Snuff film

{{#choose:1=[[File:Lewd_anime.jpeg |right|thumb|165px|Sorry to disappoint but no snuff here.]]|1=[[File:Lewd_anime_meme2.jpg|right|thumb|165px|L-lewd..!]]|2=[[File:Lewd_anime.jpeg |right|thumb|165px|No educational images, sorry.]]|2=[[File:Lewd_anime_meme2.jpg|right|thumb|165px|We would show images — for science — but that would be lewd.]]}}{{folklore}}A '''snuff film''' is a video explicitly produced and distributed for profit, and in which participants are murdered on camera. Ed Sanders coined the term in 1971 in his book ''The Family: The Story of [[Charles Manson]]'s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion'', in which he claimed that the Manson Family had used a stolen NBC-TV camera to record videos of their murders and then buried them in the desert. Their existence is, according to the [[FBI]]'s definition, an [[urban legend]].<ref name="FBISnope">[[Snopes]]: [http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/snuff.asp "A Pinch of Snuff"]</ref> Regardless, the press will often use the term 'snuff film' as shorthand for the filming of murder in a wider variety of contexts.<ref>[http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/475207/Police-did-nothing-to-track-down-victim-of-child-porn-snuff-film Police did NOTHING to track down victim of child porn snuff film]</ref> They are not to be confused with '''crush films''', which usually involve the killing of small animals and are, sadly, not an urban legend.<ref name="hsus">{{Cite web|title=Animal Crush Videos: Senate Committee Testimony|url=https://www.humanesociety.org/news/animal-crush-videos-senate-committee-testimony|last=Nancy|first=Perry|date=15 September 2010|website=The Humane Society of the United States|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=9 May 2020}}</ref>

Before he became destitute, Al Goldstein, publisher of ''Screw'' magazine, had a standing offer of $1 million for anyone who could come up with a commercially sold snuff film. That offer was in place for years, and no one laid claim to it.

==Death videos==
Although the production of snuff films is illegal and non-existent,<ref name="FBISnope"/> media containing real deaths aren't illegal in many places,<ref group=note>The article sourced previously illustrates a UK man arrested for a child murder video due to the {{wpl|Obscene Publications Act|UK obscenity laws}}, which includes BDSM, murder, and the word “fuck” in the past.</ref> as evidenced by the ready availability of the {{wpl|Zapruder film}} containing footage of [[John F. Kennedy]]'s assassination. (Murder, however, is illegal, just in case you didn't know that.{{nofact}}) Therefore, the [[Internet]] has a decent amount of fully legal videos and pictures of death for [[Sadism|sadists]], with content ranging from accidents and freak incidents (such as the televised suicide of R. Budd Dwyer) caught on tape, to the "home videos" of murderers, to filmed executions carried out by [[Terrorism|terrorist groups]] and [[drug]] cartels. These videos are not considered snuff films, as they were not created with the intent to profit off of them. Accident videos are citizen journalism in action, the home videos of killers are usually intended as morbid keepsakes and were never meant for circulation (they are often leaked after a killer's arrest), and execution videos are meant to send a message to a group's enemies.

Popular websites of said content include, but are not limited to, Bestgore and Gurochan. A [[Reddit|subreddit]] called /r/PicsOfDeadKids also exists for legal viewing in many countries (albeit quarantined by Reddit). Before the internet, the ''Faces of Death'' shockumentary series often compiled many such videos, combined with a heaping helping of fakes.<ref name="FBISnope"></ref><ref>Hickey, Brian. [http://deadspin.com/5855402/cut-back-to-a-wide-shot-open-the-skull-the-faces-of-death-guy-looks-back "'Cut Back To A Wide Shot. Open The Skull': The Faces Of Death Guy Looks Back."] ''Deadspin'', 2 February 2012 (recovered 19 August 2017).</ref>

