Snuff movie

As a snuff film , snuff for short ( English colloquially to snuff someone out = to blot out someone), the film recording of a murder that was committed for the entertainment or sexual arousal of the viewer is called .

There is no evidence that such a film was ever released for real. The real snuff film is therefore considered a modern legend . However, there are unofficial statements from the police that suggest that it is more than just a legend. Details are withheld to protect families. In addition, in 1997 a child molester alleged that he had seen several such films himself.

Word origin

The name comes from El Ángel de la muerte , an Argentine horror film that was released in 1976 in the United States under the title Snuff . In one of the scenes, the makers of the film are said to have killed one of the actresses. This was a bogus marketing statement.

Snuff in the media

Since Snuff was taken up by the feminist anti-pornography discourse in the USA in the 1970s, the concept has been updated again and again in other debates, which mostly also achieve tightening of the control of media use - as most recently with the topic of happy slapping . As a result, Snuff has become a modern myth that encodes the maximum breaking of taboos of media violence and ontological realism. But at the same time death is omnipresent in the mass media - the spectrum ranges from the exhibition Body Worlds to the mass media mourning for famous personalities, such as Michael Jackson or Princess Diana , to the predominant fictional death stagings in films and TV series etc. In this way, cinematic staging strategies can alternate between these conventionalized death stagings and current ideas of snuff. This configuration allows films to discuss not only ethical, political and legal positions on media violence, but also their own realism and their media preconditions.

Listed below are various works whose part or plot contains the topic of snuff films.

