The effect of video nasties in society was varied depending on the audience and how these films were viewed, some films were simply full of gore displaying no real realistic themes, events that wouldn't occur in society at the time. On the other hand some films had a huge influence on people, imitable behaviour being a large risk to the communities, the possibility of certain happenings in the films becoming reality. The censorship of certain films did very little to stop the distribution of the films to the public, they were still illegally sold and watched by primarily teenagers all over the country, once banned they become a film that needs to be watched due to the content that is deemed unhealthy for society.

The so called moral panic spoke of during the showing of video nasties was blown up by the media, newspapers and radio stations claiming that these cheaply made films were the routes of societies challenges and issues. It was all used a scapegoat to blame other societal issues, the riots due to political motivated choices, the shutting down of the mining industry, it all had a huge effect regarding how these specific people viewed the government, ultimatley pinning the blame on them. The video nasties were portrayed as these morally destroying films that influenced the violence seen on the streets at the time, for those with easy access to media and little access to the actual happenings, for the most part they'd believe what was being said. I believe that for the socially blind people the use of video nasties as a scapegoat for every day issues worked in the conservative governments favour to win them over in believing the true horror of these films, they also flocked to religious groups whom sought to rid of these films to protect the minds of society alongside religious beliefs.

The National viewers and listeners association a well known pressure group, run by a elderly christian housewife named Mary Whitehouse, she believed that these films were degrading the way in which we think, her worry being for the younger generation primarily. As much as I think her motives were simply religiously based, she was certainly the frontline of protecting society from explicit content that shouldn't be viewed by teenagers. Furthermore her support was wide span, the government very supportive of her actions, some could question the way in which a pressure group was given support, but it was needed to allow the awareness of the issues revolved around video nasties.

The Video recordings act was introduced in 1984 by the conservative government, this was a way of limiting video nasties and making them illegal to watch, if you was found in possession of any of the listed video nasties that the government published, you'd be arrested, furthermore if you went a step further and sold them at local pubs, parks and social centres the consequences would be far more dire. The British board of film classification took control of what films were to be released and what ones were to be banned, these measures were taken due to the conservative government not trusting the stability of the public, fearing imitable behaviour similar to what are in the films, I don't agree with this as the large majority of the public are far from mentally unstable, the whole thing used as a scapegoat for issues present at the time.

The audiences whom enjoyed watching these films were blamed for many horrendous crimes committed, yet you cannot assume that any crime or horrid act is due to the viewing of a film, there are people out there who will commit criminal offences regardless of if they've watched a film. Audiences wanted to watch these films due to their hype, nearly every film appearing a challenge with daring phases like 'Viewers beware you may faint', this made it more appealing to watch, an attractive draw in for teenagers, the introduction of VHS making it trendy to gather with friends and watch these video nasties.