All Slights Deserved

Well, it finally happened: I got to see a Johannes Roberts film at my local cinema. If somebody had told me this when I sat shaking my head in dismay at the singular incompetence of Sanitarium I wouldn't have credited it. Hopefully it's not the end of the journey but he appears to have arrived somewhere. Storage 24 is a nuts and bolts sci-fi exploitation movie. The premise is a simple one: a US cargo plane has crashed somewhere in London, possibly shot down, for reasons unknown. Part of the wreckage has landed in the grounds of the titular secure storage warehouse, including a mysterious container which has broken open, releasing a nasty monster which seeks refuge in the building. It also causes a power failure, meaning that those who happen to venture inside - including Noel Clarke, the girlfriend he's just acrimoniously split from and attendant friends - find themselves trapped in there with the beast. We've seen it all many times before of course, from T...

In 1983, at the height of the video nasties panic in the UK, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) published a list of 72 films that were deemed liable to deprave and corrupt and banned under the Obscene Publications Act. In many cases the charge was laughable and they were acquitted within a couple of years, while the vast majority are now readily available, albeit occasionally (e.g. Cannibal Holocaust) with cuts. One of the handful that remains banned is Robert Endelson's 1977 home invasion thriller Fight For Your Life . Although unquestionably a violent film it's perhaps unique amongst the blacklisted titles as having been of more concern for the prolific use of inflammatory language, namely racial slurs. The BBFC rejected it outright when it was submitted in 1981 and nobody's tried since. When I became aware of the film recently it immediately intrigued me. I've been on the receiving end of racist pejoratives myself over the years, but could the language re...