From: hsr4@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Faces of death
Date: 13 Aug 92 09:32:36 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <1992Aug13.001614.1920@bbxrbk>, russ@bbxrbk (Russ Kepler) writes:
> In article <BsvKD8.881@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jvmg9796@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (doc) writes:
>>snopes%club33@stlth.enet.dec.com (snopes) writes:
>>
>>>>If someone is murdered and it is captured on film, who cares what the 
>>>>motivations for the murder or the filming of it were?  
>>
>>> The victim, the victim's family, and the police, for starters.

Except, as I've posted before in the past, over here the list includes Customs
& Excise and a number of other bodies, since the offence is not always one with
which one might associate snuff (VAT evasion, for example), and also over here,
the interest by any body is often dictated by the nationality of the
participants and whether there is any real chance of identifying and 
apprehending the perpetrators.

>>
>>The filmmakers said it was real, that the FBI had found the film in a
>>bedroom in the raided house.  You just dont want to believe anything, snopes.
>>I think you just like being contrary.  Well, as far as Im concerned the
>>burdern of proof has now shifted to you to prove that the film is a fake.
> 
> "Can you prove it *didn't* happen?"
> 
> Russ "yup, yup, what happened to hsr4?" Kepler

A marked increase in work happened to HSR4 (or, as a dyslexic Bill might have
it, HRS4) - up to 16 hours a day since around Feb makes for very little spare
time to go looking for the kind of snuff evidence which would appease some
AFUers, or to do much more than skim through the newsgroups.

I received some friendly advice about looking to obtain snuff material
(I can't afford the L2000 which some sources quote) which has forced me to
slacken my efforts, but I'm still around and still looking, - and still amused
by the logic which some AFUers apply to the test for existence or not of snuff;
it doesn't matter what the experienced grass roots say, if senior bureaucrats 
and computerised legal judgements don't yield a positive result, some AFUers
take that to be the final verdict (and assume that their text retrieval skills
are beyond question).

(As an example of the hardened AFU mentality one has only to look at the 
postings about eskimo words for snow; a poster pulls up a list of 30-odd from 
a dictionary, and the response is to quote some esoteric argument about word 
roots.  I wonder, if we tried asking a pilot how many words he has for, say,
describing clouds, whether someone will also respond with something about word
roots...).

In addition, I've seen filmed killings which DO look totally unconvincing, (but
which weren't snuff) which is perhaps the hallmark of reality.  Unless you have
seen the real thing, you have no yardstick against which to measure the 
Hollywood imitation, and the arguments about how convincing the expensive modern
special effects are just do not hold water (i.e., the argument that no filmmaker
will risk imprisonment when for a few million dollars he can have a good
special effect only holds water when applied to, say, Spielberg.  It doesn't
apply to some South American operation where the most expensive item is the
camera, and it also doesn't apply when the snuff film predates modern effects by
some 60 years).

I'm with you, Doc - don't let the fatherless children grind you down!

Peter "I saw some snuff in the 60s, and it made my eyes water" Brooks