The Driller Killer (1979)
It could have easily escaped the UK's "video nasty" list if the original pre-VRA video cover hadn't been so graphic. Featuring a very bloody close-up of a drill boring into a man's head with lots of blood. The video cover was included in the video catalogs and received many complaints.
Most complainants had never actually seen the film. The outrage was fueled almost entirely by the "lurid" cover art and taglines, such as "The blood runs in rivers… and the drill keeps tearing through flesh and bone."
Mike Bor, a Principal Examiner at the BBFC, stated that The Driller Killer was "almost single-handedly responsible" for the Video Recordings Act 1984, which officially banned these titles.
Experts, such as Brad Stevens, Abel Ferrara's biographer, argue that the ban was almost entirely due to marketing. While violent, the film was often considered less gory than other contemporary slashers that avoided such harsh scrutiny.
The film was added to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) list in July 1983 and remained officially banned in its uncut form in the UK until 2002.