Our trio gets on their way to England, but trouble awaits them on the mainland. Here’s our Video Nasty episode 2 review.
When I was roughly 16 years of age, my mum caught me watching I Spit On Your Grave in the living room. She walked past the TV where a guy was getting his testicles chopped off and looked at me, cautiously asking, “Are you okay? Do I need to make an appointment with someone?” I just smiled and said no.
This memory played on my mind while watching episode two of BBC’s Video Nasty. Not only do Billy and Con chat about their favourite gory kills in these banned masterpieces with undeniable glee, but a video store owner tells their worried parents, who are shocked at what kind of entertainment their children are into, “They’re not what they watch.”
This is true: I’m now 33 and haven’t chopped anyone’s balls off. Yet. There’s still time, I suppose.
Episode 1 of Video Nasty ended with Billy’s pen pal getting ambushed by a killer in her own house. No explanation has been given as to what might be the motivation behind the murder of a seemingly innocent young girl with a love of horror, but we’re sure we’ll find out later. Episode 2 doesn’t really reveal much about it either, and the episode really only gets going towards the end.
Billy (Justin Daniels Anene), Con (Cal O’Driscoll) and Zoe’s (Leia Murphy) parents have now figured out that their kids have done a runner and are trying to figure out where they might have gone. There’s a little tension as Billy’s dad Abe (Emmanuel Ighodaro), a Nigerian immigrant, isn’t very concerned with Billy’s love of ultra-gory, forbidden horror films. Instead, he’s actually proud of his son for working towards a goal of his own, something that horrifies Zoe and Con’s parents.
Meanwhile, our central trio of Billy, Con and his sister Zoe, head from Northern Ireland to jolly ol’ England in the hopes of meeting Billy’s pen pal and securing that final tape for their full video nasty collection. The episode opens with a Sixty Minutes clip which clues us into what’s been going on, including the IRA bombings.
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This is relevant as a soldier enters the bus which our characters have just boarded. Billy and Con are nervous as the video nasties they’re carrying are illegal but Zoe simply tells them to keep it cool, it’ll be alright. The soldier looks at the boys with a hint of suspicion but ultimately walks away. Panic over. As we noted in our review of episode 1, Video Nasty gets the time period right without making it into a satire.
The action then jumps two months back and gives us a little more insight into Zoe’s mental state. We already know from episode 1 that she’s been struggling for quite some time, but the new episode gives us more hints as to what’s bothering her. Leia Murphy is really wonderful here, playing Zoe with heaps of teenage coolness with just a hint of sadness.
Episodes 1 and 2 both feel like they’re mostly there to set things up and I’m hoping the pace picks up a little more in episode 3. The humour is pretty spot on; there’s a really great gag about a police officer showing up at Zoe and Con’s parents’ door and the kids’ mother telling him off for looking like he’s about to announce their kids are dead. Video Nasty is playing things rather safe, but hopefully we’ll see more of those horror elements the series loves to talk about but is wary of showing.
Video Nasty airs on BBC One Northern Ireland and BBC iPlayer on 8th January and on BBC Three on 9th January.
