Besides old horror paperbacks and Project SWORD and JR21 toys, for years I've been collected old VHS videos from the 1980's and mostly horror.
Last year I decided to check them against the 150'ish so-called Video Nasties list, as listed by the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) 1984 UK Video Recordings Act.
This 1984 DPP list comprised of 39 prosecuted titles (known as the DPP39), 33 non-prosecuted titles (known together as the DPP72) and around 80+ titles in a Section 3, rather like advisories on a car MOT. The then police confiscated the 39 from rental shops and could remove any of the others at their discretion (some shop keepers went to jail!).
All of this has long been well-documented in magazines, many reference books, DVD documentaries and countless online collections.
So, with all this in mind, it turned out that I had a few VHS from the DPP39, a good handful of the 33 and a decent shake of Section 3.
Bingo!
Why don't I attempt to collect them all? Not on DVD, but yes, VHS?
Sounds easy enough! So, I did that very thing and began my nasty quest.
To kick things off, I bought a complete original DPP39 video tape and case for around £20 on Ebay. Tenebrae by Dario Argento.
Boom!
Jobs a good 'un!
Little did I know that this was probably the cheapest tape available by far and the rest of the 39 would prove to be more or less out of my financial reach entirely!
I did a lot more research. There are some excellent guides on You Tube specifically about how to go about collecting the DPP 39 in their original cases.
In total they would cost a staggering £10K or thereabouts, some tapes themselves individually commanding many thousands!
I knew then this was way beyond my meagre piggy bank and the plan somewhat faltered.
But lo!
Take heart Woodsy!
I remembered a story from my elementary Cumbrian climbing days in the late 1970's with my late great best mate Pete. Pete, even in his mid-teens, was an accomplished climber and kindly offered to help me tackle my first basic routes, with Pete leading on the rope.
One of these was called Poor Man's Puterie, in Great Langdale in the Lakes, named as such by a climber way back who wanted to climb Puterie, a climb in the Alps, but couldn't afford the travel. To stave off frustration he found a similar route at home and eh voila! Poor Man's Puterie!
This was a Eureka moment.
I would attempt to create a poor man's collection of the DPP39 and the DPP33!
But how?
Well, I decided that the easiest and least expensive method was to reproduce the box and colour sleeve only. Forget the tape.
Having bought a stack of big and little cases I set about recreating the sleeves.
As luck would have it my friend Bill had spare copies of invaluable VHS books, which basically catalogued all the sleeves I needed!
This was an incredible stroke of good fortune and allowed me to put together most of the 39. Together with the couple of original VHS I already had, such as AXE, and a handful of scans from Bill, the DPP39 slowly but surely emerged before my very eyes!
Through a lot of research, I'd been careful to use the same colour and sized cases as those back in 1984, albeit being very difficult to get hold of the soft-topped clamshell cases prevalent back then. I had to settle for hard shell big and little boxes. The few card slip-cases on the list I simply exchanged for little plastic cases to keep things moving.
It was a thrill to see all the 39 boxes in my cabinet!
I repeated this process for the DPP33 list of titles and once again they slowly emerged on my shelf!
I just need 5 big boxes and the 33 are sorted too!
I'd found my stride and armed with those usable cover books and Bill's scans I even began on Section 3, an altogether bigger task as there are around 80+ titles, some of which, thankfully, I actually owned already.
Section 3 is now a work in progress and will take some time and a lot more little boxes, which I don't currently have.
In the meantime I'm deliberating getting hold of cheap, more modern 1990's VHS versions of those DPP39, which were actually retailed. At most I'll spend a tenner on a tape like this, to place inside my facsimile 1984 case and sleeve and complete the tribute (I don't watch them! Too gory!).
But there's no rush with this. No-ones getting prosecuted anymore!
And so, here's my current homage to that strange chapter of UK VHS history called the Video Nasties, a recreated cabinet of all of the DPP39 cases, most of the DPP33 and around half of Section 3.
I'm going to need a bigger cabinet!
To be continued ....
How novel and imaginative way of recreating something so rare! You and Bill must have put a great deal of time and effort to accomplish the collection. I would love to see the photo unblurred.
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