Axe (film)

Lore & Background

The film was shot over nine days in winter 1974 on 35 mm film stock, largely using short-end film returned to the Kodak distributor. Principal photography took place on location in a farmhouse outside Charlotte, North Carolina, with a budget of US$25,000. The production paid $25 to shoot in the house for around three days. The opening sequence was shot at the Hotel Charlotte. Director Friedel cast himself as Billy to reduce costs. Leslie Lee, who played Lisa, was 23 at the time of filming; a myth that she died after production is false—as of 2015, she was alive and operated a diving boat in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Reader's Guide

Axe is significant as a low-budget independent horror film that gained notoriety as one of the UK's 'video nasties' banned in the early 1980s. Its plot—a teenage girl violently retaliating against sexual assault—was controversial for its time. Critical reception has been mixed: Linda Gross of the Los Angeles Times praised its cinematography but deemed it exploitative, while Frank Lovece of TV Guide called it 'a well-photographed, refreshingly naturalistic drama of almost mythic retribution.' The film's legacy includes a Blu-ray release by Severin in 2015 as a double-feature with Friedel's Kidnapped Coed.

Did You Know?

• The film was originally released under the title Lisa, Lisa in Greenville, South Carolina, on December 9, 1974.
• Director Frederick R. Friedel had never been on a film set before making Axe.
• The film's budget was US$25,000, and the production paid only $25 to use the farmhouse location.
• Leslie Lee, who played Lisa, was 23 years old at the time of filming, not a teenager.

The Regulatory Vacuum

When domestic video recorders first appeared in British homes during the 1970s, the legal framework governing what could be recorded and sold on tape was essentially nonexistent. The only statute that technically applied was the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, which had received a 1977 amendment extending its reach to erotic films. No dedicated legislation addressed the new medium. Major studio distributors, wary of piracy, largely shunned the format, leaving a void that was quickly filled by low-budget horror and exploitation titles. Some of these films had cleared the British Board of Film Classification for theatrical release; others had been flatly denied certification, effectively banning them from cinemas. Yet the video loophole meant they could still reach consumers' living rooms entirely unreviewed. The Act's definition of obscenity—material tending to deprave and corrupt those likely to encounter it—was so broadly worded that its application varied wildly depending on who was doing the interpreting. This patchwork of ambiguity created the conditions for the controversy that would engulf British public life a few years later.

The Campaign That Coined a Term

The public's eyes were first drawn to the problem in early 1982, when Vipco, the UK distributor of the 1979 splatter film The Driller Killer, ran full-page advertisements in specialist video magazines showing the tape's graphic cover art. The ads triggered a flood of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. A few months later, Go Video, handling distribution of the already-notorious 1980 Italian film Cannibal Holocaust, attempted a publicity stunt that spectacularly backfired: they sent an anonymous letter to Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association complaining about their own product. Whitehouse seized on the incident to launch a sustained public campaign and is credited with coining the phrase video nasty. The Sunday Times amplified the issue in May 1982 with a front-page piece titled How High Street Horror is Invading the Home, and the Daily Mail soon followed with its own editorial crusade. As the media cycle intensified, commentators began linking the easy availability of these tapes to children with a perceived rise in youth violence, turning a niche retail dispute into a national moral panic.

The DPP Lists and Arbitrary Raids

As prosecutions against video producers, distributors, and retailers mounted on a case-by-case basis, a growing backlog of legal actions created deep uncertainty across the industry. Police in certain constabularies, most notably Greater Manchester under Chief Constable James Anderton, began conducting raids on video hire shops with increasing frequency. The selection of titles targeted appeared almost random; one well-known incident saw officers confiscate a copy of Dolly Parton's 1982 musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas under the mistaken assumption it was pornographic. The Video Retailers Association, alarmed by the inconsistency, formally requested that the Director of Public Prosecutions issue clear guidelines so stockists could know which titles were at risk. The DPP responded by publishing a list of 72 films it believed violated the Obscene Publications Act, some of which had already been acquitted of obscenity charges or had received BBFC certification. A supplementary list of 82 further titles was issued for potential confiscation under the Act's forfeiture provisions. The resulting confusion over what constituted obscene material ultimately compelled Parliament to act.

Legislative Aftermath and Lasting Censorship

The legislative confusion generated by the DPP lists directly prompted Parliament to pass the Video Recordings Act 1984, which mandated that all video releases be certified by the BBFC before distribution. Because the Act was designed with the protection of underage viewers in mind, it imposed a stricter censorship code on home video than was required for theatrical exhibition. The consequence was that several major studio productions were banned on video entirely, caught in a net originally woven to control low-budget exploitation titles. Over the following decades, however, the stricter standards were gradually relaxed, and many films once branded as video nasties eventually received certification either uncut or with only minor edits. The BBFC itself, established in 1912 as an unintended byproduct of the Cinematograph Act 1909, had long served as the gatekeeper for cinema releases, with local councils holding final authority. In a bureaucratic twist, a legislative error uncovered in August 2009 led to the 1984 Act being repealed and re-enacted without any substantive change by the Video Recordings Act 2010, preserving the framework that had emerged from the video nasty scandal.

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