User Reviews

Any glutton who loves awful movies has sat through dozens of inherently unwatchable films in the hopes of finding the rare beast that is both completely un-viewable and completely awesome at the same time. While Snuff leans more ardently toward the former, the current DVD presentation of this film helps this deservedly obscure classic drift a bit toward the latter.

Let's clarify that this film wasn't intended to be passed off as an actual "snuff" film. If such a genre truly existed, which we won't debate here since we're clearly talking about a film that is NOT a "snuff" movie, chances are it would look a bit more like the footage hinted at in Mute Witness or 8mm than a carefully edited multi-camera affair with dubbed audio and generous arrays of stock Carnavale footage. If anyone ever truly believed that filmmakers murdered someone on camera and surrounded that footage with a pseudo-story about biker chicks who kill random people in surprisingly un-bloody ways, somehow found a way to bypass all of those dicey regulations concerning murder and its illegalites, and found a distributor to get a theatrical release for said footage... Seriously, no one did. I promise you.

Yes, this movie is tedious, far too long, and so ineptly made that I can not find a single reason to recommend it. To normal people, that is. However, if you actually know what this film is, and still have any interest in seeing it, then you kind of need to, because it is as wretched an example of film-making as you could ever hope to encounter. Scene after scene, it is a shining an example of crappy C-grade schlock. But, you know, some of us really love crappy C-grade schlock.

We don't want good dubbing, quality special effects, or actors who had heard of the phenomenon of "acting" before the cameras were turned on them. We aren't concerned with continuity, character development, or coherent story structure. We simply want to spend 80 minutes of our life watching something that vaguely resembles a film, yet ends up being an hour and twenty minute exercise in incredulity that forces us to question what's wrong with us for enjoying something that is clearly so un-enjoyable.

This film is a joke. And one would suspect that the film-makers knew this. Now, the reason that Snuff is awesome is that not only did a piece of unwatchable trash like this gain some level of infamy, but 30 years later, there is a reasonably intelligent person sitting at their computer typing this missive at 3:33 in the morning, and another one reading said missive because they have yet to view this film.

Ignore what you've heard about the grand guignol finale of this film, because it truly is a disturbing bit of nastiness. The fact that it follows such a laughably bad precursor is probably the point of this entire affair. And kudos to Blue Underground for presenting this film as they did, in a package without cover art, synopsis, or special features, which, contrary to the numerous criticisms of this I've read, captures this film perfectly. If you would really want a Criterion Collection pressing of Snuff, then you are clearly missing the point.

Fans of terrible movies won't find one much more primitive than this (although I'd also tip my hat to The Last Slumber Party). If that sounds appealing to you, then you will thoroughly enjoy Snuff. If not, I really have to question what you thought you were in store for when you popped in a non-existent-budget South American film from the '70s called "Snuff".

Do I recommend this? No, absolutely not. But do I own it and love the fact I own it? I kind of have to...

OK first of all, if you watch this movie because you are expecting a real snuff film (or at least a realistic looking fake), you will be greatly disappointed.

First of all, there's no record of an actual snuff film being made. The fact that there is a DVD of this film available should tell you right away there's no way that it could be real snuff. If snuff exists, it is an extremely well kept secret.

Second, the snuff scene is so fake that I can't believe that anyone actually believed that it was real. You can see exactly how the gore was faked, not to mention the fact that the actress is not very good.

If you watch this film, watch it for the movie preceeding the snuff scene. It is extremely poorly written, directed and acted, but it is so bad that it will make you laugh. My friend and I think that this movie should be called SATAN'S B*TCHES, because it's kinda like CHARLIE'S ANGELS, but the women are evil and their master is Satan (pronounced Suh-TAWN). Rent this one if you just want to see a funny 70s movie.

"Snuff" is actually a pretty notorious little film for propagating the snuff film myths.However it's also really bad,an amateurishly acted,written and dubbed Charlie Manson inspired story about a crazed hippy who controls pretty girls and makes them worship him and kill.The 5-minutes long pseudo-snuff segment added to the end of the film contains the sequence in which an actress in the movie is slashed,her fingers and hands chopped off and then disemboweled in unconvincing,prototypical Guinea Pig fashion.If you want to see the closest thing to snuff ever put on screen try to find Psychic TV's very graphic "First Transmission" video from 1982.

