Snuff is a 1976 splatter film directed by Michael Findlay and Horacio Fredriksson. Originally an exploitation film loosely based on the 1969 murders committed by the Manson Family, it is most notorious for being falsely marketed as if it were an actual snuff film. The controversy about the film was deliberately manufactured to attract publicity: it prompted an investigation by the New York County District Attorney, who determined that the murder shown in the film was fake. This picture contributed to the urban legend of snuff films, although the concept did not originate with it.

Plot

Pregnant actress Terry London (played by Mirta Massa it depicted the actions of a Manson-esque murder cult, and was shot mainly without sound due to most of the actors speaking little or no English. The film's financier, Jack Bravman, took an out-of-court settlement from American International Pictures to allow it to use the title Slaughter for its Blaxploitation film starring Jim Brown. Some sources state that the Findlays' film received an extremely limited theatrical release, while others indicate it was never screened theatrically at all under its original title.

In any event, independent low-budget distributor and producer Allan Shackleton, who specialized in sexploitation movies,

The new footage, shot over one day in Carter Stevens's adult film studio, was spliced onto the end of Slaughter with an abrupt cut suggesting that the footage was unplanned. This subtle yet impactful cut only further reinforced viewers' belief that the murder being depicted was truly “authentic.” However, no one seemed to notice that the cast and scenery in Nuchtern's ending bore no resemblance to those in Findlay's original footage. The publicity material implied that the film featured an actual murder without stating it outright: "Snuff" was released with the tagline "The film that could only be made in South America... where Life is CHEAP!" To further increase the air of mystery surrounding the film's production, Shackleton decided to remove all other credits from the film.

The Adult Film Association of America (AFAA), of which Shackleton was a member, took pains to avoid any association with Snuff, as the snuff movies urban legend included rumors that the sex industry was involved in those films. The AFAA expelled Shackleton, then later announced that affiliated adult movie theaters would not show the picture (which was being shown in mainstream theaters and not in adult ones), and called a press conference to insist that the film was a hoax.

Rumors persisted that the film showed a real-life murder. Throughout Snuffs theatrical run, Shackleton remained purportedly ambiguous about the nature of the film. When interviewed by Variety, he stated: "[If the murder is real], I'd be a fool to admit it. If it isn't real, I'd be a fool to admit it.”

Prompted by "complaints and petitions from well-known writers, including Eric Bentley and Susan Brownmiller, and legislators,” New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau conducted a month-long investigation into the circumstances surrounding the film's production. Morgenthau ultimately dismissed the supposedly "real" murder as "nothing more than conventional trick photography—as is evident to anyone who sees the movie.” Morgenthau reassured the public that the actress apparently being dismembered and killed in the ending of the film had been traced by the police and was "alive and well.” He also found no basis for criminal prosecution related to pornography statutes, or to consumer fraud laws in regard to the film's advertising. However, Morgenthau stated that he had been "concerned about the fact that this kind of a film might incite or encourage people to commit violence against women.” In New York, it outgrossed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for three consecutive weeks.

During its theatrical run, feminist groups kept protesting Snuff, which influenced city officials in Santa Clara, Philadelphia and St Paul to force theaters to stop showing the film. Twenty women protested the film's return engagement in Rochester, New York at the Holiday Ciné: four of those protesters were arrested after breaking the poster frame to destroy the film's poster. A theater owner in Monticello was prosecuted on obscenity charges. In most places, however, the protests failed to stop the theaters from showing the movie.

Home media

In the United Kingdom, the film was released on VHS by Astra Video in 1982, coinciding with the start of the video nasty controversy. The cover blurb read "The original legendary atrocity shot and banned in New York" and claimed that "The actors and actresses who dedicated their lives to making this film were never seen or heard from again". The cover also credited "T. Amazzo" (a play on the Italian phrase "Ti ammazzo", meaning "I kill you") as director. The Sunday Times published an outraged article about the film, which Astra Video eventually pulled from distribution once it had benefited from the publicity.

The film was released on DVD by Blue Underground on July 29, 2003. Blue Underground later released the film on DVD Special edition and for the first time on Blu-ray on October 22, 2013. It was last released by Cheezy Flicks on March 13, 2018.

Critical reception

Snuff was panned by critics at the time of its original release, both for the disingenuous publicity surrounding it and for its overall quality. Richard Eder of the New York Times described it as "a horrendously written, photographed, acted, directed and dubbed bit of verdigris showing a group of devil-girls massacring people." Bill Gibron from PopMatters gave the film 3/10 stars, writing, "Unlike modern gorefests which strive for autopsy like realism in all facets of the F/X, Snuff is cheap and cheesy. While it[s] legend lives on, its realities end any speculation or scandal for that matter. No one really dies onscreen during the last few minutes of this movie. Your sense of gullibility, on the other hand..." Adam Tyner from DVD Talk called the film "basically unwatchable in its original form". Tyner criticized the film's unnecessarily dragged out scenes, lack of tension, and dubbed dialogue, which he called "sleepy, flat, lifeless, and howlingly inept all around, never even making an attempt to match any frantically flapping lips".

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Kerekes, David & Slater, David (1994). Killing For Culture. Creation Books.
  • Johnson, Eithne & Schaefer, Eric. "Soft Core/Hard Gore: Snuff as a Crisis in Meaning," in Journal of Film and Video, University of Illinois Press, (Volume 45, Numbers 2–3, Summer-Fall, 1993): pages 40–59.
  • Snuff Boxing: Revisiting the Snuff Coda (The University of British Columbia's Film Journal) - showing the mutilation scene at the end of the film