 When originally released to theaters in Britain, the UK censors removed 49  seconds of footage, and it was this version that was released on video  originally. Despite the cuts, it became one of the most notorious of the UK  video nasties and was subject to many obscenity trials before being withdrawn  on video in 1984, when mandatory video censorship was introduced to the UK.  It was not until 1990 that the film surfaced on video in the UK again, due to  wrangles between the distributors and the BBFC over how much footage should  be cut from a legal video release. In the end, a further 1m 6s was removed,  in addition to the previous theatrical version cuts. Most of the scenes  depicting excessive gore were shortened or removed, with the tree rape scene  being particularly targeted for cuts. The fully uncut version was finally  released on DVD in 2001.