the 13th made it uncut into UK theaters, it caused major issues when released on video. 19 seconds were cut when it was re-released in 1992, but it’s since been released uncut. Hey — you hire Tom Savini to do the effects, you kind of expect these things.

10. Cannibal Apocalypse: Also known as Invasion of the Flesh Hunters, this Antonio Margheriti film about Vietnam vets bringing back a zombie virus — John Saxon is amongst them — was originally released on video with no cuts. Years later, it would be rereleased with two seconds of a rat being killed cut.

11. Cannibal Ferox: What, did you think a movie also known as Make Them Die Slowly was going to not be a video nasty? Umberto Lenzi’s film brags about being the most violent film ever made and being banned from 31 countries, so one would assume that he laughed when he heard that his film was getting people arrested. A 2001 reissue found six minutes cut out of the film before censors even saw it. Yeah, it’s that rough. You can get the Grindhouse Releasing blu ray reissue at Diabolik DVD or watch it on Shudder.

12. Cannibal Holocaust: This movie was born to be on this list. It’s packed with so much menace, brutality and just plain scum that people had to be protected from its evil. In fact, as of 2012, it’s still banned outright in Malaysia, Singapore, Iceland, Germany, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, Vietnam, Iran and New Zealand. Keep in mind that director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder, as authorities believed that this was an actual snuff film. Feeling brave? The uncut version is on Shudder.

13. The Cannibal Man: Despite its title, this movie has no cannibalism, but does have some slaughterhouse footage. This Spanish film is less exploitation — despite what its artwork will lead you to believe — and more a takedown on the oppressive regime of Franco (Francisco, not Jess).

14. Devil Hunter: Speaking of Jess, here he is again. Al Cliver stars as Peter Weston, a Vietnam veteran out to save a kidnapped model from cannibals and their lurking demonic lord. Perhaps more interesting, this movie was co-directed by Franco’s mistress Lina Romay and edited by his first wife Nicole Guettard, who he was still married to at the time.

15. Don’t Go In the Woods: By 2007, this movie was released uncut in the UK. But back then, I guess nobody got the joke. I’ve never taken this movie seriously, despite its graphic content. Maybe some people just don’t get the joke. When compared to some of the truly damaging films on this list, this one is kid stuff. Maybe the theme song freaked them out?

16. The Driller Killer: As much an art film as a slasher, the lurid cover of this movie was one of the major reasons for video nasties getting so much press. Abel Ferrara, its creator, believe that that campaign was the main reason his film was banned. Maybe it was also the scenes of drills penetrating human bodies, too.

17. Evilspeak: This movie, a favorite of the Church of Satan, had three minutes and forty-four seconds removed before it could be released in 1987, but has since been re-released uncut. Look, if you’re going to put a sword in Clint Howard’s hand, the guy is going to decapitate bullies. There are also rumors — substantiated by Howard — that the film’s original cut has even more blood, gore and nudity. Someone really needs to find that and release it.

18. Expose: Another film that once played in movie theaters uncut and was stung when released on VHS, this film — also known as The House On Straw Hill and Trauma — was released with almost a minute of offense footage cut out. The ad campaign promised “Nothing, but nothing, is left to the imagination!” This movie — about Udo Keir as a novelist working on a sexy novel and running afoul of a potentially unhinged housekeeper — was finally released uncut by Severin.

19. Faces of Death: The film that dared you to rent it, this sat on the shelves of my local video store and stared at me in the face, calling me names for never renting it. You can debate the truth of whether or not this movie shows snuff footage, but it cannot be denied that it ended up on the list of video nasties. It probably laughed and said, “Cool.”

20. Fight for Your Life: This movie wasn’t permitted to be released in UK cinemas and immediately banned upon video release, pretty much. The reason it’s on the list? The racist language used by William Sanderson — yes the guy from TV’s Newhart — as he attacks a black family. If you want to see an uncut version, it was re-released by Blue Underground.

21. Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein: This is yet another movie that made it unscathed into theaters and was attacked upon video release. As the film was shot for 3D, there are plenty of images of organs and blood coming right at the viewer, along with a mix of sex and death that had to be upsetting to the stiff upper lips of British censors.

22. Toxic Zombies: Featuring John Amplas — yes, Martin himself — and igniting the redneck zombie genre, this movie has never been re-released in the UK. It’s also the only movie directed by Charles McCrann, who also acted in the film. After this, he became a businessman and died in his World Trade Center office on 9/11/2001.

23. The Gestapo’s Last Orgy: Also known as Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler, which is the most grindhouse title ever. This movie’s IMDB about listing states, “A Jewish WWII survivor revisits the ruins of a hellish concentration camp, and the memories are still vivid. How did she escape the humiliation, the tortures, and the destruction of human flesh? How did she flee from Gestapo’s last orgy?” You can imagine that this has also never been re-released in the UK, right?

24. The House by the Cemetery: This Fulci gutbuster had anywhere between four and eight whole minutes chopped out of it when re-released in 1988. Those cuts made an already murky plot even stranger and harder to follow, if that’s possible. Don’t get mad — this is one of my favorite movies, but even I can admit that it’s a little “difficile da seguire” as you say in Italian. Even the bat attack scene was censored, perhaps because of the violence to the animals.

