Grindhouse Fest: Snuff (1976)

-Grindhouse Fest is the special section in Celluloid Dimension where you can discover all the goodies from the golden age of exploitation cinema. Have fun!

(NO RATING)

Snuff (1976) Directed by Michael Findlay, Horacio Fredriksson and Simon Nuchtern

“The bloodiest thing that ever happened in front of the camera! The movie that could only be made in South America… where life is cheap”. The glaringly offensive tagline of the most egregious of the films that had the dishonor of appearing on the inglorious list of Video Nasties during the 1980s video panic doesn’t live up to the repulsive amateur imagery of its content, nor is it as impressive as its prosperous publicity campaign strategies. And yet, Snuff sparked the repudiation of the most snobbish critics, the scorn of the most squeamish audiences, and provoked enough curiosity from none other than the FBI to initiate an investigation into the events filmed in the movie.

Snuff is the movie that outraged fevered feminists and raised protests – some staged, some genuine – outside movie theaters to thwart its screening. Considering the epic, inflammatory brouhaha that a pulp exploitation movie caused in American theaters in the 1970s, you’d think that actually watching this movie would be something serious and compelling; I’m sorry to disappoint you because it’s not. In itself, this exploitative product and its persevering provocation are not as thrilling as its contextual scandal was, nevertheless it is an essential piece of American exploitation cinema that has the singular capacity to engender a valid ontological discussion about its audacity, its extraordinary profitability and its staggering sociocultural impact on cinema.

When talking about ultra-low budget exploitation pictures in the 60’s and 70’s, the accomplished filmmaking duo of the infamous “roughies” Michael and Roberta Findlay were the most prominent names in New York underground cinema at the time. Not very gifted with the camera, but superb film marketeers. Their films were mediocre but successful in the Grindhouse theaters, where the most unabashed and insatiable audiences went in pursuit of the “roughie” experience. If one of those films featured the name Michael and Roberta Findlay it was synonymous with a great dirty time at the movies. But it was undoubtedly Snuff – aside from their Flesh trilogy – that brought them to major media attention in the mainstream world, far from the underground community. Made during the so-called snuff film scandal, on a shoestring budget, the pair of filmmakers ventured into South America to make a kind of gory, Charles Manson-style melodrama.

Originally, the film was titled Slaughter; but then as a publicity stunt to capitalize on the urban legend panic of snuff films tenaciously hounded by the FBI, they titled it Snuff. The plot is sheer schlocky routine with a dash of soap opera sensibilities. Satan, Snuff’s Charles Manson, is a deranged preacher with airs of a divine visionary who persuades a group of beautiful women to murder a pregnant actress – loosely based on the 1969 murders. Despite the inherent ugliness in its anti-aesthetic cinematography and goofy performances, believe it or not, the film has rhythm, it has a structure – albeit a messy one – and it suggests with enough insolence that it is at least trying to tell a story. However, nothing is memorable, only annoying and sometimes amusing when it succumbs to the hilarity of violence, sex, drugs and rock n roll. Let’s just say that the film itself is more of a sexploitation film than a horror film.

The segment that triggered all the socio-cultural and judicial turmoil was the last grotesque footage, which was not directed by Michael or Roberta Findlay. This section is the one that lives up to its title and is the unequivocal reason for the scandal that was unleashed on American society. This notorious final section was directed by Simon Nuchtern, an independent filmmaker from New York. The scene that attempts to replicate a snuff film is totally disassociated with Findlay’s film; it is shot in a different temporal space and spatial plane. The only thing that ties the pieces together is a cinematic meta-construction, in which Findlay’s film is supposed to have been a film within a film all along. The scene filmed by Simon Nuchtern occurs when this shooting “ends”. Next, one of the crew members starts seducing a girl behind the scenes and subjects her to a nauseating and bloody torture to death, while the film crew eagerly and voyeuristically shoots the ghastly affair. The intention of this abrupt sequence filmed in the porn studio of Carter Stevens was to create all that aura of mythical skepticism in the perplexed audience, who fell into the advertising trap of believing that they are actually witnessing a murder on camera. Snuff is one of those movies where the exciting and interesting things happen behind the camera, never in front of it. In the end its publicity scheme turned out to be one of the most profitable marketing gimmicks of all time – the cunning plan of The Blair Witch Project in 1999 is another of the most impressive in the history of cinema.

It’s the film that defies all criteria for critical rating, so I refuse to give it a rating; not necessarily because I don’t believe it warrants any rating, on the contrary, I simply find it impossible to determine how to evaluate it. I admire it perhaps too much, in particular I celebrate its boldness in being the first film to attempt to deconstruct the nature of exploitation cinema -that morbid final sequence I’m sure is meant to convey something more than mere provocation. The gross-out effects are not very convincing, much less by contemporary standards, but it’s not the grotesque imagery that makes it unsettling, it’s the act itself, the straightforwardly twisted, voyeuristic and pathological action that transforms that uncomfortably sadistic climax into one of the most sickening slices of exploitation filmmaking.