MovieChat Forums > Faces of Death (1978) Discussion > Snuff movies do not exist.

Snuff movies do not exist.

posted 18 years ago by danrimage
117 replies | jump to latest

For anyone genuinely interested in whether any of the footage in this film is real, I'd recommend the excellent 'Killing For Culture: An Illustrated History of Death Film from Mondo to Snuff'(Creation Books) by David Kerekes and David Slater. It has an extremely well-researched and highly readable chapter on the 'F.O.D.' series, as well as a definitive debunking of the authenticity of 'Snuff' and the Japanese 'Guinea Pig' series, among many others.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Killing-Culture-Illustrated-History-Creation/dp/1871592208/sr=1-1/qid=1166054672/ref=sr_1_1/026-6350853-3118867?ie=UTF8&s=books

[–] 9inchnail 16 years ago

How can someone actually doubt that snuff films exist? They may not be available for the public but there's no doubt, people have been filmed when they were killed. There's a simple rule of thumb, if something can be done, it WILL be done. No matter how sick it is, there IS someone twisted enough to do it.

[–] danrimage 16 years ago

'They may not be available for the public'

Then by definition, they are not snuff movies.

[–] SHaGGGz 16 years ago

what definition is that? they can be made for profit within a close-knit underground community of sociopaths.

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AIM/MSN: SHaGGGz

[–] danrimage 16 years ago

The definition of a snuff movie is one that contains genuine murder or torture, filmed for entertainment purposes, and commercially available to the general public. If I can't rent it from Lovefilm, or see it in my local cinema, then it is not snuff. No-one is denying that murderers have filmed some or all of their own exploits. The question is whether they have ever distributed those films/videos to others outside of their immediate social circle, or whether such an 'underground community of sociopaths ' even exists. The first claim has been proven to be an urban myth, and the second is highly dubious.

[–] SHaGGGz 16 years ago

i think nidra-lalita makes a compelling case. most definitons dont have it required that it be available to the general public. such a definition is absurd as nobody would be crazy enough to try that.

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AIM/MSN: SHaGGGz

[–] shes_dead 16 years ago

Here's an article that states snuff films have been recovered by authorites, contrary to popular belief.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/oct/01/ameliagentleman.philipwillan

[–] grampashab 16 years ago

"If I can't rent it from Lovefilm, or see it in my local cinema, then it is not snuff."

That's ridiculous. Robert Downey Sr's "Chafed Elbows" is not easily available to the general public, but it exists.

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!

[–] dcz1999 13 years ago

Actually the definition of a snuff film would be a murder that is filmed, being available to you or the general public has no bearing on it. That is like saying that anything I might have filmed with my 8mm is not actually a film unless I make it publicly available, nice try though. The general definition online is as follows, which as you can see has nothing about being available to the public: A movie in a purported genre of explicit pornography culminating in the actual violent death of a participant in a sex act.

[–] jmwbate 16 years ago

Type 3 guys 1 hammer into wikipedia. Recently a snuff film did appear which has all the 'snuff' credentials. I advise not to watch the footage though.

Baron Frankenstein:
"To know death Otto, you have to *beep* life... in the gall bladder!"

[–] bobbetybob-1 16 years ago

This is the closest to a snuff film if you ask me, it's made for entertainment purposes, not our entertainment, but the killers obviously made it for themselves, it shows real murder, and it's widely available. Let's face it, snuff in the very very literal sense is unlikely to exist, maybe some rare cases, and by literal i mean, someone paying to have a video made were somebody is killed on film.

[–] buchowski 16 years ago

When Faces Of Death has apparently accumulated $35m from theatre revenues alone (not including DVD/Blu-Ray sales) it proves there is a market for death on film. I read that 40% of Faces of Death is fake but people are not aware of that when they pay to watch it.

The Russian who was responsible for the rape, torture and murder of children on film mentioned above is not very well known on the internet. Don't you find it strange? Apparently his name is Dmitri Vladimirovich Kuznetsov. His wikipedia page has been deleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Vladimirovich_Kuznetsov

Here is the archive: http://www.wikigrain.org/?req=Dmitri+Vladimirovich+Kuznetsov

Apparently he got 11 years in prison. If you google him there's very limited info and most sites quote the same news story.

Is this a media black out? Because he is Jewish?

[–] buchowski 16 years ago

3 guys 1 hammer isn't snuff. Snuff movies are death on film for the purpose of making money and 3guys1hammer doesn't fit that definition.

There's no proof that snuff movies exist. The only place I could imagine a snuff movie to exist is in the world of child pornography because child porn is truly underground.

A snuff movie has to be a planned, organised production with the sole intention on distributing it and making money. The sick Russian bastard above fitted that criteria but nobody is ever going to see the evidence because it is child pornography.

