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10 Films That Are Still Banned in the UK

by Alisdair Hodgson
fact checked by Darci Heikkinen

Westerners live in an age of relative freedom when it comes to the films we can enjoy. U.S. and UK censors are more forgiving than they used to be, and horrific, graphic, and downright lewd films that would previously have been banned from even the roughest fleapit make it into mainstream cinemas.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200924204745/https://www.bbfc.co.uk/education-resources/education-news/video-nasties

The UK’s so-called “video nasty” era in the 1980s saw moral watchdog The National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association put pressure on the government and censor body, the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification, who have authority on whether a film is certified or banned) to crack down on films that were considered too extreme for the public. And while, by the dawn of the new millennium, things were business as usual again, its legacy still lives on—if you know where to look.

Since then, fewer films have been banned in the UK, and many previously banned titles have been released—often in their original, uncut form—but there are a few that have still been rejected for release to this day.

Related: Top 10 Cartoons Banned and Censored Around the World

10 Fight for Your Life (1977)

Fight For Your Life (1977) Trailer

Robert A. Endelson’s blaxploitation film (an offshoot of the exploitation subgenre focusing on Black characters and communities) Fight for Your Life revolves around a redneck racist and his gang who escape from prison and hole up in a Black minister’s house, taking his family hostage and forcing them to fight for their lives.

The film originally sought UK release in 1981 and was rejected by the BBFC. Nonetheless, an uncut video version of the film found its way onto store shelves in 1982. It proliferated for a few years before the full fury of the video nasty movement came down on it.

Under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, the Video Recordings Act was introduced into law in 1984 to regulate the video industry. This gave the BBFC ultimate authority over both cinematic and home releases and led to Fight for Your Life being outlawed and banned for good, ostensibly due to its highly racialized, violent, and sexually aggressive content.[1]

9 Reality Killers (2005)

REALITY KILLERS [ProjectK] – Teaser Trailer

Written and directed by Alessandro Capone, Pablo Dammicco, Volfango De Bias, and Francesco Maria Dominedò, Reality Killers presents a serial killer known as The Sculptor, who guides the viewer through his collection of snuff films. The vignettes that comprise the bulk of the film feature the abuse, torture, and murder of men, women, and children and form the inspiration for The Sculptor’s own crimes.

Given the frequency and extent of the sadistic violence in Reality Killers, which includes portraying women as sexual objects and victims enjoying the violence, the BBFC deemed the film unsuitable for release. They cited as primary concerns the depiction of sadism and other harmful attitudes that were neither clearly challenged nor offered narrative counterbalance.

The driving force behind this decision lies in one of the organization’s central tenets: to prevent what they consider “non-trivial harm risks to potential viewers and… society.” Given such offensive material forms most of Reality Killers’ content, they found cuts to the movie—the usual method of addressing and eliminating such issues—could simply not be made for this film.[2]


8 Mikey (1992)

Mikey (1992) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]

Despite being released following the end of the video nasty era, Dennis Dimster’s psychological slasher Mikey fell foul of the same brand of public objection. The film sees nine-year-old Mikey (Brian Bonsall) murder his adopted parents before moving on to friends and acquaintances. It is not the most comfortable material to sit through, but it is not egregious by any stretch of imagination.

However, the film coincided with the February 1993 murder of toddler James Bulger by two ten-year-olds—a highly publicized tragedy that shocked the UK. Public outcry, spurred on by tabloid journalism, led to the banning of Child’s Play 3 on the back of the murder, and Mikey soon followed.

Despite having been positioned for an 18 certificate with no cuts from the BBFC, Mikey was seized upon by right-wing tabloid The Daily Mail, which claimed it paralleled real life. The film only had a vague and shallow connection to the case, so the BBFC postponed its decision to grant it a certificate, with the final, official rejection not arriving until 1996. And the film remains banned to this day.[3]

7 Bumfights: Cause for Concern, Volume 1 (2003)

Bum Fights: A Cause for Concern (Bum Hunter #1)

In the wake of Jackass’s popularity in the early aughts, there were inevitably going to be copycats, but some were less successful than others. Zachary Bubeck, Daniel J. Tanner, and Michael J. Slyman’s Bumfights was one such failure, borrowing the spontaneous, guerilla style of the MTV show and taking it to the streets of San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, staging stunts and fights using homeless people and high schoolers.

Thanks to provisions in the Video Recordings Act, the BBFC pays special attention to material that causes harm to either the viewer or performers. The Board refused to certify Bumfights due to its exploitation of vulnerable homeless people, believing it made light of abuse and had a strong potential to encourage others to copy it. But they were not the only ones.

The filmmakers faced civil lawsuits from the homeless men featured in the film and criminal charges filed by Californian authorities. The charges included conspiracy to solicit an assault with deadly force and obstruction of justice after first paying the homeless men to fight and then paying them not to comply with the police.[4]


6 Women in Cellblock 9 (1977)

Women in Cellblock 9 1977 Trailer

Jesus Franco’s Women in Cellblock 9 is a Swiss exploitation movie set in a South American jungle prison. The film focuses on a group of revolutionary women and the abuses they undergo in cellblock number 9 of the prison, where they are taken to be molested and tortured.

Although it was made and released around the right time, Women in Cellblock 9 is not, in fact, one of the video nasties from the 1980s movement. It wasn’t submitted to the BBFC for approval until 2004, at which point it was rejected.

