Snuff movie

The Snuff movies (or Snuff films ) are generally short films in the form of single badly filmed and unstable sequence shot which puts in scene a murder (supposément) real, sometimes preceded by Pornographie with Viol S of women or children.

The term of snuff movie appears in the middle of the Années 1970 to indicate clandestine films containing the images of maltreatment and Meurtre S which is claimed real. These made films of brutality and violence seem intended for petitioning amateurs. A certain number of films for the cinema treated topic of the snuff movies .

The reality of these films however is discussed, some considering that it would be mainly about a urban Légende.

Description of the snuff movies

The popular legend wants that the snuff is the product of a false turning, according to the following diagram: a producer organizes a casting for a pornographic film, the committed interpreters are thus handled to be victims true tortures and abuse, before the final murder. This film circulates then in a closed circuit of rich person amateurs of crimes where these cassettes circulate at ransom price.

Two components are essential in the snuff movie : death and the image.

death: it must be presented as being real, but it is necessary also that it is visible in its unfolding. One must see “dying it”, in other words the victim about to die, or dying, and not death having already carried out his work. Another aspect, the victim is conscious of its death.
the image: death must be filmed. It is not a question of simple photographs, it is necessary to accentuate realism by the movement and the duration. The sequence shot of bad quality and is generally filmed by a scenario writer semi-professional (lighting present but partial and bad, unstable but targeted framings, etc).

Polemic on the existence of the snuff movies

Elements of doubts about the existence of the snuff movies

A certain number of elements around the snuff movies are characteristic of what one names a urban Légende, which carries out many people to think that these films would not exist or then in a very exceptional way, without exists an organized market.

The most convincing element is that it is, obviously, considerably less be likely for the realizer to put in scene a false murder, and to sell it by making it pass for truth to customers who will not see the difference. And if it proves that the realizer is mentally disturbed and saw apart from reality at the point not to worry about the risks which it incurs while filming of truths murder, it is not logical that it makes of it then a " use; logique" and " rentable" by making some an organized trade (to be relativized however, because the problem of the psychopathes and sociopathes relates to the concepts of Bien and Mal, and not those of lucrativity or success).

Other elements leave think that it would be about a rumor:

the fact that the snuff movies are systematically filmed under bad conditions of framing, lighting, etc which facilitate the use of fakings;
character particularly fantasmatic of these snuff movies , which combine ideas of violence, sex, died and money;
the fact that no court order never seems to have been marked on this subject;
the fact that no report/ratio of police investigation or journalistic on this subject was read, which leaves think that no investigation concluded with their existence;
the fact that the transmission of information on this subject proceeds as a majority on the media most favourable with the diffusion of rumors: oral transmission, discussion forums on Internet, Email, etc
the fact that a diffusion necessarily reserved for a restricted public has few chances to interest the criminal organizations who aim especially the profit;

In 2001, the journalist Frenchwoman Sarah Finger published a work reporting his two years investigation into the phenomenon of the snuff movies, in particular at Interpol and of the FBI. died on line, Snuff movies, Cherche Midi editor, Paris. Sarah Finger explains why it to date questions the existence of these films and seems to arrange them in the field of the urban legends and the rumors circulating on Internet. The urban sociologist Jean-Bruno Renard and Of sure source, Payot, Paris also estimates that the snuff movies are undoubtedly a legend.

Elements in favor of the existence of the snuff movies

Of the Web sites proposing of such vidéos is inevitably difficult to find because their creators mask them to the maximum not to be found because of the illegality of the step, with the image of the sites of childish Pornographie. The illegality of these vidéos makes that their creators take many precautions inevitably.
One finds many of these vidéos on networks semi-anonymities, as the Peer to peer as on networks which are it completely, as freenet where there are straightforwardly specialized sites.
Some affirm that such films would be made in countries or corruption is important and or the police authority would not have favors with investiguer too far like Africa or the Central America and of the south.
Some affirm that there's no smoke without fire, that the snuff movie could not land in the legend without to have existed. Nevertheless this argument revêt only very little value within sight of many the other existing urban legends.
All that the human heart is able to imagine of worse is generally produced at least by some perverse.

