Snuff (film)
| Snuff | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by |
Michael Findlay Roberta Findlay Horacio Fredriksson |
| Produced by |
Jack Bravman Allan Shackleton |
| Written by | Michael Findlay Roberta Findlay A. Bochin |
| Starring |
Margarita Amuchástegui Ana Carro Liliana Fernández Blanco Roberta Findlay Alfredo Iglesias Enrique Larratelli Mirtha Massa Aldo Mayo Clao Villanueva |
| Distributed by | Monarch Releasing Corporation Blue Underground (DVD) |
|
Release date
|
1976 |
|
Running time
|
80 min. |
| Country | U.S.A. / Argentina |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30,000 |
Snuff is a 1976 splatter horror film, and is most notorious for being marketed as if it were an actual snuff film. This picture contributed to the urban legend of snuff films, although the concept did not originate with it.
The film started out as a low-budget gore film titled Slaughter which was written and directed by the husband-and-wife grindhouse filmmaking team of Michael and Roberta Findlay. Filmed in Argentina in 1971 on a budget of $30,000, it depicted the actions of a Manson-esque murder cult, and was shot mainly without sound due to the actors understanding very little English. The film financier Jack Bravman received an out-of-court settlement from AIP so the latter could use the title for the 1972 Jim Brown film of the same name. The Findlays' film enjoyed a very limited theatrical release.
Independent low-budget distributor and sometime producer Allan Shackleton took the film and shelved it for four years—but was inspired to release it with a new ending, unbeknownst to the original filmmakers, after reading a newspaper article in 1975 on the rumor of snuff films produced in South America and decided to cash in on the urban legend. He added a new ending, filmed in a vérité style by Simon Nuchtern, in which a woman is brutally murdered by a film crew, supposedly the crew of Slaughter. The new footage purportedly showed an actual murder, and was spliced onto the end of Slaughter with an abrupt cut suggesting that the footage was unplanned and the murder authentic. This new version of the film was released under the title Snuff, with the tagline "The film that could only be made in South America... where Life is CHEAP!".
Once the film was released, distributor Shackleton reportedly hired fake protesters to picket movie theaters showing the film. This soon became moot when Women Against Pornography began staging real protests, outraged at the film's purported imagery of sexual violence. The group's protest received coverage by such media outlets as the CBS Evening News.
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Wikipedia