Editing Video nasty (section)

== Effects of the Video Recordings Act 1984 ==
Under the 1984 Act, the British Board of Film Censors was renamed the ''British Board of Film Classification'' and became responsible for the certification of both cinema and video releases. All video releases after 1 September 1985 had to comply with the Act and be submitted for classification by the BBFC. Films released on video before that date had to be re-submitted for classification within the following three years. The increased possibility of videos falling into the hands of children required that film classification for video be a separate process from cinema classification. Films that had passed uncut for cinema release were often cut for video.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Petley|first=Julian|date=2012-06-30|title="Are We Insane ?". The "Video Nasty" Moral Panic|url=http://journals.openedition.org/rsa/839|journal=Recherches Sociologiques et Anthropologiques|language=en|volume=43|issue=43–1|pages=35–57|doi=10.4000/rsa.839|issn=1782-1592|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The supply of unclassified videos became a criminal offence, as did supplying 15 and 18 certificate videos to under-aged people. As well as the low-budget horror films the Act was originally intended to curb, a number of high-profile films which had passed cinema certification fell foul of the Act. In particular, ''[[The Exorcist (film)|The Exorcist]]'', which was made available by Warner Home Video in December 1981, was not submitted for video certification by the BBFC and was withdrawn from shelves in 1986. Similarly ''[[Straw Dogs (1971 film)|Straw Dogs]]'' was denied video certification and removed from video stores. Popular culture backlash against the Video Recordings Act included the May 1984 release of "[[Thanks for the Night|Nasty]]" by the [[Punk rock|punk]]-[[Goth rock|goth]] outfit [[The Damned (band)|The Damned]], who celebrated the condemned genre with the lyrics "I fell in love with a video nasty".<ref>{{Cite web|date=2018-01-29|title=Breaking Down All 72 Video Nasties!|url=https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3476400/breaking-72-video-nasties/|access-date=2021-09-02|website=Bloody Disgusting!|language=en-US}}</ref>