Unlikely as it sounds, I send thanks to the ghosts of Mary Whitehouse and Margaret Thatcher. Without them, I might never have become a lover of extreme cinema.

The bouffant duo switched me on to "Video Nasties’" The early 1980s were a free-for-all after the launch of home video. There was no regulation. Cinema certificates didn’t cover what you watched at home.

Britain - ever home to prissy, joyless busybodies - got its knickers twisted over on-screen sex and violence. Horror films were blamed for rising crime. Why would the religious-right worry their middle-class heads about poverty and unemployment when they could start a moral panic?

Thanks to the right-wing press and right-wing politicians, kids like me began to hear about movies which sounded ridiculously cool. If an old grinch like Whitehouse hated something, then we wanted it.

Read more by Neil Mackay

That same year, dullard DJs and others who loved the idea of banning fun, started hating on Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood - making it one of the biggest singles of the decade.

Tell kids something is bad, and rest assured they’ll go nuts for it. Thus, one Saturday in February 1984 - I’d just turned 14, and the Video Nasty ban was still a few months away - me and my mates went to the local video library (ask your parents if you’re under 30).

I wanted a specific title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Mum and dad were out. I had an empty. It was the 80s. Parents were never around. GenXers were called "Latchkey Kids" for a reason.

In every brain-dead tabloid rant, Texas - as aficionados call the film - was top of the confected hate-list. It was decadent,........

© Herald Scotland