9) A Clockwork Orange (1971)
While this was never an official video nasty there was a mystique attached to the film as for many years it was withdrawn from the public by the film’s director. I’m almost certain that in the Channel 4 documentary “Still tickin: The Return of A Clockwork Orange” a story was recounted about the time Kubrick received a ticking box delivered to his house, on opening the box he found a literal clockwork orange from a ‘fan’. That was just one of the reasons he withdrew his film.
The logic in the playground worked like this – It’s by the guy who did The Shining – The Shining is one of the scariest films those of us ‘lucky’ enough to have witnessed it at such a tender age had ever seen – A Clockwork Orange was BANNED – therefore it must be WORSE than The Shining. It was a film which retains the power to shock and in the re-education scenes it provides a canny critique of the effect of notion of censorship and the damage done by violent films.
