Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Cannibal Holocaust was banned for a very long time and it’s not hard to see why.
Being one of the first found footage movies it disgusted audiences who couldn’t work out what was real.
The truth is still fairly guarded but some scenes, including the scene where a live turtle is hacked to bits, were real.
There are certain scenes that you hope aren’t real, especially the ones that included the assault and murder of tribal natives in the jungle.
Cannibal Holocaust is hard going but it earned its place in history as a must-see for horror fanatics for good reason.
Videodrome (1983)
David Cronenberg always has a motive in his films and Videodrome is a classic example.
Exploring the themes of sadomasochism in media and the exploitation of sex and violence it hammers home its point with a tense and brutal purpose.
To dumb the plot down, a network executive steals a broadcast from Malaysia that shows people being tortured and murdered. He begins to air it on his network but the show starts to affect people in unforeseen ways.
If you like your horror a little more highbrow then you can’t go wrong with Videodrome.
Class of Nuke Em High (1986)
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Videodrome you have Class of Nuke ‘Em High.
Troma are probably the finest purveyors of B-Movies and Lloyd Kaufman is a master of low budget.
Class of Nuke ‘Em High sees the students of Tromaville High smoking a new strain of Marijuana that has been tainted by the Nuclear Power Plant next door.
A gang known as “The Cretins” all start to turn psychotic thanks to an unrelated nuclear accident and the heroes of the film go on a nuclear weed-fuelled rampage to stop them.
It’s utterly ridiculous and we love it.