25. The House on the Edge of the Park: David Hess joined up with Ruggero Deodato to pretty much remake Hess’ best-known movie, The Last House On the Left. Even Deodato is shocked by this film and he made it: “I thought it was too violent. I make violent films, but softer ones. But this film was full of violence, and that made me uncomfortable. When I met David Hess, I thought that with my direction I could make him do anything. But when I first read it, I found it quite disturbing.” This is a prime example of a movie that wasn’t allowed in theaters being released uncensored on home video, with a re-release in 2002 missing around twelve minutes of depravity.

26. I Spit On Your Grave: Also known as Day of the Woman, this film was prosecuted in the UK while being outright banned in countries like Ireland, Norway, Iceland and West Germany. A 2001 re-release saw seven minutes of the film being cut, mostly the lengthy rape sequence that has earned this film its misogynistic label.

27. Island of Death: This Nico Mastorakis-directed is all about a man and a woman, who act as newlyweds on a honeymoon to the Greek island of Mykonos before killing anyone they find sinful or perverted. It’s not hard to see why this made the list — drug use, animal torture, priests being killed, incest, watersports, decapitation by bulldozer, multiple rapes — but it’s amazing that Arrow Video later released it uncut on blu ray.

28. The Last House on the Left: This movie remained unreleased in its uncut form until 2008. There were so many cuts to the film by theaters that it’s near impossible to find an original film that has everything intact. Wes Craven was given to tell people that many projectionists were so offended by it that they stole prints and burned them, which sounds like hyperbole. Arrow Video has released this on blu ray.

29. Love Camp 7: This Lee Frost /Bob Cresse Naziploitation affair — about two female agents going undercover in a Nazi prison camp — had no hope of not being a video nasty.

30. Madhouse: This tale of a young girl and her murderous sister is packed with gore and menace, as well as violence with and to dogs, so it’s easy to see how this ended up on the list. It’s pretty great, however, a mix of slasher and giallo and just plain weird filmmaking from the creator of The Visitor. It was eventually released on blu ray by Arrow Video.

31. Mardi Gras Massacre: A remake — err, ripoff — of Blood Feast that exchanges Miami and the Egyptian goddess Ishtar for New Orleans and the Aztec goddess Coatl, this movie was given an X rating in the United States and was never resubmitted for British re-release. Code Red released it on blu ray in 2016, but copies are scarce.

32. Nightmares In A Damaged Brain: While this film originally played in New York theaters with an X rating and UK cinemas with some cuts, it was still prosecuted when released on home video. Its distributor was sentenced to 18 months in prison for refusing to edit out a sequence lasting one second from the film.

33. Night of the Bloody Apes: Made in 1969, René Cardona remade his earlier effort Doctor of Doom and turned it into a real party, filled with nudity, medical footage, women wrestling, a murderous ape — as one would hope from the title — and lots of gore. This also passed — with some cuts — to play in UK cinemas, which made it odd that it was prosecuted.

34. Night of the Demon: I absolutely adore this strange hybrid of a movie, which somehow starts with a giallo-esque open, then turns into a Bigfoot movie, then becomes a slasher. Two minutes of this movie were cut before it was re-released. Not making the cut? Bigfoot ripping off a biker’s penis and using another man’s intestines to beat on someone. That’s a real shame. You can watch it on Amazon Prime.

35. Snuff: This 1976 film — which could only be made in South America where life is cheap — takes a movie made years before called Slaughter, adds a new ending and removes the credits to give the appearance that it’s a real snuff film. It caused outrage in both America and the UK, where people believed that its ad campaign had to be true.

36. SS Experiment Camp: This lovely film — all about Colonel von Kleiben needing a testicle transplant after being castrated by a Russian girl — drew plenty of the wrong kinds of attention thanks to its advertising campaign. Posters featured a semi-naked woman hanging upside-down from a crucifix, yet the British Board of Film Classification passed it with no cuts. They claimed that “Despite the questionable taste of basing an exploitation film in a concentration camp, the sexual activity itself was consensual and the level of potentially eroticized violence sufficiently limited.”

37. Tenebre: One of my favorite — if not my favorite — giallo films, Tenebre is at the same time director Dario Argento’s answer to criticism that his movies were too violent toward women while killing more women — and to be fair men — than any of his previous films. That said, this movie is probably the best-made film on this entire list and is only considered a video nasty because of the sexualization of much of its violence.

38. The Werewolf and the Yeti: Welcome to the video nasty list, Paul Naschy and your alter ego, Count Waldemar Daninsky. This movie was never re-released in the UK after appearing on the video nasty prosecuted films list.

39. Zombi: There’s no way that the Godfather of Gore’s opus wasn’t going to get someone, somewhere, somehow in trouble. In 1992, it was re-released with nearly two minutes exorcized from the film, but today is available uncut. Blue Underground’s recent blu ray rerelease is the best way to see this movie in all its gut chomping glory.

Soon, we’ll cover Section 2 — the thirty-three films that were unprosecuted. If you have something you’d like to add or a memory of the video nasty era, we’d love to hear it!