Texas Chainsaw Massacre Month. Many
films have clashed with British censors over the years but The
Texas Chain Saw Massacre
does have its own unique place in the weird and wonderful history of
censorship in the UK, having been present at several significant
points in that story over the last four decades. In 1974, the
Secretary of the British Board of Film Classification James Ferman
condemned TCSM as "...the pornography of terror," but his plans
to keep it completely out of UK cinemas were foiled on its initial
release. Then, despite the best efforts of the BBFC to keep the film
off the small screen, it went on to be a black market video nasty hit
in the '80s, before the powers-that-be threw in the towel in the
'90s, and granted it a legitimate, uncut release. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a perfect
example of a film that undermines their whole method of, and approach
to, censorship as well as showing the extent to which the process is
arbitrary, driven by political and media pressure, and riddled with
class prejudice.
(read more...)