Notorious cult item that has to do with a Manson-like cult leader and his bevy of lovely women who do his bidding. They kill a bunch of people before finally targeting a pregnant actress and her rich boyfriend.

Aside from that main storyline, there's also a tacked on ending that was falsely advertised to have been real snuff footage. The gore doesn't even look realistic though, especially the snipping off of a finger. No question about it, this is a bad movie. It's also pretty aimless, and there's a ridiculously overlong parade scene that made me want to hit the fast-forward, though I resisted. There is admittedly some fun to be had, as much of the film is really cheesy with some elements that you can't help but laugh at, not the least of which is the dubbing. Other than the cheese, the only other thing I liked about this movie was the presence of cult actress/director Roberta Findlay as one of the cult followers. I've always had the hots for her, so seeing her here or in any other film is always a pleasure.

My praise for "Snuff" stops there, however. Most will flat-out hate it, and frankly, I can't blame them.

Well, here it is...the biggest hoax to be perpetrated on the (admittedly slow-draw) 42nd-Street crowd. When it was a mere out-of-print obscurity on VHS, there was a bit of intrigue into the 'authenticity' of "Snuff," but such claims are absolutely ludicrous (the transition to the alleged murder on film is too inept--and shot from too many different angles--to have any realistic basis). What we have here is a dull (and clearly foreign) spin off of the Manson massacre, ineptly edited, and dubbed by morons (a lone redeeming quality that eventually loses its ability to entertain); after being subjected to an hour or so of exposition and relationship ties among a famous starlet and her rich boyfriend, the film devolves into the ridiculous, out-of-nowhere murder sequence. Compared to other provocative, 18+ shockers of the time ("Cannibal Holocaust" comes to mind), "Snuff" is incredibly tepid in the realms of cheap, sleazy titillation and gruesome mutilation--the result is a film that might have been morally objectionable or sickening had the people behind the camera not been so damn daft.

"Snuff" is quite laughably bad. Lame acting, idiotic dialogue, terrible voice-overs, and poor picture quality (even for 1971) is strongly evident here. Bad movie buffs will undoubtedly like this one.

The movie begins with a cokehead next to a rusted-out train and chicks on motorcycles with a faux-Steppenwolf soundtrack (it sounds like the beginning of "Born to Be Wild") in the background that repeats ad nauseum and can be heard at various times throughout the film. From then on it is a violent war among drug dealers. There are many murder scenes involving knives, guns, and even jigsaws, all of which are poorly staged and very humorous. There was one particular scene where the biker chicks go to a local store and give the clerk quite a scare; you have to see the expression on his face when he says, "¡Dios mio!". The chicks then notice a car outside and, in a very silly manner, do away with the occupants.

The end is an obvious fabrication of a supposedly real mutilation of a woman, who is supposedly one of the actresses in the "film" that has lead up to this point. I might have been grossed out if it looked more real. The entire premise that this final killing scene is a behind-the-scenes pointless death experience of an actress that played in the film is completely ridiculous.

It may come as a surprise to learn that my DVD of "Snuff" is the most played disc in my collection. I must add that this isn't down to the film's playability. No, the reason why this DVD was played night after night was its amazing sleep-inducing properties. It took me at least 4 or 5 attempts to finally finish this movie. "Snuff" is as bad as the reviews say. In fact, it's worse.

Despite some interesting ingredients (a bevy of beautiful women, a seventies' soundtrack with an interesting Steppenwolf-like quality, a splattering of blood and gore, exotic settings, etc.), the film manages to be way beyond the realms of enjoyment.

The last 5 minutes that gave this film its notoriety can be caught on documentaries such as UK Channel 4's "The Dark Side of Porn - Does Snuff Exist?" Even if you're a completist, save your money. This film just isn't worth the outlay.

Dire. 1 out of 10.

So, at least some of this was supposed to be a 'real'. I did not know this when watching; rather it was advertised as the 'notorious' 70's shocker.

*ANYONE* who could believe any teeny-tiny bit of this @#!%$ is real should not only stay away from movies, but from TV in it's entirety, cartoons, theatre, works of fiction, the spoken word, others of the same species and especially the internet.

Had this more votes it would be ~23 in the IMDb bottom 100. You have been warned. For me, it's the worst movie I have EVER seen by some margin.

