Horror Films: The Video Nasty Era Quiz

Answer: Tony Coca-Cola and the Roosters

This film can get a bit daft, mostly due to its low budget, and is not widely loved, but it has something to say. Many of the themes (Catholicism, inner-city living) turn up in Ferrara's later work, albeit in a slightly more sophisticated manner, but for fans of the film it has a unique grittiness.

English punk band The Damned recorded an ode to video nasties, "Nasty", and the fledgling band in the film mirror the experience of many a wannabe rock star.

Nekromantix released a song called "Driller Killer".

Answer: Sigmund Freud

The full composite name is Dr. Freudstein, mimicking another famous doctor: Dr Frankenstein.

Lucio Fulci had a theory that horror films should have a confusing, or even lack of, plot so the viewer forgets about following the story and is just assaulted by imagery. As a long-time fan of his, I would have to say it works as his greatest pieces are best remembered for shocking images rather than what develops in the story.

His obsessions about things entering eyes probably have a Freudian reading, but I'd rather not know.

Answer: Camille Keaton

The lead role was played by Camille Keaton, Buster Keaton's granddaughter.

Maimiti Brando is Marlon Brando's adopted daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis is Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh's daughter, and Maria Karloff is a made-up name.

It seems "I Spit On Your Grave"'s detractors have never actually seen it, as it's condemned as some kind of misogynist fantasy, when in fact it can only reasonably read as a feminist statement, however brutal and arguably primitive.

It's a much more complex and mature film than the title or its reputation would lead one to believe. For a more in depth and erudite account than I can give, I suggest a read of "Men Women And Chainsaws" by academic Carol Clover.

Answer: David Hess

Ruggero Deodato directed the claustrophobic "House On the Edge of the Park".

It's a very disturbing film, and its taut, edge-of-your-seat edginess is mainly due to Hess's performance. He plays a nasty, unpredictable bully, on a rampage that he's justified to himself as class war. There is a silly twist at the end which almost lets the film down, but I think it just pulls through. Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka John Morghen) plays the part of Alex's sidekick, but is taunted by him just as much as their victims are.

Hess worked with Wes Craven in "Last House On the Left", where he plays another disreputable character, Krug.

Answer: He works in an abattoir.

The Spanish title translates as "Week of the Assassin", which makes more sense, but even the alternative title "The Apartment on the 13th Floor" does link in with the plot, whereas "Cannibal Man" is totally misleading and probably chosen to cash in on the cannibal trend. There is no cannibalism in the film, the only hint being when Marcos is served meat from the abattoir where he works, which he turns down, knowing full well what's in it.

In "Seduction of the Gullible" John Martin says: "(it) embroiders a persistent thread in Spanish cinema, from Jesus Franco at one extreme to Luis Buñuel at the other, namely that of a repressive social order's doomed attempts to keep the lid on unruly human desires that will brook no denial."

Answer: Spanish

The fictional school in question is a kind of summer camp boarding school, just for young women, "Europe's International Youth-Club Boarding School of Languages", in Spain.

Jesús (Jess) Franco Manera has had his highs and lows, and "Bloody Moon" contains both. However, it's worth a watch for fans of the slasher genre, and also those who have a penchant for bad dubbing. Themes such as incest, mental illness and physical deformity are shamelessly exploited for cheap titillation, as was Mr Franco's wont. The much discussed circular saw scene is really why it's remembered, and what most of the fuss was about.

Franco is one of the most endearing yet frustrating of horror film directors. Following his filmography is a nightmare and inevitably fruitless as he's used so many aliases, and also released so many films, many the same ones under different names, over the years.

Answer: A shark

"Zombie Flesh Eaters" kicks off eerily with a deserted yacht drifting into Hudson Bay, New York. When the cops investigate, one of them gets a chomp taken out of him for his trouble, quite understandably sparking off an enquiry into where on Earth it had come from.

Journalists get hold of the story and send off a team to the Island of Matul where a hanger-on girl goes swimming only to get harassed by a shark, but help is on the way in the shape of a deep-sea diving zombie! Although the scenario is rather outlandish, the scene is one of the most memorable you'll ever see in any genre of cinema, ever.

In this scene, described by Quentin Tarantino as "the wildest scene in any movie, ever!", the zombie was played by the tiger shark's trainer.

"One assumes that the shark was well fed on horsemeat and drugged to the gills before the zombie harassed the creature (the tiger shark is believed to be more ferocious than the great white). It's truly an incredible scene, which owes more to the fantastique than to overt horror." (Jay Slater, "Eaten Alive! Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies")

Answer: Riz Ortolani

After graduating from music school, Riz Ortolani went to work for the Italian national TV company RAI, firstly playing flute in their orchestra, then conducting the Orchestra Jazz Sinfonica.

"Cannibal Holocaust" director, Ruggero Deodato, had heard of him through the pseudo-documentary films "Mondo Cane", for which Ortolani scored the film's theme, "Ti Guarderò Nel Cuore". He has had a prolific career, especially in his homeland, although his scores also featured in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill", a kind of homage to the video nasties Tarantino so often cites as influences on his work.

