Horror film articles
Not reviews. Context: what was happening in the genre and the culture when a film was made, and why it still matters.
Deep dive · 29 October 2026
Video nasties still banned or cut in Britain
The video nasties still banned in Britain, the ones that remain cut, and the two laws that decide which of them can be sold on disc here.
Deep dive · 22 October 2026
The video nasties list and the law behind it
The video nasties list was a Director of Public Prosecutions circular of 72 titles, 39 of them successfully prosecuted under the 1959 obscenity law.
Deep dive · 15 October 2026
A Serbian Film and what banned means in Britain
A Serbian Film is not banned in Britain. The BBFC cut four minutes and twelve seconds in 2010 and passed the result at 18.
Deep dive · 8 October 2026
Films still banned in Britain and the cuts that stand
No list of films banned in the UK exists: the titles still missing whole are held back by standing BBFC cuts, by councils and by rights holders.
Deep dive · 1 October 2026
Banned horror movies and the certificate that was refused
Banned horror movies in Britain were refused a certificate by the BBFC: what was refused, why a video refusal bites, and how each title came back.
Deep dive · 24 September 2026
Cannibal Holocaust and the fifteen seconds still banned
Cannibal Holocaust carries an 18 certificate in Britain with fifteen seconds still cut, one slow animal killing held out under the 1937 animal cruelty Act.
Deep dive · 17 September 2026
The meaning of elevated horror as a label
The meaning of elevated horror, where the label came from, what it predicts about a film’s pace and release, and why the genre keeps resisting it.
Deep dive · 10 September 2026
New French Extremity, named in a 2004 complaint
New French Extremity was coined by James Quandt in Artforum in 2004. What the phrase covered, and how Cannes and the BBFC handled it.
Profile · 2 August 2026
Tom Savini
The combat photographer who came home from Vietnam and spent thirty years putting what he saw on screen.
Deep dive · 26 July 2026
Gore and disturb are not the same measurement
Why this site rates them separately, and what happens to a recommendation engine when you conflate them.
Survey · 19 July 2026
The video nasties panic, 1982 to 1984
How a gap in British licensing law produced a moral panic, a list of 72 films and two video executives in prison.