I would list what I did not like about this movie, but I'm limited to 1000 words. So instead, there follows what I did like:

There is NO SUCH THING AS A SNUFF FILM. In the history of law enforcement in the USA, Europe (Interpol) & Asia there has never, EVER been ONE SINGLE snuff film to turn up. And there have been a LOT of in depth investigations into the stories. Every single alleged snuff film that has turned up has been revealed as a fake. For a GREAT article documenting how the marketing for this sub grade Z cinematic turd turned into an urban legend, go to http://www.csicop.org. It is site for the magazine The Skeptical Inquirer. Type "Snuff Film" in the search field & you will come to the article which is an entertaining read as well as being fully & thoroughly researched with a LOT of footnotes.

"Snuff" (or "Slaughter" as it was originally known) is merely a footnote & an artifact of old fashioned expoitation film marketing. It is a bore & a big nothing as a film.

Talk about a great ad campaign! I remember being very young and seeing all the ads for "Snuff," and all the surrounding controversy, and said one day, I will be able to see this film somehow. So a number of years later, I managed to rent it (when joining a video club didn't mean you had to have a credit card and a driver's license) and finally view the big forbidden film. I knew it was gonna be a bad film, I just hoped it would be a "good" bad film, and it actually was.

The plot really isn't that bad, the movie is pretty interesting. I won't repeat the history of the movie (read other reviews for that) but the added-ending sequence, while interesting, actually was a letdown because I did think the actual story part of the movie wasn't so bad.

I haven't seen "Snuff" in a long time and maybe I'd hate it now, but I would pick this up on DVD if it ever came out in that format, with various extras and maybe a documentary surrounding all the hoopla and strategy during it's initial release. I even read that many if not all the "protesters" outside the theaters playing this film were rented by the theaters. It's a classic case of great marketing.

Man...haven't watched this one in a LLLLOOOONNNNGGGG time. Just rented it the other day for the hell of it - and my opinion of it now isn't much different than it was about 15 years ago when I first saw this mess.

Snuff is mostly made up of an Argentinian film called THE SLAUGHTER that got shelved (for good reason...). It's about a group of girls who kill people because a Charles Manson-ish cult-leader says so. At the end of this film is some fake tacked-on snuff footage that's "supposed" to look like the real thing - but it doesn't.

I have to agree with those that say that SNUFF is a historically relevant film if - if nothing else. One of the greatest marketing campaigns ever - taking a film no one cared about, throwing on some footage that probably cost under $100 to film, and re-releasing it as authentic snuff footage - and probably making a "killing" off of it. Granted, the end "snuff" footage is pretty gory and mean-spirited, but is OBVIOUSLY faked. How he pulled the girls "heart" out of her stomach is a feat of modern science. The SLAUGHTER film footage is a very dull and uninspired exploit-style film and doesn't hold up on its own merit. A few tits and some insanely cheesy over-dubbed dialog...and a great fake "Born To Be Wild" soundtrack...Worth a look to sleaze fans just to say you did...6/10 only for the semi-decent "snuff" footage at the end, and for the films overall status as a "classic" sleaze-fest...

As much as this movie is being disliked, I have to say that I somewhat enjoyed it. It has a certain charm, with its guerrilla style of film-making and its controversy also makes this more or less a must-see for the fans of the genre and also help to make this movie an original and unusual watch.

But it's not like the actual movie is being that controversial once you actually see it. The title is being somewhat misleading, since it has actually nothing at all to do with the phenomenon of snuff movies, until its very end. It's just a straight-forward horror flick, that features a lot of killings. It isn't until the very last minutes that the movie attempts to play on being a snuff film and with success, since lots of people notionally thought the killing at the end to be real, which of course resulted in the ban of this movie in most countries.

It's a very random movie though, in which lots of random stuff seems to happen. Most events and characters don't even seem to connect with each other, as if everyone was playing in a totally different movie on his or her own. It makes this movie and its story a bit of a mess but to me this also added to the charm these sort of extremely cheaply made horror movies from the '70's often have.

So yes, it's a very cheap movie but this means that the film-makers were also being forced to be very creative. This in some ways worked out better than others. It does work out well with its unusual and typical '70's camera-work, while the editing on the other hand is being laughable bad at times. Same goes for the dubbing, which sounds horrible and only makes the actor's performances in the movie seem even more horrible. Yes, you could say that this movie is being an amateur like made movie, with still a global reputation due to its controversy and its controversy alone.

