Asnuff film,snuff movie, orsnuff video is a type of film, sometimes defined as being produced for profit or financial gain, that shows, or purports to show, scenes of actualhomicide.
The concept of snuff films became known to the general public during the 1970s, when aconspiracy theory alleged that a clandestine industry was producing such films for profit. The rumor was amplified in 1976 by the release of a film calledSnuff, which capitalized on the legend through a disingenuous marketing campaign. However, that film, like others on the topic, relied onspecial effects to simulatemurder. According to thefact-checking websiteSnopes, there has never been a verified example of a genuine commercially produced snuff film.[1] Videos of actual murders (such asbeheading videos) have been made available to the public, generally through theInternet. However, those videos have been made and broadcast by the murderers either for their own gratification or forpropaganda purposes, and not for financial gain and thus do not qualify, according to one author, as a "snuff film".[2]
A snuff film is a movie in a purported genre of films in which a person is actuallymurdered, though some variations of the definition may include films that show people dying bysuicide. According to existing definitions, snuff films can bepornographic and are made for financial gain but are supposedly "circulated amongst a jaded few for the purpose of entertainment".[1] TheCollins English Dictionary defines a "snuff movie" as "a pornographic film in which an unsuspecting actress or actor is murdered at the climax of the film";[3] theCambridge Dictionary defines it more broadly as "a violent film that shows a real murder".[4]
Horror film magazineFangoria defined snuff movies as "films in which a person is killed on camera. The death is premeditated, with the purpose of being filmed in order to make money. Often times, there is a sexual aspect to the murder, either on film (as in, a porn scene that ends horribly) or that the final project is used for sexual gratification." Films featuring deaths that are authentic but accidental "are not considered snuff because the deaths were not planned. Other death on video, such asterrorists beheading victims, are done to fulfill an ideology, not to earn money."[5]
Some filmed records of executions and deaths in war exist, but in those cases the death was not specifically staged for financial gain or entertainment.[1] There have been a number of "amateur-made" snuff films available on the Internet. However, such videos are produced by the murderers to make an impact on an audience or for their own satisfaction, and not for financial profit. Somespecialized websites show videos of actual killings for profit, as theirshock value will attract an audience; but these websites are not operated by the perpetrators of the murders.[2]
According toSnopes, the idea of an actual snuff film "industry" clandestinely producing such "entertainment" for monetary gain is preposterous because "capturing a murder on film would be foolhardy at best. Only the most deranged would consider preserving for a jury a perfect video record of a crime they could go to the executioner for. Even if the murderer stays completely out of the camera's way, too much of who the killer is, how the murder was carried out, and where it took place would be part of such a film, and these details would quickly lead police to the right door. Though someone whose mania has caused them to lose touch with reality might skip over this point, those who are supposedly in the business for the money would be all too aware of this. It doesn't make sense to flirt with the electric chair for the profits derived from a video."[1]
Furthermore,Fangoria has also described the very concept as a "myth" and "ascare tactic, dreamt up by the media to terrify the public."[5]
The nounsnuff originally meant the part of a candle wick that has already burned; the verbsnuff meant to cut this off, and by extension to extinguish or kill.[6] The word has been used in this sense in English slang for hundreds of years. It was defined in 1874 as a "term very common among the lower orders of London, meaning to die from disease or accident".[7]
Film studies professor Boaz Hagin argues that the concept of films showing actual murders originated decades earlier than is commonly believed, at least as early as 1907. That year, Polish-French writerGuillaume Apollinaire published the short story "A Good Film" aboutnewsreel photojournalists who stage and film a murder due to public fascination with crime news; in the story, the public believes the murder is real but police determine that the crime was faked.[8] Hagin also proposes that the filmNetwork (1976) contains an explicit (fictional) snuff film depiction when television news executives orchestrate the on-air murder of a news anchor to boost ratings.
