Snuff
From Seenoevil
Snuff Film
There is a supposed subgenre of film known as snuff, which purports to show a real murder committed in the making of the film. No evidence for their existence has ever emerged, and whenever specific films are referred to, they are one of a small handful of minor films in the gore or slasher genres that were made or marketed in such a way as to suggest a real killing.
Snuff has been cited in support of the proposed law in the following examples:
Martin Salter MP, on the Anita Anand show (Radio 5 Live, Wednesday 30th August 23.00):
"images now available in cyberspace, from sites often hosted in Mexico, Florida, Guatemala, featuring sometimes at the more extreme end of the market snuff movies where people from impoverished backgrounds are raped, tortured, murdered on camera and the images then put out there for private profit and for extreme sexual gratification."
Later in the 2nd reading of the bill, on 8 October 2007, he said [1]:
"We cannot go after the publisher of material if it is from an internet site whose server may be based in Guatemala and contains, produces or puts into cyberspace images of young women being captured, raped live on camera and sometimes killed to feed this evil trade and to promote private profit and sexual gratification."
In The Guardian's article of the 1st September, The legacy of Jane Longhurst, Julie Bindel said:
"Twenty-five years ago I watched a snuff movie with other anti-porn activists, journalists and special film-effects experts. One of the activists had gone into a porn shop in England and asked if the owner had something "really extreme". He gave her a film of a woman in South America being raped, tortured and murdered. As a finale, her hand was sawn off." "We had proved that snuff existed (the film experts verified that there were no camera tricks to depict the sawing), and one of the journalists wrote copiously about the issue, urging police to take action. Nothing happened."
The references to South America seem to have their roots in the first and most famous supposed snuff film, the 1976 one entitled Snuff, which was made and set in Argentina. Less developed or regulated countries are often cited to give more credence to the necessary argument that an industry exists that routinely kidnaps and murders women, and records and publicises the act in detail, without a single victim being identified. In fact the films most cited come from the USA, Italy and Japan.
Notwithstanding Bindel's 'film experts', the film she saw was undoubtedly the one called Snuff. The original film had been made by US filmmakers in Argentina based loosely on the Manson family, but was of such poor quality that it had lain in the can, unshown and unshowable, for four years. A promoter, Alan Shackleton, bought it for a small sum, and commissioned porn producer Carter Stevens to add about four minutes to the end, purporting to show the actual murder of one of the crew after the filming of the main film. Shackleton publicised it by hinting it was real, and hired people to 'demonstrate' against it outside the cinema where it opened.
Further Reading
David Kerekes and David Slater's book Killing for Culture examines the 'death cinema' phenomenon in detail, tracing the sources of many snuff myths and comparing them with the actual details of the making of the films in question.
on the supposed snuff film genre
the Wikipedia entry
on the film Snuff (1976)
The Wikipedia entry
On Snopes, the urban myth site
Interview with Carter Stevens about his '4 minute addition'
The FBI report on their investigation into Snuff (1976)
The film can be bought on Amazon.com but is probably illegal to import into the UK.
