BBC2's 1995 Forbidden Weekend was various material on the theme of horror, video nasties and censorship, shown over a long bank holiday weekend on BBC2, with each film preceded by introduction from Alex Cox, and the BBC even giving the weekend its own special idents.

This was one of my earliest experiences into horror when I was 14, that and seeing The Evil Dead on VHS a few months or so before, and Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror in 1997; some of my fondest teenage memories. A lot of similar material has been shown on TV over the years, both BBC 2 & Channel 4 have done a number of 'Banned' & 'Censored' seasons for instance, along with other specials such as Channel 4's Sci-Fi Weekend around the same time, for which I remember seeing the trailer for Outland & The Man Who Fell to Earth.

The aim of this 2019 project was to produce a complete SD (standard DVD definition) Blu-Ray box set of everything shown, which hinged entirely on finding people with original recordings. I decided to go with an SD Blu-Ray rather than DVD set, as I can only fit around 120mins of footage on one dual layer DVD at the maximum 9mb bitrate. On a single layer Blu-Ray disc I can fit around three times that (6 hours), and at the same bitrate the quality will be better.

I first tried to get this project started on the Pre-Cert Video Forums in August 2012. Despite a number of positive replies, and some private messaging, I never actually got any footage in the end and this was left by the wayside. In December 2018, I decided to expand and re-post it, along with re-contacting anyone who'd messaged me about this project previously, and posting it on a number of likely Facebook groups; General Pre Cert And DPP Video Chat, PRE CERT and VHS SCRAPYARD & Official DPP 39 Video Nasties List. The first to send me tapes was Pre-Cert Video Forums user Badastard arriving January 10 2019; two tapes containing around 6 hours of footage, which covered Bad Taste & Good Taste:The Making Of Bad Taste, Performance, and The Devils with some overlaps into the programs/films either side of each too. Next was Facebook user Elliot Cowley on January 16, his own VHS to DVD transfers of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, The Night Porter, and documentaries Empire Of The Censors, & Children Of The Video, along with an assortment of related material, including much of Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend. Following on January 29, was Facebook user Kevin Coed with two VHS tapes containing Empire Of The Censors Pt1 & The Devils on the first, and Bad Taste, Good Taste:The Making Of Bad Taste & Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde on the second. Then Facebook user Stayawake Ricksey sent two tapes; the first with Doing Rude Things, and the second with a related documentary Panorama - The Killing Screens also shown in 1995, along with his own VHS to DVD transfers of Doing Rude Things, and The Late Show Special On Video Nasties shown a few days after the Forbidden Weekend. Finally Pre-Cert Video Forums user Marc Morris filled in the missing film Beat Girl with his own VHS to DVD transfer, along with a further copy of Doing Rude Things. Some very short sections were still missing, but were available on YouTube so were included here for the lack of anything better.

Around a year after the project had been completed in February 2021, I made a a few posts online to see if anyone had a copy of the BBC2 1997 Forbidden Season showing of Dawn Of The Dead, along with the George Romero documentary shown beforehand. It had been my intention to include that full showing with the original project, but was unable to get a copy. While no one was able to help with that, UK user NoBladeOfGrass did get in touch to say he had sections of this project I was missing, on two E240 VHS tapes. Using those, I was able to add in the closing of the second night, and complete The Silence & add the closing of the final night. He was also able to provide quality upgrades to a number of the existing extras.

In the end, I got far closer to a complete set than I had initially thought I would, with 15h 52m of footage in my set, of the total 17h 43m of original programming. With the exception of any YouTube sections (which will look a bit soft and/or muffled), everything else plays in good to excellent VHS quality, without any breakups. All the feature films shown here, are now easily available on DVD (minus Alex's intros, obviously) although a number of the films may (or may not) differ from one or other of the various retail release versions, which is why I didn't want to simply populate this project with DVD rips of the films' in question. The only footage you'll see was specifically recorded from that airing back in 1995. Disc 1 - Saturday May 27, 1995 (Missing 0h 14m)
Missing two earlier Talking 'X's entirely (covering Hugh Grant & Richard Curtis - Emmanuelle, and Lily Savage - The Exorcist), everything else is present from original VHS recordings with all linking idents & promos.

Disc 2 - Sunday May 28, 1995 (Missing 0h 00m)
The 22s of continuity promos & ident at very start of the first Talking 'X' (Women Of Twilight) is fairly decent quality YouTube rip, everything else is present from original VHS recordings with all linking idents & promos. The Night Porter & Beat Girl are taken from pre-existing so-so quality VHS to DVD transfers. They could be replaced.

Disc 3 - Monday May 29, 1995 (Missing 1h 37m)
Missing all 1h 35m morning session; Pastor Hall & Talking 'X' (Kate Hardie - Saturday Night Fever).