The closest one could get to a commercially-produced snuff film made for the purpose of (morbid) entertainment would be those so-called [[Pornography|crush fetish]] videos involving (small) animals being trampled to death to sate the craving of sick lunatics.<ref name="hsus"/> To no one's surprise, a couple in the [[Philippines]] who was behind a series of crush videos were arrested and given a life sentence<ref name="Hegina">{{Cite web |last=Hegina |first=Aries Joseph |date=2014-09-29 |title=Man, wife behind ‘crush’ videos get life sentence |url=https://technology.inquirer.net/38937/man-wife-behind-crush-videos-get-life-sentence |access-date=2025-08-28 |website=Philippine Daily Inquirer |language=en}}</ref> for what obviously amounts to animal cruelty; not helping matters was the involvement of minors who were [[Child sexual abuse|coerced]] into performing such acts. The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), and in a [[stopped clock]] moment, [[PETA]], both took action against the perpetrators of the crush fetish vids which resulted in their arrest and conviction.<ref name="Clifton">{{Cite web |last=Clifton |first=Merritt |date=2014-10-07 |title="Crush video" makers get life in prison |url=https://www.animals24-7.org/2014/10/07/crush-video-makers-get-life-in-prison/ |access-date=2025-08-28 |website=Animals 24-7 |language=en-US}}</ref>

==History of assumptions==
Before the internet, many {{wpl|exploitation film|exploitation films}} were thought to be snuff films, such as the Italian film ''Cannibal Holocaust'' and the Japanese ''Guinea Pig'' movie series. The makers of ''Cannibal Holocaust'' had to bring the actors onto a talk show in order to prove to a court that they hadn't actually been murdered,<ref>Rose, Steve. [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/sep/15/cannibal-holocaust "Cannibal Holocaust: 'Keep filming! Kill more people!'"] ''[[The Guardian]]'', 15 September 2011 (recovered 21 December 2016).</ref> while the second installment in the ''Guinea Pig'' series, ''Flower of Flesh and Blood'', led Charlie Sheen to call the FBI to report it as such.<ref>Figueroa, Dariel. [http://uproxx.com/movies/about-that-time-charlie-sheen-thought-a-horror-film-he-watched-was-actually-a-snuff-film/ "About That Time Charlie Sheen Thought He Watched A Snuff Film And Started An FBI Investigation."] ''Uproxx'', 15 January 2015 (recovered 21 December 2016).</ref> Invariably, these movies turned out to be 100% fictional.

There have been many attempts in the past to market films based on those rash assumptions, though. One of the most infamous was the 1976 horror film ''Snuff'',<ref name="FBISnope"></ref><ref>Wax, Alyse. [http://www.comingsoon.net/g00/horror/news/748844-homicide-hoax-brief-history-1976s-snuff?i10c.referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F "Homicide or Hoax? A Brief History of 1976's SNUFF."] ''ComingSoon.net'', 11 March 2016 (recovered 19 August 2017).</ref> a reedited version of the 1971 film ''Slaughter'' by the husband-and-wife team of grindhouse filmmakers Michael and Roberta Findlay, which was judged to be so bad as to be unreleasable. With a new tagline of "the film that could only be made in South America... where life is CHEAP!" (it was originally filmed in Argentina) and a new ending depicting a pretty young production assistant getting murdered "for real",<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymf2Nir8MqI The "real" murder starts about three minutes in, and looks about as convincing as the "fake" murders that the clip opens with.]</ref> ''Snuff'' got the notoriety that ''Slaughter'' never could despite both being terrible films. Gratuitous, excessive, realistic gore has always had a market, and there will always be one until people learn to stop being horrendously sick fucks.

==See also==
*[[Cannibalism]]
*[[Red room]]
==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}
==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}
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[[Category:Urban legends]]
[[Category:Crime]]
[[Category:Media]]
[[Category:Moral panics]]
[[Category:Media hysteria]]
[[Category:Horror]]

Categories: Urban legends, Crime, Media, Moral panics, Media hysteria, Horror