Something Snuffy in the World by Pedro F Marcelino and Ana Maria Marcelino

It was a normal night for me: one of insomnia. Sitting in front of my desk at 3 am, I finally deemed it necessary to close my laptop and force myself into bed. One hour later, still awake, I got up, sheepishly walked to the couch, turned the TV on and zapped away. Karla Homolka had been released from jail only a few weeks before, and that is perhaps why, in a show of sheer bad taste, one of the cable channels was showing this movie. I should have turned the television set off, or else zapped away, but I did not. In an act of typically human morbid curiosity, I watched scene after scene and could not believe my eyes, or my own thoughts for the matter. In front of me, supposedly, was a snuff film .

Let us make clear though, at this stage, that it was not a snuff film, and that I do not recall the title (thankfully). In innocent naïveté, snuff was totally unbeknown to me. So there I was, staring at the screen, scared that it might actually be true, that human minds could actually come up with something so horrible, so sordid, so cruel.

A snuff film, as defined in Wikipedia.com (which is only as reliable as you deem it), “is a film, sometimes pornographic, that allegedly depicts actual murder, produced for entertainment purposes.” Put this way, if you are one reader who ignored this social phenomenon as I did back then, you are now probably shocked.

Despite the late hour, after the movie was over I felt the need to sit down and search the web for explanations. There were thousands of them, and it is not easy to make sense of so much contradictory information. It appears to be that snuff is one of those above-the-average urban legends, that clanged to the western social tissue. Every time someone writes about it, the snowball grows bigger, wider, denser. So, should I even be writing this article? In fact, I have had it on file ever since, in the depths of all my most obscure web searches. Perhaps to redeem myself of some guilt, I invited my sister to contribute to this review with pathological approach. Perhaps it will finally result in something that makes sense of it all. The existence of snuff films is dubious. Skeptics relegate them to the realms of urban legend or moral panic. On the web, thousands of people will claim they exist. Yet, no one has seen one. Well, actually, a few weirdos claim to have seen actual footage of murder – but you will equally find others claiming the same footage is fake. Truth is, with legend so tightly interwoven with reality, and a certain conspiracy theory out there, it is difficult for any rational human being to swear that snuff movies do not exist. It is not unconceivable that something like the snuff film ring does not exist. Yes, snuff, some claim, must include profit, i.e., raping/murdering someone on tape, with the clear purpose of selling it to a few selected sickos. Well, what with the number of international pedophilia networks cracked on, with children kidnapped and raped on camera, it cannot be hard to believe some human beings would go the extra mile (it is ghastly that I use the term human). Other people claim that, if they exist at all, the mere act of a serial killer putting such a thing on tape, regardless of his reasons, would be snuff. As Mitch Walrath once wrote: If snuff films aren’t real, we might never know the limits of the human mind. Even if they are real, we might never know.

Which brings us back to Karla Homolka. Together with her partner, Paul Bernardo, she kidnapped and used as sex slaves two teenage girls, only to do the same to her own younger sister later on. All were murdered. Homolka videotaped Bernardo raping the girls at knife point, while strapped and blindfolded, and urinating and defecating in one of them (which sends us back to Pier Paolo Pasolini, although not even him could have come up with snuff bizarries). The actual murders were not videotaped, despite the claims of some sensationalist press. In court, however, this disturbing footage was not shown (only audio). Bernardo was convicted to life in prison, whereas Homolka got 12 years in 1993. Amidst a movement of protest in Ontario, she is now living somewhere secret in Quebec, away from the media circus, but close to someone else’s children.

In 1989, the FBI arrested two men in Virginia, after they advertised on a message board their desire to kidnap a young boy (any boy), molest him and murder him, thus creating an actual pornographic snuff film (for sale). Although they have not actually committed a crime, and claimed they would not, both were convicted to over 30 years in jail. So, although the authorities reject that snuff exists, there are things out there, suggesting it otherwise. Maybe it is not the big wicked organization of the legends (as portrayed most recently in 8 mm with Nicholas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix and James Gandolfini), but I would not overrule it altogether.

In Italy, twice were paedophilia networks found, the last of which with international connections – in particular to Russia - where the ghost of snuff loomed over the investigation. With no evidence. In Germany, very recently, a man announced on a sexual web forum that he was searching someone who would eat him – literally. His perversion not much stranger than anyone else’s, it was shocking, however, that he found the man to do it (no video available). It is a global phenomenon, albeit not proved, with clear roots in developed countries and the socio-cultural vacuum that appeared in some of them.

Proved snuff does exist, however, with animals. As recently as 1998, Scottish police officers arrested a man who was distributing movies with women killing small animals such as frogs or mice. Wearing close to nothing, they would crush the animals under their high heels. British authorities admit such movies are available. As far as I am concerned, this is bad enough, and it is quite scary to think that someone actually pays to watch such a miserable show. Having said that, a famous “snuff” film, Cannibal Holocaust, was proved fake, with the exception of the animals, in fact killed on screen in a bloody manner. The movie is forbidden in many countries.