films and series

title	year	Director / writer	Brief description
Peeping Tom - eyes of fear	1960	Michael Powell	A cameraman who appears shy on the outside leads a double life and kills women whose agony he captures with the camera.
Big Snuff	1976	Michael Findlay	The supposedly real killing in the film later coined the term snuff film.
Greta - house without men	1977	Jess Franco	In a women's prison , the director's sadistic acts are recorded and marketed.
Last House on Dead End Street	1977	Roger Michael Watkins	It's about a former convict who wants to earn his living as a porn filmmaker and starts to make a snuff film under pressure from the producer and the increasing expectations of the audience.
Faces of death	1978	John Alan Schwartz	Documentary on the subject of death, in which z. T. real death scenes are included.
Videodrome	1983	David Cronenberg	Is about a snuff station whose broadcasts trigger tumors and hallucinations in viewers.
Guinea pig	1985-1992	various	Japanese splatter film series started in 1985, the first two parts of which were advertised as snuff films. Actor Charlie Sheen thought the second part of the series, Flower of Flesh and Blood , was real, whereupon the FBI opened an investigation, in the course of which the fears proved unfounded.
Benny's video	1992	Michael Haneke	A teenage video freak kills a girl with a nail gun in front of the camera to see what it feels like.
Mute witness	1994	Anthony Waller	A mute employee of a Moscow film studio happened to witness how a snuff video was shot in the studio on behalf of the Russian mafia after work.
Strange days	1995	Kathryn Bigelow	Lenny ( Ralph Fiennes ) is the “Magic Man”: a dealer of snuff clips on MiniDiscs, which allow the consumer to understand what other people have experienced through direct neuron contact. The storylines of the snuff clip "manufacturer", a police scandal and Lenny's unrequited love for drug-fogged Faith ( Juliette Lewis ) are virtuously interwoven . Only thanks to his girlfriend Mace ( Angela Bassett ) does Lenny have the chance to prevent a civil war ... At one point, after consuming a nasty snuff clip, Lenny's boyfriend says a sentence that could serve as the motto of the whole film: The question is not whether you are are paranoid. [...] The question is, are you paranoid enough?
Tesis - The Snuff Movie	1996	Alejandro Amenábar	Film student Angela comes across the topic of snuff while working on her thesis and discovers the secret of some teachers and students at her university who secretly make snuff films and sell them at great prices.
Hellsing ( anime series episode 4)	1997	Idea by: Kōta Hirano	Alucard comes across a snuff production that is currently running. In the middle of the episode he realizes that only humans have the hobby of gleefully watching when their own kind are butchered.
The Brave	1997	Johnny Depp	It's about an Indian who wants to help his poverty-stricken family with a $ 50,000 sum from a snuff film project.
8mm - eight millimeters	1999	Joel Schumacher	A private detective is investigating the producers of a violent video in which a masked man tortures a girl to death.
Wolffs Revier - Death is a special effect	2000	Rüdiger sober	In the episode, Commissioner Wolff deals with a murder in a snuff film. The porn actress Teresa Orlowski plays herself in a guest role.
Donna Leon - Vendetta	2000	Christian von Castelberg	In the first film in the television crime series, Commissario Brunetti investigates well-off lawyers who are involved in prostitution and the trafficking of snuff videos.
Cradle of Fear	2001	Alex Chandon	In the course of the splatter film , the protagonist Richard Neilson is looking for a website (The Sick Room) that offers interactive snuff films in which the victims are killed "live" and according to the wishes of the paying customers. Richard ends up (unintentionally) as a passive performer in one of these snuff productions.
August underground	2001	Fred Vogel	Two people kidnap, rape and torture people arbitrarily and film their deeds with a video camera. The film does not have a coherent plot with a narrative structure.
The Last Horror Movie	2003	Julian Richards	Should convey to the viewer that they own a real snuff film.
Ab-normal beauty	2004	Oxide Pang Chun	Jiney, a young photographer, discovers her obsession with death in a car accident and makes it the subject of her photos. In the last half hour of the film, snuff videos appear that seem very realistic.
Big Nothing	2006	Jean-Baptiste Andrea	There is a subplot about a pastor who makes $ 2 million selling homegrown murder videos.
Film noir	2007	D. Jud Jones, Risto Topaloski	In this animated film, the protagonist Sam Ruben uses a snuff video to convict a dodgy manager during a ritual murder and should be kept under lock and key by all means.
motel	2007	Nimród Antal	It's about a couple who have to fight back in a hotel owned by a manufacturer of self-made murder videos.
Midnight Movie	2008	Jack Messit	In this film, a supernatural killer haunts a cinema. The movie-within-a-movie The Dark Beneath is known as a snuff movie.
Place of Darkness	2008	Douglas A. Raine	Miles Cody is obsessed with making the ultimate documentary about the snuff movie underground. After careful research, he finally gets to know the "King of Snuffs" - the dark and mysterious Vic. Cody becomes more and more fascinated by the repulsive subject of real-life violent pornography, but then he notices strange shadows in Vic's murder videos. Shadows that cannot be explained by technical faults. The spirits of the tortured victims seem to be sending Cody a message from beyond the grave. A warning to make it clear to the documentary filmmaker that he is walking a fine line into the deepest darkness of hell.
Snuff massacre	2009	Tommi Lepola	A Finnish film crew is shooting a horror film in a closed insane asylum. The content is the story of a former prison doctor who is said to have shot snuff films there a few years ago. The crew ultimately finds some of these films by chance and the director believes they can improve his own production. Infatuated with this idea, he begins to shoot a real snuff film with his crew that they don't even know about.
The Bunny Game	2010	Adam Rehmeier	The film is about the kidnapping and torture of a drug addict prostitute. She also gets to see a snuff film with a previous victim of the killer. According to the filmmakers, the depictions of violence in the film are real.
A Serbian film	2010	Srdjan Spasojević	The story of a porn actor who is persuaded to take on the leading role in an avant-garde film is told. This only turns out to be a snuff film with child pornography and necrophilic elements during the course of the shooting.
Kill list	2011	Ben Wheatley	When a box of snuff films is found with a target of the hired man, the world of the protagonist Jay turns upside down and inexorably falls into decline.
Sinister	2012	Scott Derrickson / C. Robert Cargill	A writer looking for inspiration during the night finds some snuff films in the attic of his newly moved house, whereupon he does his own research.
V / H / S / 2	2012	Simon Barrett et al. a.	Private detectives find video tapes in a house that show eerie incidents resulting in death from the handheld camera perspective. As it turns out, these were traded as snuff films and shared with like-minded people.
The Counselor	2013	Ridley Scott	The Mexican drug mafia kills kidnapped women on camera.
American Guinea Pig	2014	Stephen Biro	This American splatter film was inspired by the Guinea Pig film series .
Cold in July	2014	Jim Mickle	The protagonist's son murdered women in the most brutal way in front of the camera.
American Horror Story Season 4	2014	Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk	The protagonist Elsa became part of a snuff film.
Nightcrawler - Every night has its price	2014	Dan Gilroy	A petty criminal films accidents, acts of violence and murders with a camera in order to sell the images to an unsuccessful news channel.
Atroz	2015	Lex Ortega	Three murders are found in the film on video cassette or mini-DV.
#Funnyface	2015	Marcel Walz	A murder of a couple is streamed on a website.
Crime scene: HAL	2016	Niki Stein	Shortly before her death, a woman found dead had a plastic bag pulled over her head during a sexual act . This continued to be filmed despite the woman's increasing breathlessness, and the video was later uploaded to an Internet exchange for snuff videos on the Darknet .
A Beginner's Guide to Snuff	2016	Mitchell Altieri	Black-humored horror comedy in which two brothers attempt to make the most authentic snuff film possible with a kidnapped actress

