Trash or treasure is a wide-ranging historical study of the British
circulation of the video nasties - a term that was originally coined to
ban a group of horror videos in Britain in the 1980s but which continues
to have cultural resonance in Britain up to the present day.
The book is divided into three sections, which represent the key periods
of existence of the nasties category - the formation of the term in the
1980s, the fan culture that formed around the nasties subsequent to
their banning under the video recordings act and the DVD and theatrical
re-release of some of the titles from 1990 onwards. Through an
exploration of a range of relevant historical materials (from film
reviews to fan websites, to video advertising materials) the book
examines how this unusual, historically-specific genre category was
formulated in a particular context, and then used (for different
reasons) by moral campaigners, distributors, critics and fans.
By examining the discourses that inform the circulation of a group of
banned films (including the growth of DVD, the internet and the academic
rehabilitation of horror films), the book argues that censorship is not
just about rules and regulations, but also about the material, cultural
and commercial consequences of a censorhsip act of law.
It will be of great interest to lecturers and students of film, popular
culture and the media, as well as enthusiasts of horror films and those
interested in film censorship debates.