Snuff: A Documentary About Killing on Camera

There is a really good documentary on the subject of snuff - and it's not this one. The good one, The Dark Side: Does Snuff Exist?, is not only better designed, but has a more sensible look at the subject, too. This one, on the other hand, feels like a bad attempt to shoot a "real horror movie" disguised as a documentary. The main selling point, the segment about seeing supposedly genuine snuff (hey, what do you know, a producer of a documentary on snuff just conveniently happened to have seen a real snuff tape! What an amazing coincidence!), felt like a badly acted lie. In fact, it sounded pretty much like a copy of a story that an Israeli journalist wrote about a few years ago, except of course that the Israeli claimed that he was the one who saw the tapes.

Then there's that Russian crime ring tale that makes up the other half of the documentary and that smells even fishier. If it was true, you'd think there'd be some more sources that wrote about it, other than one English tabloid and one Italian tabloid. In fact, it should be a worldwide sensation present in all media for months (remember Fritzl?), but there's not a word of it in any major newspaper ANYWHERE. Plus, those allegedly real Russians supposedly kidnapped and killed dozens, but they were released after a few years because of "overcrowding"? And then one of them goes and wins a pool contest? All it's missing is a UFO and a crop circle.

And it certainly doesn't help the documentary at all that most of the "experts" interviewed in it look and act like drugged, cackling maniacs. One of them makes Tom Cruise seem calm and collected.

What seemed like an interesting documentary turns out to be either utterly fabricated, or horribly (read: not at all) researched. Skip this and catch "The Dark Side" instead.

rosen, who probably was in charge of coffee runs on several film sets, reads a news article and describes something that probably never happened.

they include a crime-scene photo of sharon tate and jay sebring. i can understand why- the whole myth of manson family movies.

video store clerks as experts and old A&E American justice footage doesn't make this a documentary.

it is an interesting movie though.

work harder next time.

also, when someone proclaims that hard that something really happened, it probably didn't happen.

This is not a documentary on snuff movies. It's just an excuse to show clips of killings both human and animals uncensored, all available separately on the Internet.

Presented are several "experts" which includes a video store clerk and others no more qualified. The people tell how they know snuff movies exists although they have never seen one themselves, don't know anyone that has seen one and have no evidence. They early on define a snuff film as a movie where there is a killing and the movie is for profit. Later on they try to fit other clips into the category even though they don't fit the definition.

They include film clips from fictional movies such as Cannibal Holocaust even though they admit the violence was all fake. Not sure what the point was other than to show those clips.

I won't spoil the details but there is a story from one so-called expert that they had seen a killing on film. But the story has a number of holes in it. Especially that they supposedly seen the killing and never reported it to law enforcement.

They show clips like the killings from the Iraq war from both sides of the conflict. Clips that have been all over the free Internet for years. Obviously they are not snuff movies as not for profit or sale. Why show these clips?

Just go watch Faces of Death (which they took a couple of scenes from) if you want to see people die from various means. Otherwise don't expect to learn anything at all from this movie.

When someone describes 'Bowling for Columbine' as a snuff movie to 'all intents and purposes' you are dealing with something that grazes the top of a subject that deserves more honest and in depth inspection. Ironically, the same contributor sings the praises of the book 'Killing For Culture'. Start with Kerekes' book and see the worthlessness of this opinion piece.

A pretty good documentary. I had a few problems with it. I had trouble remembering who some of the interviewees were, as they are only captioned once. It's said The Skeptical Inquirer called King Kong vs. Godzilla and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre "snuff movies." Not true: the article says there were urban legends about these movies; that two endings of the former were shot, one with King Kong winning and the other with Godzilla winning, and that The Texas Chainsaw was really based on a true story. It also gives the impression Lake and Ng murdered their victims on camera: they did not. The case of Dmitri is discussed using a single article from The Observer, and the case sounds pretty fishy. Then, the longer of the two trailers included in the special features has Jennifer Bahe saying the filmmakers received a tape in the mail that appeared to be a snuff film, which they turned over to authorities. That sounds pretty fishy too: it's not mentioned in the documentary at all, it's not discussed further anywhere on the DVD. It sounds like something they made up to help sell their movie.

The commentary track is worth listening to, though it's not really a commentary on the movie, it's just further discussion of snuff. The filmmakers and some of the interviewees are gathered panel style. There are some microphone problems at one point.

Viewers of this film might like to check out The Dark Side of Porn: Does Snuff Exist? and J.T. Petty's S&MAN.