It's a bit of a shame this is split into two parts - but be that as it may, the documentary is quite eye opening. I imagine those who followed (either back then or have read upon that time) what happened during the "video nasties era", will know most of the stuff that is discussed here.

Having said that, it is always refreshing seeing and hearing from experts. And getting things debunked - either from others or by your own common sense. Like when one of the censors replies to those who say he can't judge the things he hasn't seen with: "a doctor does not need to have had cancer to diagnose it". I may be paraphrasing, but that is the essence of what he said. Now that equivalence is completely off. Because his comparisons would only be true, if he meant: I do not have to kill someone to watch those - or something along those lines. His comparison to the doctor would only be right, if he said it like this: A doctor can only diagnose cancer, if he has seen it before. If he knows what it looks like - if has read up on it, if has dealt with it on some level". But that comparison would not suit the censor, because it would make him look as bad as he does look, while claiming the things about movies, he has no clue about.

There is even more here and the documentary tells us and shows us a ... well "witch hunt" of movies, if you'll excuse the pun. Really worth the watch, if you are a fan of movies and even more so of horror movies ... crazy things happened, that still are not totally resolved it seems.

Highly informative and relatively interesting "Ban the Sadist Videos!" approximates us with details about the infamous social and politic acts against what was considered to be a risk to the British society: violence, gore, sex, drugs, shocking and disturbing things...presented on recurrent films of the 1970's and 1980's. Thatcher government started to regulate what could be and what couldn't be presented on home video entertainment, something that only occurred on films released on theaters with films being edited by BBFC.

It is established here that films like "The Driller Killer", "Evil Dead" and "Cannibal Holocaust" were the major responsible for a wave of control on the films later called of "videos nasties" after lots of appealing publicity on newspapers urging its viewers to rent and watch a film with shocking scenes (theaters weren't so interesting anymore, now with VCR's available in most homes).

Silly moral crusader Mary Whitehouse and her extensive and successful campaign to forbid these films on British territory is greatly presented here, giving some insights on how dumb some moralists were since they never saw those films, only hearing what people would say about them. Laws were created, BBFC also censored or even banned some of the films (the funniest case was "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" considered as pornographic because of its title). The criterion of which films should be allowed or not to be released or edited was ridiculous and even "Apocalypse Now" had some troubles with this persecution.

All that in the name of the children's sake since they were exposed to them constantly, and society feared possible copycats (oh dear...) who were starting to appear, imitating film serial killers but this time killing real people in real life, finding their inspiration on films. Bottom of line: our society is dangerous because of the films it produces and not backwards, the moralists were saying.

The discussion stretches out for so long (there's the second "Ban the Sadist Videos!" which deals with more on this last subject of 'danger to the society'). Well made and providing classic moments of horror films and nice archive footage of news covering the subject this documentary is quite restrained in its presentation, lack so much energy that it almost becomes boring; and some informations and scenes are quite repetitive. The short interviews with Deodato, Craven and other masters of horror were very good just as much as the interviews with people who were part of the conflicts over the videos.

It's quite good but it only works if you don't know anything about the incidents portrayed here. I believe that people more versed on the subject won't find it much amusing or appealing. 8/10