The soundtrack to "Cannibal Holocaust" was extremely hard to find for many years, but should be reasonably easy to find on CD nowadays on the Coffin label.

Answer: A rock concert

Mari is led slightly astray by her wild friend Phyllis and they try to buy some drugs when they get to the city from their pastoral homes. The deal ends up going askew and with them being taken by car into the country, very close to their homes. The violence that follows is as graphic as it is disturbing. Revenge is meted out, but in the end the viewer is left with a feeling of despair.

The plot was directly lifted from "The Virgin Spring" (1960), by the highly-acclaimed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, and, I think that although the emotional impact is matched by Craven, artistry is less so.

David Hess' mellow soundtrack jars blatantly with the events portrayed, and mocks the victims' involvement with the hippie movement somewhat.

Answer: Tenebrae

"Tenebrae" (meaning darkness in Latin) was supposed to be the conclusion of a trilogy, starting with "Suspiria" and followed by "Inferno", but Argento himself says he "rather lost interest in that after 'Inferno'". It might be because "Inferno" didn't fair well with critics or fans that the maestro of Italian horror returned to his "giallo" beginnings with "Tenebrae". Whatever, the film is a bit of a mess, being neither the classic Italian "giallo," nor the more sophisticated horror he'd become known for.

The horror writer's embittered ex-wife is played by Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi's (embittered?) ex-wife, Veronica Loria.

Answer: A sound-wave machine

Scientists are using the sound-waves to kill insects, who fight and kill each other when subjected to the sound. Unfortunately, new born babies get just as aggressive and start attacking carers, and the recently buried rise from their slumber to wreak havoc.

In "Night of the Living Dead" radioactive debris from a space probe is blamed for similar occurrences, and in "Day of the Triffids" the Russians have been messing about with seeds and accidentally let some into the atmosphere, causing plants to start eating humans.

About the "The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue", shot much earlier than most of the others on the video nasties list, John Martin has this to say in "Seduction Of The Gullible": "I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that this multi-titled Italo-Spanish co-production is a way better movie than Romero's historically important but rather half baked effort ("Night of the Living Dead"). Grau (the director) extracts maximum surreal and disturbing dislocation from the spectacle of cannibal cadavers shambling around the scenic beauties of England's Lake and Peak Districts, the sense of unease enhanced by a jarring stereo soundtrack which is guaranteed to put the viewer's nerves right on edge."

Answer: Blood Bath / aka Twitch of the Death Nerve

And the killings don't stop there! It all revolves around an inheritance and what relatives will do to get more than their fair share. The killings themselves get a tad boring (until the grand finale, that is as witty a twist as you'll find in a video nasty), but Bava's directing skills far surpass many of his competitors.

Bava also directed "Black Sabbath" from whence British heavy rock band got the name. "Lisa and the Devil" was re-edited and released as "The House of Exorcism" to cash-in on the success of "The Exorcist".

In "Seduction of the Gullible", John Martin has this to say about Bava: "By the time the American majors had plucked up the nerve to jump on the gore bandwagon, Bava was already dead, but in characteristically Bavian fashion his ghost presides over 1979's 'Alien' (which goes so far as to restage the scene from Bava's 'Planet of the Vampires' in which the protagonists discover a huge fossilized E.T.) and Sean Cunningham's 'Friday the 13th' (1980), an unacknowledged remake of 'Blood Bath'. Ironically, the Bava film was marketed as a bogus sequel to 'Last House on the Left'. Such is the way that horror history gets rewritten."

Answer: Cannibal Ferox

"Cannibal Ferox", directed by Umberto Lenzi, is a pretty poor cash-in on the infamy of "Cannibal Holocaust", but still top entertainment.

Radice gets a pretty raw deal, and despite escaping after being tied to a totem-pole to be poked with spears, emasculated, being recaptured and having his hands chopped off, and yet still managing to scarper, he ends up getting the top of his head sliced off and his brains eaten. He later admitted he wished he hadn't appeared in the film.

He also appeared in "City of the Living Dead", "The House on the Edge of the Park" (as David Hess's sidekick), "The Church", "Gangs of New York" and a remake of "The Omen".

Answer: Caterer

All of Herschell Gordon Lewis' films are a feast. This is often referred to as the first splatter film, and there is a heap of horror, but not much that really disturbs due to its low budget.

Obviously the lead character, Fuad Ramses, is an Egyptian caterer, and it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out where he gets the ingredients.

"Two Thousand Maniacs!" (1964) is a much more disturbing film, concentrating on small-town, insular communities that ignore history.

Answer: Potter's Bluff

At the beginning of the film we are shown a sign saying "Potter's Bluff: A New Way of Life", and it is just that!

The film is a bit flashier than most of the films on the BBFC's "video nasties" list, and some of that money was ploughed into some cracking gore effects that make even the seasoned horror fan feel a little squeamish.

"City of the Dead" is set in Whitewood, "2,000 Maniacs" in Pleasant Valley, and "The Fog" in Antonio Bay.