SNUFF . . . my early impressions

[The Burgomaster]

My dvd of SNUFF arrived on Friday. I watched an hour of it last night, and I hope to catch the final 20 minutes tonight.

If you aren't familiar with it, when the movie was released on video back in the 1980s, there was a lot of controversy because it supposedly contained real scenes of a woman being murdered. Of course, it was all a hoax to make people rent or buy the video.

Anyway . . .

The dvd box is made to look like a plain, brown wrapper. The cover says SNUFF, and mentions that it was made in South America "where life is cheap."

There is nothing written on the back cover (no synopsis, no cast & crew, no pictures . . . nothing).

There are no inserts.

There are no scene selections or extras of any kind. There isn't even an on-screen menu! The dvd just jumps right into the movie.

For the first hour, the movie jumps around from a cult of drugged-out women following a Satanic leader, to an actress who is going to star in a movie, to people being stabbed, to stock footage of "Carnaval," (which is the South American version of Mardi Gras). There are also scenes of two women riding a motorcycle, with music that sounds a lot like "Born to be Wild" on the soundtrack.

The stabbings have that "1960s - 1970s blood," (basically, orange-ish colored blood that looks more like paint). There is one scene (that I guess is supposed to be "shocking") where a woman is tied down and another woman slices in between her toes with a knife. It looks very fake.

The dubbing is terrible. I think that whoever translated it into English wasn't very accurate about the dialogue. People sometimes have conversations, after which, you say to yourself, "huh?????"

Anyway . . . I can't WAIT to see how this whole mess ends. I'll keep you posted.



Post Edited (08-10-03 08:51)

[The Burgomaster]

Well, I made it to the end.

The entire movie is dubbed, except for the last few minutes which feature English speaking actors and actresses.

As expected, they try to make you believe that they are actually killing a woman, but the acting is bad and the gore effects are pretty cheesy. They end up cutting the woman's finger off and pulling out her intestines, then the movie ends.

If this movie didn't have so much nudity and violence, it would be a great MST3K candidate. Some of the dialogue is hilarious. The acting, direction, camera work, gore effects are about as bad as you can get. . . EVERYTHING about this movie is "Grade Z."

[Tranquil Featherman]

whoa

[Jean-Paul Navet]

I noticed that nobody mentionned what appeared to be the worst part of this pile of crap: the music.
From the very beginning to the infamous end the music is your ears' nightmare.
Very bad cover of Steppenwolf and other 70s rock bands at its best , it makes elevator music looks like masterpieces during the whole punishment. And it's loud as well.
Do yourself a favor: dubbing is always out of sync and music is painfull: turn the volume down or put some real music on.You won't miss à bit.

[Daniel Johnson]

   I for one love how cheesy and trully bad this movie is, though I do feel kind of cheated by the complete lack of any extras, a documentary would have been nice along with original language audio.

[Brother Ragnarok]

I'll admit to having my curiosity aroused by the stripped-down packaging, but after that less than enthusiastic review, I'll stick with my Island of Death DVD.  Now there's a great depraved b-movie.

Brother R

[StatCat]

Can't believe someone spent money on this thing

[eeeee5]

.  .  .  .  In John McCarty's "Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen," he explains that this film was from South America (a real film, not documentary stuff, I wonder how the true director feels about this?) and was bought by American distributors hoping to capitalize on the "snuff" interest.  I can't find my notes right now, but I do believe that the distributors padded footage into the film and reedited it.  The whole purpose of the marketing campaign (and it worked for some of you, curse you marketing agencies, with your psych-babble...) was to cache the "under the counter" fascination with snuff, hence the plain brown wrapper when released on DVD (but, "Army of Darkness" has an edition that uses...).  There are various films ABOUT "snuff" ("8mm"), but this was never the films true origins.   As for extras, there lack is for the same psychological purposes: If you like it, your dirty, so we're going to give a grimy version of it; but being a B-fan, I think most people like this; being a B-Movie fan, it can be hard.  I may have slightly innaccurate information since I have a couple of notebooks of info that I can't find, and the theories are only that, theories.  Beautiful, beautiful and pure marketing exploitation, though I haven't seen it.

Angus Scrimm in "Phantasm II:"
"You think that when you die you go to heaven,... you come to us."



Post Edited (02-18-04 21:07)

[The Burgomaster]

eeeee5 wrote:

"I do believe that the distributors padded footage into the film and reedited it."

The final few minutes are definitely padded with newer American footage.  The "original" film just sort of ends (without any real ending . . . I assume that the original ending was removed and replaced with the American footage).  All of a sudden, a bunch of new characters show up  and the "snuff" portion (which is very badly done) begins.  You can clearly see that this is an add-on because the film quality is not consistent with the earlier scenes (it looks newer).

I read McCarty's book several years ago and I think it should be a part of any gore fan's reading list.  However, you must SEE "Snuff" to truly appreciate its deceptive marketing campaign and all-around badness.  Reading about it only scratches the surface.

[eeeee5]

The Burgomaster:
"However, you must SEE "Snuff" to truly appreciate its deceptive marketing campaign and all-around badness."

Just stupid trivia crap I had on the film, I would like to see it... eventually.  (earlier re-acted incorrectly in a response so it's now edited)  Coming across this stuff makes me wanna see films like this, but I can't always find them.
Sorry, for possibly misunderstanding the post.



Post Edited (02-20-04 02:29)

[Chopper]

I have a book called Killing for Culture that talks a lot about this movie and it's history. To be honest it doeasn't really sound like anything special. It might have been shocking if you saw it at the drive in back in the 70's under the influence of acid.

[lester1/2jr]

they have the video at the store i go to.  It totally commands your attentin, the box.  It's like mad scary!