There are a decent few films that have been released in the horror genre that have drawn tons of vitriol from the general public and from horror fans. Some movies are just too much, and while sometimes that’s the point, it can be troubling. There’s traumatic material involved obviously because that’s kind of what horror is about, so reader discretion is advised for this one.
This article isn’t necessarily coming from a position of being pro-censorship but from systems established in multiple countries for censorship directly or indirectly, including MPAA ratings and the “Video Nasties” registry which existed for a time in the UK.
Blood Feast
Blood Feast actually came out in 1963, which is kind of crazy considering it’s normally categorized as a splatter horror movie, which definitely wasn’t normal for the time. It’s generally considered one of the first splatter movies ever and for 1963, and it’s pretty grisly.
It’s one of the first movies ever released to include shots of people dying with their eyes open. The film was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, but the director of Blood Feast decided that it was a cop-out that Psycho didn’t show the kills themselves.
Anthropophagus
Anthropophagus is an Italian film released in 1980 that really pushed tons of boundaries. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good watch as saying that might be going slightly too far, but the effects are fun and campy and some of the scenes are so ridiculously outrageous that they don’t even feel scary or disturbing.
There’s a lot of cannibalism going on in the movie, but it all looks so fake that it doesn’t hit very hard. There’s one specific scene that got the movie banned, in which a character eats a fetus.
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is one of the most controversial films of all time, and due to the nature of the subgenre of the Mondo Exploitation film, it makes sense that people were upset. Mondo movies are a type of film that usually presents itself as if it were a documentary and it usually blends fact with fiction so that the viewer can’t tell the difference.
It’s framed as a documentary crew going out to do a documentary on a tribe in the Amazon, and things don’t end well for them as can be seen in the title. There’s also a lot of actual animal deaths, so be warned.
Faces Of Death
Faces Of Death is yet another entry in the Mondo subgenre, and the framing device that this one uses is pretty rough. The movie presents itself in a documentary style, claiming to offer depictions of actual deaths that have been caught on camera.
There are also a decent number of sequels that have been released over the years, but none have done better than the first which made 35 million dollars. Most of the scenes are staged although they look pretty convincing, and there are a few accidental deaths shown.
Tenebrae
Tenebrae is one of the more violent movies that master of horror Dario Argento has ever put out. The movie is incredibly bloody and there’s a kill pretty much once every ten minutes throughout the course of the film.
One of the most infamous scenes includes a woman who has her arm cut off, which sprays blood all over a white wall that’s immediately colored in blood. While the movie didn’t get great press when it came out, pretty quickly people decided to look at it retroactively as one of Argento’s best movies.
Snuff
The whole premise of Snuff is probably in bad taste. If it isn’t immediately evident just from the title, the movie is presented as if it was an actual snuff film, which is a film containing an actual death.
The film wasn’t the first appearance of the idea or the coining of the term, but it definitely helped contribute to the urban legends surrounding the format. There were fake protestors hired to picket the film, which helped drum up press. The last kill in the movie is also committed by the camera crew for the film, further adding to the lie.
Straw Dogs
Straw Dogs is a film directed by filmmaker Sam Peckinpaw, who’s pretty well-known for being a difficult director to work with, and as someone who makes pretty consistently challenging and nihilistic films. This particular outing stars Dustin Hoffman and Susan George.
The film was also released in the same year as A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection and Dirty Harry, which made people freak out about the increase in violence in films. This movie includes some really rough portrayals of assault, and it’s not really even framed in an acceptable way.
Last House On Dead End Street
The Last House On Dead End Street, also released as The Fun House and The Cuckoo Clocks Of Doom was an exploitation film released in 1977. When the video nasties registry got created, they initially did their best to get this film off the market.
Unfortunately, they added Tobe Hooper’s second film Funhouse to the registry instead. The entire cast and crew for the film worked under pseudonyms, so no one knew who made it for ages, adding to the mystique and leading people to believe this one may too have been a snuff film. There’s also a live dismembering and plenty of other rough scenes, so it makes sense.
Flesh For Frankenstein
Flesh For Frankenstein is a film directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol, although the film was also presented as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. The movie is pretty consistently sexual throughout and we follow the plan of Baron Von Frankenstein as he does his best to create a “perfect Serbian race” using corpses as the source for his creations.
The movie got added to the video nasties list mostly as a result of the fact that the title sounded like Blood For Dracula, a film that had already been added to the registry. It also involved 3D disembowelings.
Don’t Go Near The Park
Don’t Go Near The Park is a pretty tough watch for a multitude of reasons. The movie features a brother and sister who have been forced to walk the earth for all time as they were somehow cursed during prehistoric times.
The only way they can subsist is on the viscera of young people. The major themes in the movie are incest and cannibalism, which is pretty much how you get your film banned.
