The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Snuff Movies are films that supposedly depict the murder of other people. There is the persistent belief in the existence of an underground where such films are produced and distributed. This is in contrast to real world law enforcement agencies who have failed to produce a single example of a non-faked snuff movie.
Fictional depictions of Snuff Movies recur on screens with portrayals of criminal undergrounds where the torture and murder of people is regularly filmed and sold on black markets. Horror films depict people being abducted as participants or of Psychos and Serial Killers who like to make such films.
In more recent years, the idea of the snuff internet site has taken off where the murder of people is screened or live-streamed.
Extraordinary Found Footage film from Shane Ryan shot from the viewpoint of a killer as he seduces and kills a girl. A quasi-pornographic film that makes us question our own complicity in what we are watching
Sequel to Shane Ryan’s disturbing snuff Found Footage film. This works with the same effectiveness as the original, where the videography is transformed via a dreamily beautiful series of experiments with editing and colour
The first two of these films did ingenious things but now the inspiration is showing through and these films are starting to seem more like a personal fantasy on the director’s part
Actor Wings Hauser directs and stars in a film in which he plays a detective pursuing a killer who is luring teenage runaways into making snuff films
The directorial debut of Zach Cregger that received great word-of-mouth. A film that shifts points-of-views to tell the story of people discovering a horrible secret in the basement of an AirBNB
A comedy about two wannabe brothers who try to enter a horror movie competition by making their own snuff movie, only for everything to start going wrong
Italian horror film that comes with many homages to classic horror films, wound together in a Folk Horror plot that satisfyingly delivers the goods
Japanese director Shusuke Kaneko turns his attention to the pyrokinesis theme. Thanks to Kaneko’s expertise with effects, this becomes the best film on the firestarter theme yet
Low-budget horror film in which a novice actress signs on to star in a low-budget slasher film only to find the director appears to be killing off people for real
A film about a snuff site that broadcasts a torture gameshow live on the web. This is a thriller that feels as though made by people who know nothing about the internet or law enforcement procedure
This exploits the topical fascination with the darknet in a story ostensibly about making snuff videos for sale there. In actuality, this telescopes down to being no more a variant on The Most Dangerous Game
Corporate thriller in which Connie Nielsen discovers an underground of snuff S&M. This develops a compulsive hold but its pullback to kneejerk moralism is dissatisfying
Unfriended gained attention as a horror film that took place across social media where the computer screen became the video screen. It was done first in The Den about a snuff internet site that stalks people who innocently log in
This seeks to be another Se7en, adapting a script by Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker and employing the same visual style in the story of Nicolas Cage delving into a seedy underworld in search of a snuff movie.
Internet horror film that rehashes Ring with a haunted website instead of a tv broadcast. This suffers from a muddled concept where it is not at all clear what is happening.
An Australian thriller about a girl who takes an editing job because she needs the money only to realise that what she is asked to work on are snuff movies. The film follows her descent into a dark and disturbed state of mind
Matthew Bright’s even better sequel to Freeway where he conducts an outrageous and quite brilliant modernisation of Hansel and Gretel now recast with two juvenile delinquents on the run
A really good, unrecognised early Found Footage film, supposedly a series of videotapes that chronicle the activities of a serial killer. A film that takes us inside an incredibly disturbed headspace
Aramis Sartorio (aka porn actor Tommy Pistol) directs/stars in this anthology, a trio of Hollywood horror tales where everything is aimed at the farcical bad taste level of a Troma film
Solidly effective Belgian film about a woman fleeing through the woods from a killer who wants to make snuff movies. One of several films about people hunted in the woods to come out around the same time
The second film from Indonesia’s Mo Brothers follows the internet friendship between a serial killer and another he decides to mentor in the ways of killing. The Mo’s take to the material with a dark relish
VHS era martial arts film with Loren Avedon as a US detective who is sent undercover to infiltrate the kickboxing tournaments held in Thailand by snuff movie-makers
A work of exploitation notoriety about snuff movies. Seen in heavily cut and edited forms, the film holds an undeniably sordid and nasty charge but mostly comes across as amateurish
Overshadowed by the much more controversial A Serbian Film, a similar Serbian film about the world of snuff movie-making. This is more character-driven although is no less shocking in its own way
A horror film about the screening of a lost horror film whose director is reputed to have killed people for real. Now the killer emerges from the screen to slaughter the attendees in the theatre
A gripping directorial debut for Anthony Waller where a mute assistant on a film set in Moscow witnesses the shooting of a snuff film and is targeted by the Russian underworld
One of the best of several horror films that came out immediately following the advent of the reality tv show in the early 2000s. Director Marc Evans creates a sense of clammy claustrophobia.
Slasher film where a girl is hired as a housekeeper in a remote location only to find she is being stalked by a masked killer and forced to survive with her bare hands. Two sequels followed.
The Backwoods Brutality film given an LGBT spin where a lesbian couple run afoul of backwoods rednecks
Possibly the most extreme film ever made, a venture into the underground of Serbain snuff filmmaking. A film that holds back from breaking no taboo and ventures into exceedingly disturbing places
Ignore the bad reviews, this is a film that is determined not to take itself seriously and keeps piling on the absurdities until it enters into the realm of the entertainingly preposterous
Sequel to the modest He Never Died with Henry Rollins as an immortal. Women get equal time here in a ferocious performance from Olunike Adeliyi that quite takes you aback
Not to be confused with the Stephen King story collection, this is about a film crew shooting a film in an abandoned asylum about murders conducted there who discover a trove of snuff movies whereupon the director becomes obsessed with recreating them
Arguably the world’s first Found Footage film, this gained a notoriety by conducting a scam that tried to sell it as a real snuff movie
Unfriended had a unique novelty approach – everything took place in one take where the film screen was a computer screen. You wonder what a sequel can add to this. The surprise is that we get a film even better than the original
Gregory Hoblit has proven a fine director but this film about a site showing murders live on the internet feels like an hysterical rant about the dangers of the internet masquerading as a thriller
A reasonable film clearly influenced by Hostel with Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as a married couple who sign into a backroads motel used to shoot snuff movies
Passable sequel (or rather prequel) to the remote motel snuff movie thriller Vacancy. Even though a throwaway effort, it manages to build an okay head of steam
The popular V/H/S series, an anthology of Found Footage horror tales, is revived for a fourth entry