The director of "Wild Things" and "Normal Life" is still best known for his debut film, the hugely controversial "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer".

Seventeen years since its completion, it's finally being released uncut in Britain - prompting John McNaughton to pull up a chair and chat to BBCi Films about shock, exploitation, and why making the 80s harshest movie was "a lark".

Why is there a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie, saying it is fictional?

I believe the lawyers insisted on that. Somebody's attorney advised us that we had to tack that on. As long as it wasn't in the body of the picture, I really couldn't care less.

Because it was based on a true character...

It was based on what we could glean of the so-called true stories of Henry, Otis, and Becky. I believe that they were afraid that relatives of Becky would come forward with a lawsuit or something, but nothing ever came of it.

The film is now revered, but at the time what sort of movie did you imagine you were making? A slasher movie?

Well, my aim was probably a little more along the lines of a traditional genre picture, but I needed a writer and I also needed someone to help me produce, and that person became Steve Jones. He was working with a theatre group called the Organic Theatre.

The company had come apart and Richard Fire, who was the co-artistic director, was out of work. Steve hooked me up with Richard, and - being from the theatre - Richard suggested a somewhat more artistic approach. My sensibilities and his sensibilities blended very well, 'cos the more sensational, exploitive qualities were what I was interested in, and Richard brought a more refined sensibility, shall we say. I think the combination worked out very well.

What is your view on the cuts that were made in the UK?

I never saw them. I don't know who exactly bought the film for UK distribution, but [horror critic] Nigel Floyd phoned me up having seen the cut version and described it to me, so I only know it by his description.

The bottle murder is very striking...

It was strange when Richard Fire and I were thinking up the vignettes that open the picture. Pretty much like Otis once he gave himself over to the beast, there was no controlling him.

The first one - the woman lying there dead with pink socks, a naked corpse - was based on an actual photograph. It was a corpse that the police discovered wearing orange socks. That was the victim that led them to capture Henry. So we took the police photograph and we actually arranged her in the exact body position.

That became the beginning of the film, but then we decided that we needed a series of these victims. So the rest we had to make up, and I remember it was Richard who came up with that. It was sort of shocking to me. I was the one going, "Richard, that's too vile..." And he was, "No, we have to, we have to." So, I'm blaming Richard for that one!

It must be an unsettling experience immersing yourself in that world. Was that a difficult thing to do?

No, it was a fascinating thing to do, because the idea of serial killers was something new. There was a certain amount of magazine reporting on serial killers and on Henry Lee Lucas and his band, Otis and Becky. I think for Michael Rooker [who played Henry] it was a difficult time, because he had to go into that character.

But, for instance, when Otis gets stabbed in the eye with a rattail comb - you have to build an artificial head and by now you're friends with this actor and he's a pretty funny guy, so there's a lot of fun in that. And you have to shoot the scene where she reaches around and stabs the thing and there's a couple of people behind the set with syringes with tubes running out of them with artificial blood, squirting...

And you think it's really a lark and a laugh when you're doing it, but then when you actually see the film projected to an audience, and you no longer see the tubes and the syringes and it appears to be real, it's then that it really sinks in what you've created.

How does it feel to still be talking about the movie now? Are you glad that it's had such a long life, or do you wish you were talking about something else?

It was a chance to make a film that came out of good fortune and fate, and before that I was working remodelling Burger King restaurants. It was a long struggle, three years to get it released, and I went 18 months without any employment whatsoever after the film was finished, and I was struggling and starving, living on credit cards and the charity of good friends, so when all of a sudden the film took off and went around the world and I was being besieged by agents and interviewers and going to various film festivals, it was a wonderful thing.

I since have made many more films and make my living as a film director, and I'm grateful the film had the success it did and I'm glad people are still interested. I don't have a problem.