The Kuznetsov business

According to an article of the English newspaper To observe , the Russian authorities have in the year 2000 carried out the arrest of the Russian Dmitri Vladimirovich Kuznetsov, 30 years, realizer of vidéos of the type snuff where one saw the rape, the Torture and the murder realities of children. Always according to the article, the investigation shows that the individual ran out at ransom price his production in countries like the Great Britain or the Italy bound for sadistic customers and Pédophile.

However, ultimately, Russian justice does not seem to have retained against him the qualification of murder: Kuznetov seems to be condemned to 3 years of prison for production and distribution of infantile pornography.

Related productions

Reality or legend, the snuff movie less did not inspire of it many related works to the cinema as as a cartoon or literature. In addition, some vidéos which are exchanged on the network Internet are close to the snuff-movies in what they show of the violent deaths filmed in reality.

Other types of films real violent ones

On Internet circulate of films and images which are not exactly snuff movies, but which are similar for them on several point: vidéos showing settings with died or tortures in time of war or of guerilla, lynchings, violent deaths by accident, etc

In 2004 and 2005, some of these films made much speak about them because they stuck to the topicality: they are the vidéos diffused by bunches extremists and showing the decapitation of hostages, in particular American, after the second war of Iraq.

If the reasons of the consumption of such films or images have some resemblances to those which one lends to the consumer snuff movie (fascination for violence and death, , destructive instinct even Perversion in certain cases), their production does not obey the same logic. In the snuff movie such as it is defined, the setting with dead itself aims at only the even sexual morbid excitation which it can generate and thus by behind the financial profit that such a material can bring. In these other types of films, the settings with death have other reasons (war, ideology, religious extremism, hatred and anger of a crowd, etc) and their collecting often fortuitous or is carried out also for ideological reasons (to strike the public opinion, etc).

Films of fiction inspired of the snuff movies

In the Years 1970, a certain cinematographic current was in the search of a possible realism more believed in violence and death. Inter alia, several Italian realizers put in scene accounts of cannibalism in some relatively famous films: Cannibal Holocaust, the Last world cannibal, Mondo Duck, etc

These films made scandal, of the rumors showing certain realizers to have been too far by filming real settings with death of human animals or being or even by causing them. The latter were defended some, evoking the only quality of their special effects.

In 1976, Carter Stevens decided to add a scene shock with ignored film of Michael Findlay, The Slaughter that Carter Stevens will re-elect Snuff. The purpose of this scene was to make accept the spectator that the pseudo-scenario writer of the film Snuff violated one of the actresses of the film The Slaughter before killing her in a very barbarian way. This scene created a gigantic polemic what caused police investigations. The legend of the snuff movie had been born.

Flowers off Flesh and Blood - Guinea Pig 2 also sails on this current. The rumor wants that its realizer Hideshi Hino receives a package sent by one of his fans. This one would have contained a film in 8mm, fifty four photographs and a letter of nineteen pages which spoke about an atrocious crime. After having viewed film, Hino decided to go to see the police force, providing them the evidence that it had received. The " film" in itself, a man showed carrying a helmet of Samurai which doped a woman there, then dismembered it while explaining to the camera which what it did there was beautiful. Always according to the rumor Hideshi Hino thus decided to carry out off Flowers Flesh and Blood to exorcize this vision. Successful experience, since the American actor Charlie Sheen fell on film and believed in it so much that it sent a copy to the FBI which did not fail to carry out a survey… without result obviously!

Vis-a-vis dead the (in English Faces off Death ) is still another kind: it is a film which wants to be documentary on the various forms that death can cover. It mixes real deaths (animals and the human ones) with setting in scene obvious.

Web sites inspired of the snuff movies

There exist showing Web sites of the images of corpses and other shocking images, which can be regarded as similar to of Snuff movies, however, nothing does not prove that these images are real or not, there may be that they are forgeries.

The images being very violent, and shocking, there will be no bond towards these sites coming from this article.