Books

In the psychological thriller "The Lover" by Douglas Kennedy snuff movies are mentioned
In Linda Castillo's thriller Bloody Silence , an Amish family is murdered for a snuff film.
Donna Leon's crime thriller Venetian Reckoning (German Vendetta ) is about human trafficking and the production and distribution of snuff films in Italy.
In the thriller “Hellfire, Living and Dying in Juarez” by Bernd Rossbach, the feminicides in Ciudad Juarez are caused by the production of snuff videos. The protagonist, a professional killer, blows the ring.
In the thriller Die Hard by the English author Peter James , the protagonist and his family as well as Inspector Roy Grace have to deal with a snuff movie ring.
In the thriller The Lamorna Wink (German The stairs to the sea ) by Martha Grimes is about two children whose murder is solely the creation of a snuff film.
In the crime novel Bluebelle by the American author Andrew Vachss , the production of snuff films is an essential element of the plot.
Another very brief mention of Snuff is in the book Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson .
In the book Morpheus by Jilliane Hoffman Snuff is mentioned, in her book Argus several women are tortured and murdered by a man who films the crime and shows it to a selected audience.
The Japanese author Akira Kuroda also devoted herself to the subject. Her book Made in Japan shows snuff films and a group of young people who consume them. One of the teenagers is then inspired to murder one of his friends.
In the book Blind by Joe Hill , son of horror writer Stephen King , the main character is in possession of a snuff film.
Another snuff video is shown during a party in Bret Easton Ellis' debut novel Unter Null . The main character Clay is not really interested in this. Later in the novel, a 12-year-old girl addicted to heroin is tied to a bed by friends of Clay, raped by everyone (except Clay) and finally killed.
In Crime Glitter country of Robert W. Campbell two porn actors for being killed snuff film.
Likewise, the motif of the crime thriller The Hollywood Murder by Joseph Wambaugh ( The Glitter Dome , 1981) is a planned production of a snuff film in Mexico.
The book Der Kameramörder by Austrian author Thomas Glavinic is also about a snuff video that is leaked to the public. This shows the death scenes of two children recorded by the murderer. A film adaptation of this novel was released in 2010 .
In the novel The Tattoo by the Swedish crime author Helene Tursten , one of the perpetrators owns snuff videos and is inspired by these to create their own “work”.
The crime novel The Crucifix Killer by Chris Carter is a subsidiary thread of snuff films.
Snuff videos are also mentioned in the book "Level 26 - Dark Origins" by Anthony E. Zuiker & Duane Swierczynsky.
In the crime novel “Bullenbeißer” by Rolf Redlin, snuff videos play a decisive role in the resolution.
In the thriller “Bloodline” by Cody McFadyen, Smoky Barett has to solve a case involving a snuff film.
In the thriller Final Cut by Veit Etzold , LKA commissioner C. Vidalis becomes aware of a new series of murders through a snuff video that she receives from a stranger.
In his novel Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq tells of the life of the young rock star David, who years after coming into contact with the main character is convicted in the USA for setting up a snuff porn ring.

In his novel 2666, Roberto Bolaño tells of a series of murders of women that is never cleared up. Among other things, it is believed that the women were killed for snuff films. Reference is also made to the genesis of Big Snuff , but the protagonists have different names.

Karin Slaughter writes in Pretty Girls about the creation and marketing of snuff porn.

In his thriller "The Fifth Revelation" ("Un bâillement de diable" in the French original), Pierre Billon describes how the protagonists of an international organization that does business with snuff films are tracked down. The threads lead to a sect that bypasses ethics and human rights. Some of the films and their production methods are described in detail.