So how bloody and graphic is this movie actual being? Well, not really all that much to be honest. Although some of the killings are gruesome, they are more so because they are all being pointless ones of innocent people. But the movie really isn't being that graphic. It's at least being more graphic with its nudity than with any of its blood or gore. And again, it isn't until the movie its very end that it suddenly becomes a really gory and graphic one. And I really liked its ending, even though it literally came out of nowhere. It got nicely done and I can see how back in its day it was considered to be something controversial, though in this present day and time there is very little groundbreaking or disturbing about it.

I still quite liked this 'bad' movie.

5/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Credit must be given to the people behind Snuff. They took a very poorly made biker-drug war movie, tacked a phony real murder of one of the actress and the rest is history. Much has been written about the Finleys and the history of this movie. Enjoy the first 85 or so minutes and look at it for what it is a low rent action/gore film, than prepare yourself for the mock snuff murder with finger chopping and intestine ripping! Watch it for the historical value only. For quality look elsewhere!

Designed to look like a snuff film, this is actually a South American movie, originally titled THE SLAUGHTER, about a drug-dealing Charles Manson type who enslaves pretty girls into his murderous harem. Really bad, but so obscure and weird in it's badness, it retains a certain power.

The directors tried to pass this off as an actual snuff movie by stitching an unrelated scene on at the very end where the film crew disembowels a young woman on the set. Even though it was all a hoax, the FX are impressive enough. And filmed with a hand-held camera, it certainly looks real. Although I've never really pulled a girl's intestines out, so I'm not really sure.

While light-years from being good, the motivations behind this film do make it memorable.

I'm torn here.

The phony marketing was up there with Cannibal Holocaust and Blair Witch but anyone who fell for it probably felt like a pinhead. I watched this just to see what the fuss was about. The ending scene was good but I don't see how anyone could believe it.

The plot was like all the other Manson style films. This new twist bought it some life. As a film it isn't bad really. Amateurish maybe.

The claim was that 'none of the actors or actresses were ever seen again.' A load of B.S. of course, but it roped the suckers in. (guilty) Even the DVD version has no menu. They're milking this for all they can.

"Snuff" essentially follows a bizarre cult of biker women who follow a male leader (fittingly named "Satan") around the South American countryside, killing whoever they feel like killing, and torturing the disobedient members. One of their targets includes a Hollywood actress in the area filming a movie.

One of many films whose notoriety preceded its actual merit, "Snuff" was ingeniously marketed in the 1970s, which led to its legendary status. The issue? It's just plain bad. The central narrative concerning the cult and the biker girls is clearly cribbed from the real-life Manson family killings (namely the horrendous murder of Sharon Tate), and the film feels like just as much of a bad trip.

The dubbing in the film is horrendous, but the performances here really don't help matters. A great deal of the film is laughable due to gaudy performances and dated special effects. The worst part of it all is that the film's most notable scene was not originally part of the film or the narrative at all— the evisceration of a woman on a bed while a film crew stands around recording— and its displacement in the film is felt. That said, it's inarguably the most technically impressive portion of the entire film, and the best acted by a mile. The only problem here is that it's not properly linked together with the narrative and thus comes across as what it is: an afterthought. A clever afterthought, sure, and probably the only reason this film was ever released to the world; but it quite obviously doesn't belong, and by the end of the whole thing, you're kind of just left scratching your head.

Overall, "Snuff" is one of the weaker exploitation films of its time, mainly due to disjointedness— it aimlessly plods along its biker cult narrative before derailing into a gruesome murder scene that has absolutely nothing to do with what has narratively preceded it. I can deal with the bad dialogue, and the bad dubbing, and the opulent '60s hippie aesthetics, but the lack of coherence makes it tough to even watch this as mindless entertainment. There are a few well done scenes and some gruesome gore (albeit clearly faked), but aside from that, there's not a lot going on here. 3/10.

Crappy movie that leads to the infamous "snuff" scene. However, after the poor actress looses her one of her left fingers, the final scene of her innards being removed clearly shows all fingers on the same hand intact. Come on. Even if the gore appears fake, at least get the details right. It is actually kind of fun watching movies like this and noting the inaccurate video illustrating the true fakeness of it all.

Besides that, the movie itself is quite funny without trying to be. Not to mention it is not in English, so the voice-over only ads to the enjoyment of it all. If you can watch it for free or downoad it, go for it. However, save your money for something more believable. The "Guinea Pig" series would be a better place to start than this.

