It has become voguish to portray 1980s Ireland as a God-fearing hellscape, and while the decade undoubtedly had its grimmer moments, the caricature doesn’t tell the entire story. Yes, there were moving statues, Garret FitzGerald and Charles Haughey playing pass the parcel with the office of taoiseach, and an ongoing economic implosion that reduced much of the country to a rust belt in the rain. But people felt less beholden to the Catholic Church than at any previous point in modern Irish history, while pop culture was exploding. It was a detonation that produced, among other things, the moral panic of the video nasty.
Driller Killer, I Spit On Your Grave, Cannibal Holocaust ... those of a certain vintage will recall the hushed tones with which schoolmates spoke of these semi-mythical VHS tapes. There was always that friend of a friend who claimed to have watched one – invariably with both eyes closed so that they could not actually recall any of the details. Aside from confirmed sightings in the wild of Monty Python’s The Life Of Brian, they were the last word cultural contraband.
That period is celebrated by Virgin Media’s cheeky, cheerful and charming Video Nasty (Virgin Media One, Monday). Here is that all-too-rare drama set in 1980s Ireland that bears a more than passing resemblance to the real thing. Stygian video libraries, a visceral loathing of the clergy, parents trapped in loveless marriages. It’s all here and given a pulp sheen by British horror director Christopher Smith and Irish writer Hugh Travers (who has put behind him dire 2020 RTÉ drama The South Westerlies).
Our heroes are school pals Billy (Justin Daniels Anene) and Con (Cal O’Driscoll) – two frustrated Dublin teenagers who dream of one day breaking into the movie business in London. Until then, their ultimate ambition is to complete their collection of banned VHS movies – a truffle hunt that requires them to take the ferry to Britain on the trail of the elusive final tape. They bring along Con’s too-cool-for-school sister, Zoe (Fair City’s Leia Murphy), who is recovering from depression, having stumbled upon her father in his Y-fronts cavorting with a neighbour when she came home from school early.
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The three leads have a whizzing chemistry. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but there is something intensely 1980s about them. Maybe it’s Murphy’s frizzy haircut, beamed in straight from the video to T’pau’s China In Your Hands.
Video Nasty is a co-production with BBC Northern Ireland, which recently worked with TG4 on the Donegal-set Irish-language thriller Crá. Tellingly, neither production had any involvement with RTÉ, and it shows. Both have a fondness for genre – historically looked down upon by those who call the shots in the arts in Ireland – and have been made by people who know how to put a working drama together. It won’t blow your mind – but it is great fun. For a dull Monday in January, that’s more than enough and much better than anything RTÉ has to offer.
