This project started life as a preservation of one programming event, and expanded from there; BBC2's 1995 Forbidden Weekend, which 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
Director's Cut both on BBC2 in 1997; some of my fondest teenage memories. A lot of similar censorship themed material has been shown on TV over the years, both BBC2 & latterly Channel 4 have done a number of 'Banned' & 'Censored' seasons for instance, along with other specials such as Channel 4's 1995 Sci-Fi Weekend, for which I remember seeing the trailer for
(I have a few hours of footage from this event, but not enough to warrant releasing a set, although I would like to).
In all of these examples (besides the films themselves), the vast majority of the introductory & documentary content has never been repeated or released on any home media. Preserving original VHS recordings is the only way people can see this content today, and harks back to a time which almost seems 'quaint' in terms of what was legally available and how censored it was. This was in the backwards days when John McClane was relegated to saying
through late night 90s ITV, lest England's moral fabric unwound at some light swearing, but Jim
the nation's kids was all round family entertainment. Conversely, today you can buy so many features uncut in shops which forty years ago might have ended with a prison spell for simply owning the same on VHS. Further, anyone can watch far worse with a few taps on your mobile phone, or an internet download, making seem BBFC optional, even obsolete in modern society.
The aim of this project was to produce a complete SD (standard definition) Blu-Ray box set of everything I could track down and assemble together under the banner of 'TV broadcast censorship themed material', This made it quite an uphill & time consuming project, as it hinged entirely on finding people with original recordings (or them finding me), assuming any recordings actually still existed. 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 more than three times that (8 hours), and at a similar bitrate the quality will be better. This makes it an excellent medium for preserving large amounts of SD material on a manageable physical set.
, the title was replaced to 'Censorship'; something more generic, and the project given this new page. The menus and artwork were also generalized, which will make upgrades and adding new material in the future much easier.
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.
Photos of all this project's source material as of 2024; thirty-eight VHS tapes, sixteen DVD-R discs, plus a few internet downloads
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 from the '95 Forbidden Weekend; covering
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 on the original 2019 set 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. This was the first terrestrial TV showing of the Director's Cut, another fond memory, and I thought it worth preserving. While no one was able to help with that, UK user NoBladeOfGrass did get in touch to say he had sections of the Forbidden Weekend 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.
Another year past of plugging away every so often. Facebook user Stephen Rigg got in contact May 2022. He was able to send three tapes; two for the Forbidden Weekend, and one with a virtually complete showing of Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend. Elliot Cowley replied to one of my Facebook posts in August 2022, that he had a recording of BBC2's 1997 Forbidden Season showing of
Dawn Of the Dead he could send to me. Facebook user Adam listed a fair number of tapes for sale in October 2022, I took a punt on eight. Five were checked then binned, one had a few decent TV adverts, another had an episode of
The Mary Whitehouse Experience, but the last had a nearly complete showing of the premiere of
The Exorcist on Channel 4 in 2001, with ad breaks. The recording cuts off just before the end credits so I bought the retail VHS so I could add that back in and make it complete. Then Alex Fitch contacted me via Facebook in August 2023, with a 6hr LP tape with a virtually complete recording of the third evening of the Forbidden Weekend.
Finally Jason Pyke got in contact in July 2023, he had a huge collection of source tapes and loaned me twenty-one of them. Many of those were transferred in full giving a total of 44 hours of material to work from. Those included original recordings of The Forbidden Weekend, Channel 4's Censored Weekend, BBC2's Forbidden Season,
Clive Barker's A-Z Of Horror,
The Incredibly Strange Film Show &
Son of..,
Stephen King's World Of Horror, along with assorted shows & documentaries for
The Exorcist,
The Devils,
The Wicker Man, various Kubrick entries, and a pile more, plus a DVD-R recording of BBC2's Vault Of Horror via a friend.