The ident at start of Children Of The Video is truncated slightly (would be nice to have a recording which includes the end of the previous program & continuity; starting at 17.40:The BBC 100:EI Cid). Of two later Talking 'X's, one is missing at 21:58/01:26:56 (Helen Chadwick - Zorba The Greek), replaced by a 2s gap, and the 19s ident & continuity announcement between Doing Rude Things and the following Talking 'X' (John Peel - House Of Wax) at 22:48/02:16:16, is a low quality & quite muffled YouTube rip.

As of writing, a total of 1h 51m of footage is still missing, the majority of which is made up of the 1h 33m film Pastor Hall shown on the final/third day. There are also a few other missing Talking 'X's which were shown later that week. I've still got all the original project files to re-visit this set, so if you can help please get in touch. Here is a complete list of everything still needed; As the three evenings had differing running times (along with the fact I was also missing some footage), I decided to encode all the footage at the same bitrate (H.264 8.2mb / AC3 192k), and fill in the empty space on discs 1 & 3 with similarly TV taped related extras, some of which have been upgraded/replaced from the original release as of the February 2021 re-release.

Disc 1 - Extras

• Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend (Pt1) - Intro & Last Days Of The Board (51m 38s)
• Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend (Pt2) - Intro & Boogie Nights In Suburbia (51m 58s)
• Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend (Pt3) - Don't Look Now (10m 56s)
• Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend (Pt4) - Evil Dead II Intro (2m 20s)
• Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend (Pt5) - Zombie Flesh Eaters Intro (2m 25s)
• Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend (Pt6) - Censored (52m 08s)
• Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend (Pt7) - Eyes Wide Open (10m 33s)

Disc 3 - Extras

• BBC2's 1997 Forbidden Season - Dawn Of The Dead Trailer (0m 21s)
• BBC2's 1997 Forbidden Season - George Romero & Dawn Of The Dead (8m 30s)

I also decided to re-author my Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror DVD Box-Set (3 DVD-DL) set onto one extra Blu-Ray disc for inclusion on this set, since it's a fitting home to put them all together. Each of the three Forbidden Weekend Blu-Ray discs has a PC viewable DATA folder, containing printable artwork and various related project bits & pieces, along with a high quality PDF scan of the Radio Times issue for that week (27 May - 2 June 1995), which has extensive coverage with related articles, reviews and a detailed running order. Thanks to Wayne/Sarcophilous Films for the heads up on that. In addition there is a Sight & Sound suppliment devoted to the weekend, along with a Radio Times from February 1999 covering Channel 4's Censored Weekend and you can download it below. Incidentally, Bad Taste was shown here just shortly after it was released on VHS in the UK in 1993. I taped it, and the preceding documentary (the only section of the weekend I recorded myself at the time) and watched it a good few times over the years. Later I binned that recording when I replaced it with the retail VHS tape, then the DVD, but there was a little bit I was sure I remembered from the TV showing that I've never seen in any version since. It's when they're all getting ready to storm the alien house, you see Ozzy filing down the tips on his bullets. I adamantly remember Frank asking him what he was doing, he replied that the bullets create more damage that way, and I could see why this would have been removed, but I'd never found anyone else who remembers it. Well it turns out that the version of Bad Taste shown here, was identical to the later retail VHS & DVD versions, with no additional footage, nor was it in the documentary. Just to be sure, I bought a copy of the UK Polygram 1993 VHS release (0872443) as that was the retail VHS release I later bought, and again that was the same. Looks like I was mistaken. The most likely explanation is that I asked someone about it, and that is what they said, but it's strange how your memory plays tricks?

In May 2022, I spent a few days creating two 30 second mock-up BBC2 90s style trailers to play before the main menu on the first disc of my 2022 Dawn Of The Dead Blu-Ray. Some of my movie projects are fairly mainstream (such as Dawn Of The Dead, The Evil Dead, and Zombie Flesh Eaters) and most people who like the horror genre will already at least know of the titles. Others are horribly niche & obscure and would only be of interest to a small pool of people no matter how much I promoted them (such as the Evil Dead Shorts & Trailers Blu-Ray). I think there are some projects in the middle such as TV preservations; shown once 25 years ago, never repeated, and officially unreleased on any home format. There's no one officially promoting them today, and you'd really have to be searching for them, to find them, which is a shame.

These two trailers cover most of what's on this Blu-Ray set, and has some great memories for me. I hope they get more people interested. They're both 18+ on YouTube, so you might have to click & log-in to view them. It's worth saying that this project was never intended to rip any rights holders off, especially as some of the material is available to buy on retail DVD/Blu-Ray. I wanted my set to be a companion to bought retail releases, not a 'free' bootleg replacement. That said, very few would opt to watch a VHS quality presentation over a newer DVD or Blu-Ray quality version, unless they specifically wanted to see this preservation set. That aside, any sharing of this set is being kept strictly offline for physical trades only, and is not being shared online.

If you're interested in any of my fanmade projects, you can contact me via email at , or through the Rob's Nostalgia Projects Facebook page. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my Wants List to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.