The Beginning and the End: Transitioning Careers and Roberta Findlay’s Banned ( 1989 )

Marking the end of a rollercoaster and frequently controversial career straddling exploitation cinema, hardcore pornography and horror, Roberta Findlay’s final film BANNED (1989) has long been the subject of dedicated fan speculation. Intended to profit on the-then current trend for wild youth-oriented comedies on cable television and VHS, after failing to gain distribution for the film Findlay effectively quit filmmaking and dedicated herself professionally to the subject she studied at university – music – through her work at the legendary esteemed Sear Sound studio in Hell’s Kitchen. From this perspective, the little-seen BANNED can be viewed as both the end of Findlay’s directorial career, while simultaneously also flagging a transitional to a second career. With much of the film itself set in a recording studio, BANNED follows the antics of a middle class, middle of the road jazz rock guitarist who becomes possessed by the spirit of a dead killer punk rocker via a haunted toilet. While in its own way just as audacious as Findlay’s more notorious works, BANNED is not only a curious finale to a complex and fascinating film career, but it also formally reveals a return to her first passion: music.