The director’s unpublished manifesto states: "The black of the taboo is the black between frames. It is the shutter closing. It is the leader tape. Cinema is a lie of persistence of vision; the black taboo is the truth of the dark we deny."
Nevertheless, the film’s release was met with protests from community groups who had not seen it but reacted to the title alone. In the summer of 1984, a Chicago video store owner was arrested for renting Black Taboo under local obscenity laws, specifically citing the title as evidence of "deviant content." The case was eventually dismissed, but the arrest created the exact notoriety the film needed. Overnight, Black Taboo -1984- became a must-see for the curious and the rebellious, not because of what it showed, but because someone had gone to jail for it. Forty years later, the search for an original 1984 VHS copy of Black Taboo is akin to the hunt for the Holy Grail. In 2018, a sealed copy in its original "black clamshell" case (no artwork, just the words embossed in foil) sold at an auction for $14,000. The buyer was a representative of a private film archive in Tokyo. Black Taboo -1984-
Have you encountered a copy of Black Taboo? Or do you remember another "lost" film from the VHS era? Share your memories in the comments below—but remember, some reels are best left unspooled. (This article is a work of media historiography and cultural analysis. While based on real phenomena in underground 1980s cinema, some details of the described film are speculative or represent composite accounts from archival records.) The director’s unpublished manifesto states: "The black of