In traditional histories of the video nasties, much is made of the window of opportunity afforded to the independent sector in those early days of video by the reluctance of the major studios to join the market. It is into this space that the first video companies emerge, and it is here that the video nasties are born. However, despite the importance of this moment to that history, in traditional accounts of the video nasties very little attention has ever been paid to how and why this window of opportunity appeared in the first place, or indeed, what impact it would have on the independent sector when that window eventually closed. Where the previous chapter was primarily concerned with the ways in which the window of opportunity was closed by those acting on behalf of the industry, this chapter looks at how that window was opened, exploring what this development meant to the major studios – the companies that had fought long and hard to establish film as a viable and lucrative form of entertainment, and who for the first time since the advent of film, were not in control of the format that was quickly becoming the most popular way to consume their core product.

An over-acceptance of the narrative of moral panic has meant that while traditional histories of the video nasties often begin from a point at which the major distributors are reticent to join the market, these histories rarely, if ever, return to complicate the narrative by considering just how threatened the industry was by the format or the implications for the independent sector when the majors eventually did join. Instead, the two sectors are often presented as operating independently of each other, with the decline of the independent sector often attributed to problematic marketing strategies, low-budget product, or worse, the inevitable conclusion of a market that was being flooded with high-quality big-budget film produced by the major distributors. While all of these elements are contributing factors, they would be better understood as symptoms rather than the root cause.