Delirium
Delirium is a 1979 American psychological horror film directed by Peter Maris. It is one of the 72 films on the Director of Public Prosecutions' video nasties list, later dropped without a successful prosecution.
A Vietnam veteran, a vigilante group and a plot that gives up. Not the Lamberto Bava one.
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Not the Lamberto Bava film of the same name, which is a decade later and a giallo. This is an American picture about a Vietnam veteran and a vigilante group of businessmen who decide the courts are not working.
The premise is closer to Death Wish than to horror, and for a while it is a competent, cynical thriller about men with money arranging killings.
Then it becomes a slasher, and the two halves never join. Peter Maris was making a crime film and the distributor wanted something else, which is visible in the finished cut.
There are two versions with different footage and different running times, and the one that reached British video is the gorier.
Listed and dropped without prosecution.
Banned, seized, prosecuted
DPP 72 · listed, then dropped
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Trailer
The sleeves
The same film, sold as a different film in each territory. Click any of them.
Where to watch
Australia
Canada
Germany
Finland
UK
USA
Legal sources only. Availability data from JustWatch via TMDB.
Checked 9 Aug 2026
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Adjacent
WATCHknownManiac
Joe Spinell wrote himself the lead and Tom Savini blew his own head off on camera.
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Its distributor's executives went to prison over this one. The DPP case that ended in jail sentences.
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Susan Tyrrell as the aunt, giving a performance far too committed for the film around it.
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De Palma's split screens, a bucket of blood, and the last thirty seconds that made an entire genre of ending.
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The only horror film to win Best Picture, and it wins the argument about whether it is one.
- Next in Psychological: The Driller Killer (1979) →
- Next in Slasher: Friday the 13th (1980) →