50. Although this amount seems rather steep, the BBFC is not funded in any way and relies solely on the fee's they receive, which is why they are able to charge so much. For the bigger film companies this is okay, but for the smaller companies, they would probably struggle to pay this sort of money. This, I think, is one of the reason's why the some films on the video nasties' list haven't been able to make it on to VHS or DVD.
The BBFC have very strict rules when it comes to reviewing the films from the list of video nasties', to see if they are eligible for classification. They cannot pass any one of the titles if it has any recent Obscene Publications Act convictions. By recent they mean in the last ten years. .
When a video nasty' is submitted they have to see if it first has any recent convictions. If this is so then it has to be cut, regardless of whether it is classed as acceptable under their guidelines or not. An example of this would be "Driller Killer-. This film has been convicted in the last ten years and wouldn't be able to pass as uncut because of the above.
When a submitted video nasty has no convictions, they then have to look at the guidelines to see if it is acceptable to pass or not. If it complies with the guidelines then they would be able to pass it uncut, if not then they would have to make specific cuts in the film.
When the list of the video nasties' was compiled it started off with fifty-two titles, but many more were added soon afterwards. Altogether seventy-four different titles appeared on this list, but after reviewing some of the titles, the list now stands at thirty-nine. These, thirty-nine films were all successfully prosecuted. .
Video Nasties: Why are we allowed to watch them now?.
The words "video nasties- were coined by the Sunday Times on the 23rd May 1982. This labelling, prior to the video recordings act of 1984 meant that through the courts, they had a right to prosecute a film if they thought it was going to deprave or corrupt a person.
