Don't go near the nasties!

I see that our friends at the British Board of Film Classification have reclassified yet another former "video nasty". The latest in the long line of once-derided titles getting a new lease of life under the now slightly more relaxed censorship laws is a film by the name of DON'T GO NEAR THE PARK.

The reason I mention this film in particular is that it is the perfect illustration of where the old "ban this sick filth" campaigners went wrong. By getting films like this banned, they ensured a notoriety and infamy that resulted in the films living on as legendary masterpieces of the depraved where, in many cases, leaving them alone would almost certainly have seen them die off soon enough.

In the case of DON'T GO NEAR THE PARK, it's difficult to describe how bad this film is to someone who has never seen it. It's equally difficult to describe what it's about, as it unfolds in such a way that you begin suspect that someone strung out on crack has suddenly decided to make a new horror film using twenty-five minutes of footage from three completely unrelated movies.

The acting is terrible, the story incoherent, the special effects unconvincing and the gore surprisingly minimal (the main reason for the film's original ban was undoubtedly the brief scenes of cannibalism, once a chief bugbear at the BBFC). Unlike other nasties such as, say, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, this film isn't difficult to sit through because it's so offensive - it's difficult to sit through because it's so brain-meltingly awful.

It also highlights the curious practice of video nasties to give themselves titles instructing people what not to do if you ever find yourself stalked by a killer. In addition to the aforementioned turd of a movie, horror fans of the video nasty era were also instructed DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE, DON'T GO IN THE WOODS, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT and DON'T OPEN THE DOOR. Even Jorge Grau's zombie delight THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE got a couple of instructional retitlings, with not just the highly sensible LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE but also, jumping on the DON'T bandwagon, the slightly more questionnable DON'T OPEN THE WINDOW.

Further confusion spread when DON'T GO IN THE WOODS found itself retitled on some UK video releases as DON'T GO IN THE WOODS... ALONE! Were we now to assume that the woods were perfectly safe as long as you had company? Do zombies and psycho killers only attack people with no mates?

You can see now why one shouldn't take these films as being in any way useful in educating oneself about how to escape from deranged nutters. Okay, so if you're out anywhere you know not go near the house, in the woods (alone, at least) or near the park. Fine.

But what if you're already in the house? The instruction DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE would tend to suggest that if you're already in the house you should get out. But how does one do that? We've already been instructed not to go in the basement, not to open the door and not to open the window, so that leaves us in a bit of a quandary over exactly how one escapes from the aforementioned house.

I think there is only one alternative left for such a situation, so I'm praying that there isn't some previously-unheard-of video nasty called DON'T CRAWL UP THE CHIMNEY.