In 1971 husband and wife duo Michael and Roberta Findlay went to Argentina to exploit recent Hollywood horror. The Tate/LaBianca killings committed by the Manson family were still sending shivers down the spine of Tinseltown and they wanted to cash in so decided to make a film called Slaughter about a pregnant actress called Terry and her producer scouting locations in South America when they run afoul of a cult ran by a man called Satán. Well I say cult when I mean cast offs from a Russ Meyer flick being under the spell of the worst actor in the world. It's a painfully dull affair (although it's Spanish guitar soundtrack is actually nice) laced with horrible dubbing and punctuated with a ketchupy killing every 10 minutes or so. It's a nonsensical story that would try the patience of a saint and it seems the Findlays thought so too with the film being left unfinished to rot on a shelf.
Then in the mid 70's rumours began to leak out of South America about real life murders being filmed and sold to collectors who called them snuff films. No one knew if this was true and the only people who had seen them were friends of friends of acquaintances. Truth mattered not a jot to the man who produced Slaughter, Allan Shackleton, and a plan began to form in his head. A plan involving a 70 minute long unfinished film taking up shelf space. Slaughter was dug out, a new ending was filmed and the movie was released under a new name - Snuff.
All hell broke loose.
Slaughter, like the infamous killings it was based on, ended with a massacre. It's final shot was of Terry, about to be stabbed in bed, just like Sharon Tate had been 6 years before. But then the film cuts, we're in a film studio, the woman in bed is an actress, she's surrounded by a film crew. One of the crew, a woman is approached by another crew member, her boyfriend. He talks her into a kiss and a cuddle which she's uncomfortable about as the crew is still around but she acquiesces. Then she notices she's being filmed and starts to panic. Things get worse when she's held down by others and her fella stabs her in the shoulder. Then her finger gets snipped off. An electric saw appears and her right hand is cut off. Finally she's disembowelled and the film ends as her internal organs are pulled out and held aloft.
It's not real of course. It doesn't look remotely real. It's patently obvious it's a shock ending designed to look like someone has been murdered on camera. But Shackleton had a plan. He hired protestors to picket cinemas showing the film. It worked. Crowds flocked to see what all the controversy was about. Then it worked too well. Real protestors starting really picketing cinemas showing it. Cinemas in California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota were shut down by city officials. Protestors were arrested for causing criminal damage to cinemas. Owners were prosecuted for displaying obscene films. The Attorney General of New York state got involved and thankfully it was here the hoax was uncovered. But no matter, the film had made it's name.
A name that travelled across the pond. There was no way this was going to be shown in British cinemas. A release wasn't even attempted. When home video came to town in the early 80's a distributor called Astra had an official release set up but cancelled at the last minute. Bootleg copies from Europe flooded the unregulated market and the alarm went off at BBFC headquarters on Soho Square. It was the time of the Video Nasty and Snuff may as well have had a bullseye on it. In 1983 it was prosecuted for obscenity and took it's place on the Director of Public Prosecutions infamous list of 39 banned films. Even though it was a godawful piece of shit every horror fan had to see it and it's stature grew ever more. In 2003 it was offered up to the BBFC again for classification and this time it's shoddiness was apparent to all and it was given an uncut release. But for some strange reason it never got released. Maybe people realised a legal release took away all it's power? To quote The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - "When the legend becomes fact...print the legend."
Did it deserve it's place on the nasty list? Questionable, the icky aspects of the nasties are absent here but that ending, even with it's dire special effects was never getting past the censors back then.
Is it worth a watch? No. Don't. Really don't. Watch number 36 on the nasties list instead.
What is 36? It's Tenebrae and I cannot wait to rewatch this horror classic.
Edit - Shit. Tenebrae is number 37. 36 is SS Experiment Camp. More shite to wade through. Waaaahhh.
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