[–] htvasquez 16 years ago

Yeah they do!
......... Snuff said.

[–] kiyotesong 16 years ago

What I find even more horrifying than the idea that snuff films may exist, or may not exist, or that people may want to pay good money to get sexual gratification by seeing someone's murder on film...

is how many people quote wikipedia as a reliable and valid resource.

[–] digifruitella 15 years ago

How about this http://englishrussia.com/?p=3374 if going by the FBI criteria then here's "snuff", distributed for everyone to see.

[–] The_Celluloid_Sage 15 years ago

Once again, read the original post I made and do some research: 'snuff' is a really specific term for films that are commercially distributed to mainstream theatres/retail outlets

What a stupid comment to make!

How can something 'illegal' be mainstream or commercial in the sense of the media outlet? Were not talking drugs here for christ sakes...

And 'snuff', the term from the 70's (where it mainly became a widespread term) is the supposed sexual gratification, abuse and them murder of a woman for entertainment. Nothing to do with commercialism or anything else.

Could have been a one off video, an 8mm or just on a plain old video camera...

Now, as someone who I assume wants people to think of him as a fairly intelligent person, your really telling that with all the people who go missing every day in the world, there are not some seriously sick and rich individuals in this world who would 'not' pay for this thing?

Call it an urban myth, call it conjecture, but its very narrow minded and arrogant to assume they do not exist...

Let it ride...

[–] Gore-Hound666 15 years ago

you're totally right dude.

owned the OP

[–] johnnytourettes 14 years ago

woops wrong place..

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Illyngophobia 15 years ago

There were two insidents where snuff has been possible or consitered possible. I may be wrong about some of this, so feel free to correct me if the details are off.

1. In London, a bar owner was killed by four teenagers. One of them said they were doing a documentary on "happy slapping". Three of them proceeded to kick and beat the man up,while the other recorded the attack on their cell phone. The guy was kicked and beaten,until he had his head kicked in and he died. According to the program (that featured the insident), if the teens charged their friends or people to see the video ; then they would have filled all the critira needed to define it as a snuff.

2. You are probably aware of the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs. If not, they were three teens from Ukraine who killed 40 people (and 1 cat) with screwdrivers,pipes and hammers and recorded their crimes on their phones. Starting to sound familer? If not,then you probably heard about the infamous "shock video", 3Guys1Hammer. (which showed the violent murder of Sergei Yatzenko) If the maniacs charged people to watch the videos on a site, or sold copies of the killings, this would be a snuff as well.

I'm not saying I seen a snuff. There could be one out there, but we just haven't found it yet. Special effects these days are getting better and better. And with this, it can be hard or impossible to seperate what's fake from what's real. (Cannibal Holocaust is one example of the effects)

"Life is pleasant.Death is peaceful.It's the transition that's troublesome." - Isaac Asimov

[–] Hazerdous 15 years ago

how do you know they dont? are you god? do you have an all seing eye? i think not -.-

"When life gives you lemons, say *beep* the lemons and bail" "

[–] Illyngophobia 15 years ago

So does the book only touch on movies like FOD and Guinea Pig and others that dealt with the idea of snuff? Or does it also touch on other things like the Leonard Lake & Charles Ng murders / M-Lady Tapes or internet "cases" of snuff?

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. - Ayn Rand

[–] Cowman 15 years ago

It has in-depth coverage of the type of stuff you are talking about, and if I remember correctly it goes into detail about the Lake/Ng murders and their trophy tapes. Not too much on the Internet stuff because the book was completed in '94 or '95 and there was only a handful of that sort of thing (compared to now, anyway) on the net at that time. They've been promising an updated version of the book that deals with the post-9/11 coverage of war and terrorist propaganda and the proliferation of Internet death footage, but it hasn't come out yet (they've been pushing back the release date since 2001). They might as well write a new book with all the death coverage and more extreme gore films since its initial release.

The book is divided into three parts: Feature film, mondo film, and death film (which is probably the chapter you'd be most interested in). They talk about a lot of cases I had never heard of and somehow even managed to get screen caps of them. Fascinating stuff.

It will probably end up as an e-book some day, or the Tracker 3/Dead Donkey/AV Maniacs crowd will make it themselves. I'd scan it myself if I had more time, because I think it's an important book, but it's sadly out of print (I think).

If I ever find it on the 'net I'll send you a link.

[–] Illyngophobia 15 years ago

Oh okay. :)

I wasn't sure when this was published.

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. - Ayn Rand

[–] Illyngophobia 11 years ago

Hey Cowman, not sure if you heard but David Kerekes did a revision of Killing for Culture sometime last year!

"I'll go,because I am Cinema!" - Ben (Man Bites Dog)