In total I had 88 hours of source material from 40 VHS tape transfers, plus around 20 DVD-R discs and assorted internet downloads. The final set runs at 60h 36m. In the end, I got far closer to a 'complete' set than I had initially ever thought I would. All the feature films shown here, are now easily available on DVD (minus the various 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 VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray rips of the films' in question. The only footage you'll see was specifically recorded on VHS from original broadcast arings. There's still some footage missing, as listed below. I've 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;
Footage Still Missing (Or Upgraded Really Needed)
Broadside: A Gentleman's Agreement (Channel 4 - 22.15 June 8, 1983)
BBC2's 1992 Vault of Horror
> Full Film: Creepshow (BBC2 - 23:25 Saturday October 31, 1992)
> Full Film: The Curse of the Werewolf (BBC2 - 01:40 Sunday November 1, 1992)
> Full Film: The Bride of Frankenstein (BBC2 - 03:20 Sunday November 1, 1992)
> Full Film: Death Line (BBC2 - 04:45 Sunday November 1, 1992)
> Full Film: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (BBC2 - 06:10 Sunday November 1, 1992)
BBC2 1995 Forbidden Weekend
> Talking X's: Hugh Grant & Richard Curtis, Emmanuelle (BBC2 - 22:28 Saturday May 27, 1995)
> Talking X's: Lily Savage, The Exorcist (BBC2 - 23:08 Saturday May 27, 1995)
> Full Film: Pastor Hall (BBC2 - 09:20 Monday May 29, 1995)
> Talking X's: Kate Hardie, Saturday Night Fever (BBC2 - 10:55 Monday May 29, 1995)
> Talking X's: Alexander Walker, Frankenstein (BBC2 - 22:28 Tuesday May 30, 1995)
> Talking X's: George Melly, King Kong (BBC2 - 22:28 Thursday June 1, 1995)
BBC2 1997 Forbidden Season
> David Cronenberg and the Cinema of the Extreme (BBC2 - 22.20 Sunday January 19, 1997)
> Full Film: Videodrome (BBC2 - 22.40 Sunday January 19, 1997)
> Full Film: Shivers (BBC2 - 00.10 Monday January 19, 1997)
> Full Film: Django Kill (BBC2 - 23.10 Sunday February 9, 1997)
> Forbidden - Tetsuo II - Body Hammer (BBC2 - 00.20 Monday February 17, 1997)
> Full Film: Tetsuo II - Body Hammer (BBC2 - 00.30 Monday February 17, 1997)
> Mark Cousins and Eyes without a Face (BBC2 - 23.55 Sunday February 23, 1997)
> Full Film: Eyes without a Face (BBC2 - 00.05 Monday February 23, 1997)
> Full Film: EI Topo (BBC2 - 01.30 Saturday March 22, 1997)
Channel 4 1999 Censored Weekend
> Full Film: Evil Dead II (Channel 4 - 23:50 Saturday 20, 1999)
> Full Film: Zombie Flesh Eaters (Channel 4 - 01:25 Sunday 21, 1999)
One other notable mention; Channel 4 ran a
Banned Season of programs between Monday 8 to Sunday 28 of April 1991 (covered in the Newspaper PDF downloads further down). With the exception of the single documentary Banned: Sex & The Censors covering work at the BBFC (shown Sunday 21st, already included in this Blu-Ray set), the remainder of the programming line-up was related all forms of censorship and how it's implemented around the world, both historically and currently, covering topics like; press freedoms, religion, politics, history, music, and humour. A few notable films were shown, including Monty Python's The Life Of Brian (1979), The feature version of Scum (1979) and the TV version of Brimstone & Treacle (1982). That aside, nothing much of note was shown in relation to this set.
Incidentally, I now ask everyone I borrow tapes from, if there is any chance they'd be binning them once they get my transfers, and if so would they please let me hang on to them. I do this as back when I did my Gamesmaster TV show transfer project in 2009, I transferred piles of tapes from three people, which were then returned. I came to look at upgrading that project with new source tape transfers in 2022, and found that two of the three people had thrown all their source tapes away once they got my DVD transfers back in 2009. That was a lesson learned, and I'm now stuck with my old VHS transfers, unless I can source alternate recordings from other people. If I keep the tapes, I can transfer them again off in the future, should I further upgrade my transfer set-up.