1976 saw the theatrical release of notorious 'nasty' Snuff, a film that was proudly promoted by its enterprising distributor Allan Shackleton as depicting genuine footage of a woman being brutally butchered for the sake of entertainment. Although common sense dictated that the claim was pure hokum, cinema-goers still came flocking out of morbid curiosity.

What audiences saw was a forgettable 1971 exploitation flick originally titled The Slaughter, rounded off with a new, gory, movie-within-a-movie ending in which the cameras continue to roll as one of the actresses is murdered. Although exposed as a hoax soon after its release, rumours about the authenticity of the film's final scene persisted, guaranteeing the film the notoriety its makers were banking on; the banning of the video in the UK during the 80s 'video nasty' campaign later served to heighten its already legendary status.

Given its unusual heritage and reputation, this pioneer of the 'faux snuff'/found footage genre is interesting viewing for all serious horror fans, but those who decide to watch the film in its entirety, rather than skipping straight to the 'good stuff' at the end, be warned: the going is hard at times... The Slaughter didn't sit on the shelf gathering dust for five years for no good reason!

Viewers opting for the full Snuff experience are faced with 70 or so minutes of cheap, Charlie Manson-inspired nonsense about an evil cult leader, appropriately named Satan, and his all-female hippy biker acolytes, who plot to murder the unborn child of an aspiring actress as part of a ritual (at least that's what I think it is about—it's all very disjointed).

This trashy, tasteless (at times being a little too similar to the Tate/LaBianca murders for comfort), and sometimes unintentionally funny garbage comes complete with really bad dubbing, terrible dialogue (Pig! Filthiest of all animals! I will cut your heart from your body and feed it to the dogs!), the dreadful use of stock footage in a futile effort to convince viewers that certain scenes are taking place at a carnival, a couple of poorly executed stabbings and shootings, and plenty of boobs, before finally arriving at the infamous murder, in all of its finger snipping, hand slicing, intestine yanking glory.

I rate this film 3 out of 10 for everything leading up to end, and 6 out of 10 for the mean-spirited snuff stuff—an average of 4.5, which I will round up to 5 for IMDb.

Snuff is almost exclusively remembered for it's shocking death scene at the end - and there's a good reason for that, namely that the rest of the movie is terrible. In fact, terrible is an understatement - the acting is literally the worst I've ever seen, and while I realise that this is a low budget exploitation flick, so bad acting comes as standard - the fact that it's extremely boring doesn't exactly help matters. The plot, if you can even call it that, basically just sees a bunch of girls going around murdering people in various ways. I actually like seeing gore in movies, but there has to be a point for it to work; and a point is something that this rubbish film definitely doesn't have. The makers would probably say it's some sort of commentary on violence in movies - but if you believe that, you'd believe anything. Moving swiftly on to the ending, then.... and yes, it does do what it says on the tin. I've seen a lot of violent movies, and have built up something of a resistance to it; but the ending here genuinely is shocking. Of course, it's always obvious that it isn't actually real; but the double bluff before hand, and then the overly graphic violence do ensure that the scene has some sort of power. I really can't recommend this movie, but if you really must see it for the ending, just fast-forward it to ten minutes before the end. You'll get the point and wont have to suffer the rest of the film.

This film is so bad, it's almost good. This film is certainly more famous for the huge controversy that it inspired (apparently the fuss was mostly an intentional publicity gimmick) than for anything actually in the movie. "Snuff" did not create the famous urban legend of "snuff movies" (films wherein someone is murdered on camera for the sake of the film) but it certainly helped popularise them. Despite extensive investigation, there has apparently never been any evidence that "snuff movies" are real, and "Snuff" is so bad it's hard to believe anyone being convinced by it!

"Snuff" started life as a film called "Slaughter" which was supposed to be too bad to release so the distributors re-cut it and added the infamous "snuff movie" scene. Basically the film is a loose re-telling of the Charles Manson murders. A gang of young female hippies under the leadership of a hippie cult-leader with hypnotic powers, target a young actress and her annoying boyfriend.

The acting is terrible and the dubbing is atrocious (in one truly bizarre scene a character is supposed to be twelve but the actress is obviously in her twenties and is dubbed by a man putting on a high voice!) It's not nearly as violent as you may have heard, and what gore there is is pretty unconvincing. All the characters are also just so annoying!

"Snuff" is, of course, in the worst possible taste, but neither fun enough, or gory enough, to be a real guilty pleasure.