Films of fiction dealing with the snuff movies

Several films covered the subject of the snuff movies , to generally denounce them:

In Snuff (1976) of Michael Finlay & Casing Stevens (for the scene of Snuff). This film launched the rumor of Snuff Movies by putting in scene the rape of an young woman and its torture then her assassination after the turning of film, by the proper realizer. This film being banished in 32 countries, it enormously created polemic around this famous scene and one wondered a long time on this one was true.
In Hardcore (1979) of Paul Schrader, George C. Scott share in the search of his/her missing daughter, whom he suspects of being removed by a producing network of the snuff movies .
In Videodrome (1983) of David Cronenberg, a leader of chain T.V discovers a transmission pirates entirely dedicated to the snuff called Videodrome.
In Ostermontag (1991) of Heiko Fipper, the film reports the facts of a killer who films each one of his murders to show them with his future victims that he kidnapped.
In It arrived close to on your premise (1992), of Remy Belvaux, André Bonzel & Benoît Poelvoorde, a series of murder and rapes are turned as documentary, fascinating forgery of at the same time comic paces and overpowering goshawks of a major Belgian culture.
In Pilot dumb man ( Transfers Witness , 1994) of Anthony Waller, an American young person, dresser of cinema, suffering of dumbness, is accidentally the witness, in margin of an “official” turning to Moscow, clandestine turning of a snuff movie , then continued by the scenario writer and the male actor.
In Strange Days (1995) of American the Kathryn Bigelow, a former police inspector must view a snuff movie representing the murder of one of his/her friends to find indices and to find its assassin.
In Tesis (1996) of Spanish Alejandro Amenábar, a young student discovers the existence of a library of snuff movies hidden in the bases of its university.
In The Faces (1997) of Johnny Depp, an Amerindian young person with unemployment is recruited to hold the role titrates of a snuff movie .
In Lost Highway (1997) of David Lynch, of the characters projects in a villa a few seconds of what seems to be a snuff movie and in which the musician Marilyn Manson is put in scene a few seconds.
In 8 mm (1999) of Joel Schumacher, a widow requires of a private detective to inquire into the veracity of a snuff movie that her husband kept in secrecy. A certain artistic aspect of the snuff movie is proposed.
In a green mouse (2004) of Mathias Ledoux, a young data processing specialist Peeping Tom attends a murder on line on a webcam of a site of exhibitionnism.
August Underground (2001) and August Underground' S Mordum (2003) of Fred Vogel is forgery snuff movies, as if one had found the videotapes of psychopathes turning of the snuff movies.
In Vacancy (2007) of Nimród Antal, a couple at the edge of the rupture (Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson) is seen obliged to spend the night in a motel after their car broke down in the middle of nowhere. Once in their room, they will discover cassettes of snuff movies whose place of the action is not other than their own room.

Films taking as a starting point the snuffs movies:

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) of Ruggero Deodato: present of the scenes of murder of animals and human of a rare violence, but also the rape of a woman whom one will see thereafter impaled.
Hostel (2005) of Eli Roth: a criminal group kidnaps people to deliver them to rich person men who pay to torture them and to kill them.
Lady Revenge (2005) on Park Chan-wook: a professor of nursery school kidnaps and films the murders of children.

Cartoons treating of the snuff movies

the subject of the snuff movies is used in a considerable fraction of the intrigue of the Diptyque Golden Spoils (2000)/ Shadow (2002), 11th and the 12th volumes of the series Largo Winch.

a series called " the Network Bombyce " of Cecil and Corbeyran which is held in one 19th imaginary century appeared recently at Humanoïdes associated.

Milo Manara, in 1988, in its collection Short films , had already treated this topic in a short history entitled Acherontia atropos .

Novels treating of snuff movies

Maurice G. Dantec tackles this subject in its novel the red Siren . Young heroin flees his/her mother after having discovered that it was producing of snuff movies.

Jacques Vettier wrote a detective novel in which the snuff movie is the backdrop of the intrigue: Nécroprocesseurs.

Gregory Mcdonald tells the last 3 days history of Rafael Brown which agrees to play in a snuff movie to save its family of the need in Rafael, last days, adapted to the cinema under the title of The Brave.

Laurent Fétis tells the history of a realizer of snuff movies in the concrete bed.

Video games in relation to the snuff movie

Manhunt of Rockstar North, is centered around the set of themes of the " snuff movie".

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines of Troika Ranges, refers to the " snuff movie" in a mission where the player must recover video K7 containing a showing film of horrible murders. It is necessary to show white leg to obtain this video, the retailers of the corner claiming not to want troubles with justice.

See too

Happy slapping

External bonds

SnuffMovies.it
File on Lumière.org

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