One thing I picked up on, the TV listings and the 1992 BBC2 Vault Of Horror program line-up differ somewhat. At 03:10am there was a segment billed called 'Prime Evil', supposedly about
The Evil Dead. This doesn't appear in any recording I have, either from original VHS tapes, downloads or YouTube. It's just missing from that section, as if it was not broadcast. Further, there were a few more segments broadcast after that, which aren't in the TV listings. These cover Troma films, and Fangoria Magazine.
As an aside, Bad Taste was shown in the BBC2 1995 Forbidden Weekend 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 broadcast in 1995, 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?
Each set will come with a mini replica laserprinted
Radio Times, adapted from the Forbidden Weekend special issue released in May 1995. It's 146mm x 127mm closed, with 4 pages/8 sides. In there you have some of the original articles on censorship, along with TV listings for most entries included across the whole Blu-Ray set. Not every single item included on the set, is in the magazine, and vice versa. It's more of a bit of fun. than a strictly complete informational insert.
I always enjoyed going though the new
Radio Times issue each Saturday morning as a child, picking out the bits and pieces I wanted to watch over the week. Every so often you'd get a great film on ITV like
Alien or
The Thing, and once in a blue moon you found something really special, like the Forbidden Weekend,
Dawn Of The Dead première, or
Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror. I'm hoping this replica will bring fond memories back to many others out there!
I was able to directly lift the BBC2 '95 Forbidden Weekend & Channel 4 '99 Censored Weekend listings from two
Radio Times issues I'd bought. I was also able to get all the other BBC1/2 listings from the excellent
BBC Genome TV listings website, which contains all BBC
Radio Times listings in full, from 1922, up to the present. ITV and Channel 4 listings were a little tricker. Tracking down & buying an original
Radio Times issue to cover each entry would have cost a fortune, and that's assuming one was available. Instead I subscribed to the
The British Newspaper Archive website. This is mostly populated with small local newspapers, but The Daily Mirror and The Scotsman both have extensive daily TV listings pages I could draw from. They're not
Radio Times, but it allowed me to get all the listings I needed, with a synopsis against each one, for a reasonable cost.
The set is supplied in a blue 8-way Blu-Ray case, with a laser-printed reversible cover, printed disc artwork, and the mock-up eight-page
issue. You can see photos below.
April 2026 I spent a few evenings creating a trailer for my Censorship Blu-Ray set; which contains over 60 hours of UK broadcast television transferred from original VHS tapes; on the themes of Horror, violence and the state of British censorship.
It's an expanded version of my 2022 Forbidden Weekend trailer, which was itself adapted from an original trailer broadcast on BBC2 in 1995 for Empire Of The Censors, which was part of that Forbidden Weekend. The '22 FW trailer just used excerpts from that May 1995 weekend of programming. The Censored trailer expands to include BBC2's 92 Vault Of Horror, 97 Forbidden Season, & Channel 4's 1999 Censored Weekend, plus Clive Barker's A-Z Of Horror, The Incredibly Strange Film Show, and Stephen King's World of Horror. There is a lot more, but I stuck to entries which might be better remembered by viewers.
The original trailer featured a voice-over by the fantastic British actor
, although he's sadly now passed away. With the previous trailer, I simply edited out any bits of his original voice-over which couldn't apply to my FW trailer. With the '26 re-working, I had a go at AI voice cloning using an excerpts from an audiobook he narrated. This allowed me to write trailer-specific text from scratch. Most of the AI websites I tried gave pretty ropey results, but
worked exceptionally well. I did have to run various parts of my text though multiple times, piecing together sentences in places to get a complete & natural sounding voice-over. It really sounds like John, and you'd be pressed to notice that it's AI generated.
This trailer covers some great memories, and I hope to get more people interested by dropping it into other Blu-ray projects. It's 18+ on YouTube, so you might have to log-in to view it.
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 intended 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
. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my
to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.
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