As much as the process of genrification discussed in the previous chapter has worked to extend the category of the video nasties by applying and reinforcing a collective genre identity to these films, the grouping, re-classification and re-release of these films on DVD and Blu-ray has created an opportunity to reappraise them in the contemporary media landscape. This reappraisal has not been based solely upon earlier conceptions of the video nasties, which constructed them as extreme, taboo or challenging, but has instead been complicated by the idiosyncrasies and expectations of the DVD and Blu-ray digital formats. These expectations have led to a process that can best be understood as (sub)cultural gentrification, in which films previously believed to be of low cultural value have been repositioned as important canonical works. With this, the aesthetics and language used to describe these films have changed radically, borrowing ideas more commonly associated with the ‘quality’ film, mobilising the figure of the auteur director, the canonical film, and the idea of collecting and distribution as ‘curation’ and ‘archiving’.

Distributors have played a pivotal role in this and through processes of curation they have transformed a product that would have historically existed at the margins of popular cinema into a commercially profitable canonical asset. With this transformation, there has been a visible change in both the aesthetics and in the language used to describe these films, shifting from ideas of excess to something that more closely resembles the promotion of the important canonical films of art-house cinema. Historically, these kinds of film were understood to exist at opposite ends of the cinematic spectrum: at one end worthy canonical art cinema – films believed to have a significant artistic merit and therefore prized as culturally valuable – and at the other the cinematic detritus of the exploitation circuit – films believed to be cinematic trash, paracinema or B-movies perceived to have no artistic merit and little cultural value. Historically, these markets have been separated, based largely on preconceived valorisations and processes of cultural distinction. But in recent years there has been an increased convergence of the markets that, while being commercially driven, has seen distributors work to reinforce, extend and challenge traditional notions of what might constitute the cinematic canon.