Review of Snuff

Snuff (1975)
Unintentionally Hilarious at Times
11 May 2004
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.
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