In fact, the legend lives mostly on implication, inference and innuendo . Hear-say, now made easier by the Internet, seems to be how the legend spreads. Regardless of any announcements that snuff does not exist and that not a single movie was found in over 30 years, collective panic is set, and suburban ecstasy seekers refuse simply to believe that version. The authorities, however, are vague. In L.A., actor and director Charlie Sheen once denounced one movie that got to his hands, and that he truly believed to be actual snuff. Flower of Flesh and Blood, of the Guinea Pig series, later proved to be another fake. Al Goldstein, owner of Screw Magazine, has offered $1 million to the person who comes up with a snuff film made for profit. No one has claimed the prize – in fact, should anyone find such film, would it actually be legal, let alone moral, to claim it? Or should the finder alert the police immediately?

Transformed in group hysteria, the snuff hoax keeps bringing money (and certainly inspired the philosophy of Blair Witch Project and other make-believe movies), amidst the media hype that grows in cycles. Truth be said, the whole cult probably started with the movie Snuff, released in 1975. Most likely, it all started then… in fiction. Although fiction based on true facts. Then it gets confuse, and the profusion of crossed references works like a Chinese box. It is hard, if not impossible, to know what started what.

On the web, discussion forums run wild. A selection:

“Who cares if it’s real or not? Snuff films are meant to be disturbing if they’re real or not! Most of the time they’re fake, but occasionally some are real, these are really rare cases though.” (here is someone who knows them, but has not called the police).

“Right, will someone help me out here? I’m 16 years old and I want to know what goes on the world. I just don't get it. WHY would you want to own a video of an innocent person being tortured and then killed? That HAS to be a stage worse than paedophilia, it must be. People must be criminally INSANE!? Why are these sites not publicized at shut down? It’s sick and wrong. Can someone tell me what is going on please?” (the confused teen).

“Lots of people visit this page. Hopefully some of them are capable of forming sane judgments.” (the sceptical).

I do not know what to believe. I know for a fact that there is a lot of evil out there, and some types normal people can’t even conceive. And that it is sick that such movies are searched on the web, and that close enough images are available on the web, starting with official decapitations, such as David Pearl’s and Kim-Il Sung’s (that do not qualify as snuff). Recently, rumours of a snuff circle in South East Asia, with connections to affluent countries such as Japan, US and Europe started to swarm the cyberspace. Likely, more smoke, no fire. It is hard to accept snuff is real. Yet, it is not unconceivable: the human kind as a group, and the worse individuals among it, have created far worse things in centuries of real history.

Summed up, one site I read said: “Fear of a thriving snuff film industry is what drives this popular myth. As a society, we're not all that concerned with the concept of serial killers walking among us, killing here and there. Clearly, they won't come after us. (…) However, we do fear the notion of a "murder as a business" set-up because that takes the slavering maniac right out of the picture and in his place substitutes the Reasonable Man Out To Make a Buck. Victims of such a scheme could be undeserving (innocent) -- this could happen to us! And it is on the back of this fear belief in the myth rides in on. We fear not the killers among us, but the businessmen.”

An analysis of this phenomenon should however still take into account two perspectives, respectively related to those who produce and take part in the films, and to those who watch and purchase them:

When thinking about snuff films, the first question that comes to mind is whether it is possible they are real. But perhaps we are not posing the right question: is the mind involved on the making of these films a “normal” mind? The answer may not be definitive, as there aren’t concrete enough studies to support any thesis. It would be possible to point out a few characteristics that suggest psychopathy, such as the quest for total control by subduing the other, or by inflicting pain to the limit. Or we could rave about sadistic sexual perversions that associate the enjoyment of sexual pleasure to suffering, cruelty and humiliation. One way or another, there seems to be a deviating behaviour that allows the enjoyment of pleasure or the seizing of benefits through extreme violence. The largest of these benefits could be the recognition, within restricted circles, and a reasonable fame that creates a slice of world for someone who was always unable to live up to the standards demanded by society. If the film is recognized, and because “fame” is addcitive, the logical next step would be to create new snuffs, more extreme, more intense, ever more violent, disturbing and ambiguous, hence furthering the perpetuation of this urban legend. The legend does not live from reality, but from the constructions that individuals make of it. Likewise, the “stage directors” of these plays feed on their own beliefs, and those of others, on this film style and on the social consequences that it could permit. What’s more, they are moved by the pleasure of violence proper, of staging or of perpetration of the crime by this character that they will never be in real life. If something absolutely condemnable is done, they may actually obtain some of the attention and visibility missing in their lives.

But one question remains: where is the limit? If human aggressivity can be increased by visual violence, would it be the one detail that conducts to the extreme point of wanting to do or see “the real thing”? When does the desire for entertainment ceasses to make place for the yearning for pure, realistic violence?

In fact, individuals that feel impotent in face of events on their lives, or marginalized by society are more easily seduced by this genre that offers a wider perception of control. Also violent individuals tend to appreciate violent films that further or justify their acts. The obsession with violence can reach the point of wanting to see someone actually being murdered in a barbaric manner. This morbid curiosity on its own cannot justify the acquisition and continuous visualization of this type of material – people accommodate to this style and no longer want to get loose, needing increasing doses of violence to obtain the shock and the emotion of pleasure...one sreen away…

I am not certain that snuff films can be associated with a deviation on morality or in the social behaviour patterns. What is a deviation in one context is normality in another. One thing I am certain of: we want more and we show more that that we least have – power, control, security, tranquility … And the means we use are at times distorted and even destructive, evidencing our strategies of adaptation as human beings.

In an article of 1999, Anne P. Dupre wrote: We may be enticed by violence on film because we are so afraid of it in life. We can sit in a theater, enjoy the violent scene on the screen from a distance, and then go home – we hope – to safety.