I watched the film that Tim recommended we watched in order to understand the context of the next lecture. I did some research into the video nasties, they were cheap typically low budget horror films that made it into stores while avoiding being rated by the BBFC in the 1980s. This meant that a lot of children got their hands on these graphic films. The public outcry to get these filmed banned invoked pressure on the BBFC to do this. This made the films become urban legends and a negative political stance on films of this type. Including censorship which directly counteracts the point of art.
I watched the film and paid attention to the sound design specifically. I found the use of music rather confusing. It was in small doses, id say it was played maybe no more than five or six times throughout the actual film. And when it did get played it was always short and at a specific moment in the film that was confusing or invoked mysterious story telling.
I also found the mix of the film to feel really claustrophobic. The sound effects took up a lot of room and didn’t allow the dialogue to come through as clean as it should. Now that could either be the technical limitations of the time. The fact the film had a small budget, or an artistic decision. In one specific scene the wife is chopping up meat with an electric machine and it really overpowers the dialogue. I think in this specific scene it used noise in a great way. To showcase her cloudy vision and foggy thoughts. How her dilusian meant she wasn’t paying attention to her husband when he was speaking to her.
Overall i didn’t find it that captivating. The plot was confusing and the sound mix wasn’t that great. It was an enjoyable watch and did have interesting parts with sonic world story telling which I’ll definitely incorporate into my film clip for my assignment. I’m interested for tomorrows lecture to see how this will fit in context to the other films in the video nasties.