Video Nasties in the UK

In Britain they were called "Video Nasties", European and American horror films with explicit sex and violence that could never be passed by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) for theatrical exhibition, but because of the nascent home video explosion in the early '80s, were found on the shelves of video shops without any sort of restrictions. Vying for the attention of the discriminating video consumer, many of these videos were packaged in the biggest and most explicitly garish boxes possible. The yellower segments of the British press get wind of all this and raise holy hell, and the government, of course, follows suit. Some distributors are prosecuted, and some "Nasties" seized. By 1984, the Video Recordings Act is passed by Parliament, and the brief flame of the "Nasties" era comes to an ignominious end. A very good history can be found here, and a brand new database of pre-certification "Nasties", built in conjunction with an upcoming book from Fab Press, can be found here, complete with over 7000 video cover scans.