According to film criticGeoffrey O'Brien, "whether or not commercially distributed 'snuff' movies actually exist, the possibility of such movies is implicit in the stockB-movie motif of the mad artist killing his models, as inA Bucket of Blood (1959),Color Me Blood Red (1965), orDecoy for Terror (1967) also known asPlaygirl Killer."[9] Likewise, the protagonist ofPeeping Tom (1960) films the murders he commits, though he does so as part of his mania and not for financial gain: a 1979 article inThe New York Times described the character's activity as making "private 'snuff' films".[10]
The first known use of the termsnuff movie is in a 1971 book byEd Sanders,The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion. This book included the interview of an anonymous one-time member ofCharles Manson's "Family", who claimed that the group once made such a film inCalifornia, by recording the murder of a woman. However, the interviewee later added that he had not watched the film himself and had just heard rumors of its existence. In later editions of the book, Sanders clarified that no films depicting real murders or murder victims had been found.[1][11]
During the first half of the 1970s,urban legends started to allege that snuff films were being produced inSouth America for commercial gain, and circulated clandestinely in the United States.[12][13]
The idea of movies showing actual murders for profit became more widely known in 1976 with the release of theexploitation filmSnuff.[12][14][15] This low-budgethorror film, loosely based on theManson murders and originally titledSlaughter, was shot inArgentina byMichael andRoberta Findlay. The film's distribution rights were bought by Allan Shackleton, who eventually found the picture unfit for release and shelved it. Several years later, Shackleton read about snuff films being imported from South America and decided to cash in on the rumor as an attempt to recoup his investment inSlaughter.[12][13][16]
Shackleton retitledSlaughter toSnuff and released it with a new ending that purported to depict an actual murder committed on a film set.[13]Snuff's promotional material suggested, without stating outright, that the film featured the real murder of a woman, which amounted tofalse advertising.[17][18] The film's slogan read: "The film that could only be made in South America... where life is CHEAP".[19] Shackleton put out false newspaper clippings that reported a citizens group's crusading against the film,[12] and hired people to act as protesters to picket screenings.[12]
Shackleton's efforts succeeded in generating amedia frenzy about the film: realfeminist and citizens groups eventually started protesting the movie and picketing theaters.[18][20][21] As a result, New York District AttorneyRobert M. Morgenthau investigated the picture, establishing that it was ahoax.[22][23] The controversy nevertheless made the film financially profitable.[12][24]
In subsequent years, more urban legends emerged about snuff movies. Notably, multipleserial killers were rumored to have produced snuff films: however, no such videos were proven to exist.Henry Lee Lucas and his accompliceOttis Toole claimed to have filmed their crimes, but both men were "pathological liars" and the purported films were never found.[5]Charles Ng andLeonard Lake videotaped their interactions with some of their future victims, but not the murders.Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris made an audio recording of their encounter with one victim, though not of her death. Likewise,Paul Bernardo andKarla Homolka made videos of Bernardo sexually abusing two victims, but did not film the murders. In all those cases, the recordings were not intended for public consumption and were used as evidence during the murderers' trials.[1]
Over the years,several films were suspected of being "snuff movies", though none of these accusations turned out to be true. A similar controversy concerned the filming of the video for the 1989 song "Down in It" byNine Inch Nails, in whichTrent Reznor acted in a scene which ended with the implication that Reznor's character had fallen off a building and died. To film the scene, a camera was tied to a balloon with ropes. Minutes after filming started, the ropes snapped and the balloons and camera flew away, eventually landing on a farmer's field inMichigan. The farmer later handed it to theFBI, who began investigating whether the footage was a snuff film portraying a person committing suicide.[25][26] The FBI identified Reznor and the investigation ended when it was confirmed that Reznor was alive and the footage was not related to crime.[25][27][28]
The advent of theInternet, by allowing anyone to broadcast self-made videos to an international audience, also changed the means of production of films that may be categorized as "snuff". There have been several cases of murders being filmed by their perpetrators and later finding their way online. These include videos made by Mexicancartels orjihadist groups, at least one of the videos shot by theDnepropetrovsk maniacs in mid-2000sUkraine, thevideo shot by Luka Magnotta fromMontréal in 2012, the video shot byVester Lee Flanagan II in 2015, as well as cases oflivestreamed murders, including videos made bymass shooters.[29][30][31][32]
