It’s missing maybe a Maniac, but otherwise Anchor Bay’s merry box of grot serves well as a gorehound’s greatest hits: skewered eyeballs; tree rapes; severed penises; lobotomised tramps and a tooled-up Big Chin ticks pretty much every box on the ’70s and ’80s ‘video nasty’ hitlist.

Of the six, two (The Evil Dead, Zombie Flesh-Eaters) still remain corkers in spite of the age gap. Two (The Last House On The Left, The Driller Killer) still pack an undeniable sicko punch but are now showing serious signs of genre crows’ feet and the other two (I Spit On Your Grave, Nightmare In A Damaged Brain) we could have always done without – the former being misogynist dreck posing as revenge schlock, the latter a camp, kiddie chopathon. Regardless of the mismatched hatchet job, though, and despite the fact that all of these titles have been available uncut to this extent on DVD before, the odd excised second doesn’t diminish from the extensive pile-up of nostalgic nightmares.

DVD Extras:

Extras are sparse throughout, though Last House and Evil Dead at least manage to regurgitate some previous bonus material. The new 47-minute documentary Ban The Sadist Videos! (named after the classic Daily Mail headline at the height of the hysteria) provides excitable colour and fresh interviews from as far back as the Whitehouse cull through to the recent ‘rehabilitation’ of the films themselves. Those who remember them fondly in their bootleg VHS incarnation of old may find that the DVD print crispness sadly heightens previously buried inadequacies. But this is a curious cross-section of hardcore horror that celebrates the good old nasty days with a wilful enthusiasm and a wry smile. As Ash would have it, “Groovy!”