Near Zero (2009), a post-modernist novel from the Russkij Pioner publishing house, the authorship of which is attributed to the Russian politician and PR expert, Vladislav Surkov. The plot thickens after the protagonist sees his lover being murdered as an actress in a publicly shown film. The work of a mysterious production studio, a highly acclaimed avant-garde piece, turns out to be a snuff film. Few viewers from the closed society invited to the premiere know that the agony on screen is a real one.

SNUFF (2011), the tenth novel by Wiktor Pelewin , describes the bitter coexistence of two societies in a post-apocalyptic world. The rich and technically highly developed Byzantium provoked the primitive inhabitants of U rk aine [sic] to recurring, large-scale acts of war. The resulting staging of human slaughter is recorded by flying cameras and - mixed with porn scenes - presented on Byzantium in public media as a news broadcast.

"Melody of Death - A New Case for Julia Durant" by Andreas Franz (2012): a student is cruelly tortured, raped and murdered. It later emerges that this act was filmed and that there are others of this type. The investigations lead the investigators into some abysses in the area of snuff videos and their distribution.

Computer games

In Manhunt the player has to brutally execute members of various gangs in order to produce snuff films for a former Hollywood director named Lionel Starkweather. He is directed by Starkweather through a loudspeaker in his ear through areas equipped with film cameras. In 2007 a sequel to the game was released. Both parts are confiscated in Germany.
In Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories , the player is assigned a mission to kill a Sindacco mafioso and bodyguards who are watching a traitor of the Sindacco tribe named JD O'Toole. At the end of the mission, O'Toole reveals that he filmed everything and mistakenly calls this video snuff video.
In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines , the player is given the task of getting a snuff film for the Baron von Hollywood, in which a young woman is cruelly murdered by monster-like beings and then to track down those responsible for this film.

music

The song “ The last house at the end of the one-way street ” by the Thuringian dark metal band Eisregen from the album “ Knochenkult ” (2008) refers to the film Last House on Dead End Street : Men lure beautiful women into a house around them to dismember in front of the camera.
The song " Snuff Machinery " by SITD is also about the mentioned topic and uses samples from the film " 8mm - Eight Millimeters ", which is also about it. In the lyrics it is referred to as " a crime against humanity " and " a crime against morality ".
The song of the same name " Snuff " by Slayer describes the 'emergence' of a real snuff, the 'background and future' of the perpetrator, the sufferings of the victim and uses the spread via the Internet.
The Böhsen Onkelz wrote the song Faces of Death , which is about the media's greed for money and quotas and how the misery of humanity is marketed. The title alludes to the video series of the same name and is included on the album Ein böses Märchen , which was released in 2000 .
On the album buy me! the Toten Hosen is the song Hot-Clip-Video-Club , which tells of violent films and child porn that are hidden under the counter. The lyrics to the song say: " I want to look death straight in the eyes from the front row. I get goose bumps when I scream for help that are full of conviction [...] Because I only feel life in me when someone else is his loses "
The song "Snuff" by the US band Slipknot also deals with this topic. This is about a young man who grows into a woman. For the singer Corey Taylor , this song is linked to a personal event in his life.
The song " I Saw A Serbian Film " by the American rapper Chris Palko describes the rapper's thoughts on the snuff film, A Serbian Film .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ zeit.de: Right ?: Horrible fantasy
↑ Snopes.com: A Pinch of Snuff ("Modern Sage Lexicon")
^ SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg Germany: Crossing borders: Murder in front of the camera - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Netzwelt. Retrieved August 13, 2017 .
↑ Tomasz Kurianowicz: Viktor Pelewins novel "Snuff": Dialectic of Daredevil . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN 0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed July 5, 2018]).
Jump up ↑ Hot Clip Video Club. (No longer available online.) Die Toten Hosen, archived from the original on May 17, 2012 ; Retrieved May 11, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

[1] zeit.de: Right ?: Horrible fantasy

[2] Snopes.com: A Pinch of Snuff ("Modern Sage Lexicon")

[3] SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg Germany: Crossing borders: Murder in front of the camera - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Netzwelt. Retrieved August 13, 2017 .

[4] Tomasz Kurianowicz: Viktor Pelewins novel "Snuff": Dialectic of Daredevil . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN 0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed July 5, 2018]).

[5] Jump up ↑ Hot Clip Video Club. (No longer available online.) Die Toten Hosen, archived from the original on May 17, 2012 ; Retrieved May 11, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2