AuthorSteve Lillebuen, who wrote a book on the Magnotta case, commented thatsocial media had created a new trend in crime where killers who crave an audience can become "online broadcasters" by showing their crimes to the world.[33][34]
Fangoria commented that Magnotta's 2012 video, which showed him mutilating the corpse of his victim, was the closest thing in existence to an actual snuff movie, especially as Magnotta had done some crude editing and used asong as a soundtrack, which amounted to minimal production values. However, it did not show the murder itself and was originally published to attract attention and not for monetary gain.[5] The charges of which Magnotta was found guilty included "publishingobscene materials".[35] In 2016, the owner ofBestgore.com, the website that originally hosted Magnotta's video, pleaded guilty to an obscenity charge and was sentenced to a six-month conditional sentence, half of which was served under house arrest.[36]
Since the concept became familiar to the general public, snuff films being made for profit or entertainment have been used as a core plot element or at least mentioned in numerous works of fiction, including the 1979 filmsHardcore andBloodline, andBret Easton Ellis's 1985 novelLess than Zero. The making or discovery of one or several snuff films is the premise of varioushorror,thriller orcrime films, such asLast House on Dead End Street (1977),Videodrome (1983),Tesis (1996),8mm (1999),Vacancy (2007),Snuff 102 (2007),A Serbian Film (2010),Sinister (2012),The Counselor (2013),Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023), and the episode "The Devil of Christmas" (2016) in theblack comedy seriesInside No. 9. The 2003 video gameManhunt sees the main character being forced to participate in a series of snuff films to guarantee his freedom. The 2005 video gameGrand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories features a mission titled "Snuff", where the main character kills a few gangsters while unknowingly being filmed for a snuff movie by a third party, which may be a reference toManhunt. Also, pretend snuff porn is sometimes filmed as afetish.
Several horror films such asCannibal Holocaust (1980) andAugust Underground (2001) have depicted "snuff movie" situations, coupled withfound footage aesthetics used as a narrative device. Though some of these films have generated controversy as to their nature and content, none were, nor have officially purported to be, actual snuff movies.
The 1978 pseudo-documentary filmFaces of Death, which spawned several sequels, is one of the films most commonly associated with the "snuff movie" concept, even though it was not produced by murderers nor clandestinely distributed. Purporting to be an educational film aboutdeath, it mixedfootage of actual deadly accidents, suicides, autopsies, or executions, with "outright fake scenes" obtained with the help of special effects.[1]
The first two films in the JapaneseGuinea Pig series,Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment andGuinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood (both released in 1985) are designed to look like snuff films; the video is grainy and unsteady, as if recorded by amateurs, and extensivepractical andspecial effects are used to imitate such features as internal organs and graphic wounds. The sixth film in the series,Mermaid in a Manhole (1988), allegedly served as an inspiration for Japanese serial killerTsutomu Miyazaki, who murdered several preschool girls in the late 1980s.[37]
In 1991, actorCharlie Sheen became convinced thatFlower of Flesh and Blood depicted an actual homicide and contacted theFBI. The FBI initiated an investigation but closed it after the series' producers released a "making of" film demonstrating the special effects used to simulate the murders.[38]
The Italian directorRuggero Deodato was charged after rumors that the depictions of the killing of the main actors in his filmCannibal Holocaust (1980) were real. He was able to clear himself of the charges after the actors made an appearance in court and on television.[39]
Other than graphic gore, the film contains several scenes of sexual violence and the genuine deaths of six animals onscreen and one off screen, issues which findCannibal Holocaust in the midst of controversy to this day. It has also been claimed thatCannibal Holocaust is banned in over 50 countries,[40] although this has never been verified. In 2006,Entertainment Weekly magazine namedCannibal Holocaust as the 20th most controversial film of all time.[41]
This trilogy of horror films, which depict graphic tortures and murders, is shot as if it were amateur footage made by a serial killer and his accomplices. In 2005, director and lead actor Fred Vogel, who was traveling with copies of the first two films to attend a horror film festival in Canada, was arrested by Canadian customs pending charges of transporting obscene materials into the country. The charges were eventually dropped after Vogel had spent ten hours in custody.[42]
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