As expected, the Board condemned the film’s depiction of the abuse, torture, and humiliation of naked women, which they believe eroticizes sexual assault. However, they also cited the Protection of Children Act and the Sexual Offences Act in their decision to refuse certification. These acts make the distribution of indecent images of a child under the age of 18 a criminal offense, and as one of the lead actresses in Women in Cellblock 9—Susan Hemingway—was 16 during filming, they recognized the certification of this film would not just be against the public interest, but was in itself illegal.[5]

5 The Bunny Game (2011)

The Bunny Game Official ‘Safe’ Trailer

Adam Rehmeier’s U.S. avant-garde feature The Bunny Game was made with a micro-budget at the beginning of the last decade and enjoyed modest success at smaller film festivals. Shot in black and white, the film follows a hitchhiking female prostitute who is kidnapped by a trucker and subjected to various physical and sexual humiliations over the course of a 76-minute runtime.

Although UK censor guidelines had recently been updated in 2009 to match the changing cinematic landscape, The Bunny Game still did not pass the review process. It was rejected on the basis that its focus “is the unremitting sexual and physical abuse of a helpless woman, as well as the sadistic and sexual pleasure the man derive [sic] from this,” believing the perspective and stylized nature of the film could encourage viewers to share in this pleasure.

Rehmeier was aggrieved by this decision and rejected this characterization of his film. He stated that his intent was to make “a modern cautionary tale grounded in reality”—but this did not sway the censors.[5]


4 Traces of Death (1993)

Top 6 Most Disturbing Scenes From Traces of Death (1993)

Damon Fox’s documentary horror Traces of Death is an American mondo movie (a subgenre of the exploitation documentary, which depicts controversial scenes and situations). It draws together a collage of uncontextualized clips showing real-life killings, suicides, operations, accidents, and autopsies.

Although it was made in 1993, it didn’t cross censors’ desks until 2005, when restrictions had been relaxed, and it had a fair chance of securing a UK release. However, the BBFC felt differently, refusing to grant the film a certificate on the basis that it contains no journalistic, educational, or artistic value, using clips of a horrifying nature merely to shock, titillate, and desensitize audiences, deliberately mocking pain, death, and suffering.

Citing the potential for Traces of Death to mute viewer sensitivity, potentially impairing the moral development of younger viewers, the Board also raised concerns about a breach of the Obscene Publications Act, which makes it an offense to distribute any work that could corrupt a significant proportion of those likely to view it. This potential breach of law makes it unlikely that Traces of Death will ever be available for viewing—legally, that is—in the UK.[7]

3 Hate Crime (2012)

HATE CRIME [Official Trailer] (2013) [HD]

Recent films like 2024’s A Real Pain have shown how subtle and affecting art can be made about the Jewish experience while honoring the memory of those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis during WWII. On the other end of the spectrum are films like James Cullen Bressack’s Hate Crime, which sees a group of drug-addled neo-Nazis launch an attack on a Jewish family’s home that results in the victims’ mutilation, sexual assault, torture, and murder.

Due to the film’s unremitting focus on physical and sexual abuse and strong racist invective, UK censors determined that classifying this film at all was inconsistent with its own guidelines, risked potential viewer harm, and was unacceptable to public opinion. This made it the first film to be refused certification under revised regulations for streaming films in the UK.

Rather than take the banning of his film as a damning indictment, Bressack chose to wear it as a badge of honor. In a press release from the film’s publisher, the director claimed that he was “honored to know that [his] mind is officially too twisted for the UK.”[8]


2 Murder-Set-Pieces (2004)

Murder-Set-Pieces (2004) | DISTURBING BREAKDOWN

Nick Palumbo’s U.S.-made horror Murder-Set-Pieces finds its subject in a wealthy German photographer who conducts photoshoots by day and rape, torture, and murder by night. Despite boasting a $2 million budget and featuring cameos from horror icons Gunnar Hansen (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Tony Todd (Candyman), and Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever), the film’s scenes were deemed to be outside the bounds of general taste—even in the horror world.

The BBFC’s decision not to certify the film cited the unacceptable nature of sexual scenes, which “encourage a harmful association between violence and sexual gratification,” and placed special concern on the fact that young children are amongst the film’s victims. The Board also considered that cutting the film would be nigh impossible, given the pervasive nature of the film’s unacceptable content featured, and that all inoffensive scenes were little more than a setup for the violent and sexual material.

Despite being submitted for classification a full four years from when the film was shot, the decision to ban Murder-Set-Pieces arrived just a day after then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed concern over the social influence of violent films and games on the public.[9]

1 Love Camp 7 (1969)

VIDEO NASTIES – LOVE CAMP 7 (1969)

One of the most famous of the video nasties, R.L. Frost’s women-in-prison exploitation flick features two officers from the U.S. Women’s Army Corps being sent undercover into a Nazi concentration camp. Once inside, they discover the systematic subjugation of female prisoners, who serve as sex slaves for SS officers and are subjected to regular humiliation, torture, and sexual assault.

First banned in the UK during the ’80s, the film was subsequently resubmitted to the BBFC for consideration in 2002. However, the board’s classification guidelines explicitly state that they refuse to classify content that makes “non-consensual sexually violent behavior look appealing or acceptable… or invites viewer complicity in such behavior.”

As Love Camp 7 features extensive scenes of exploitation and sexual abuse, in which the abuses portrayed can only be interpreted as being “intended to arouse viewers” rather than a cogent commentary on the abuses of the Holocaust, the film was refused certification. That it remains banned to this day has, however, only served to increase its notoriety.[10]

fact checked by Darci Heikkinen

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