Snuff on DVD



Here’s a good example of being too clever for your own good.

A couple years back the infamous movie Snuff (1976) was released on DVD. The cover was made to look like a plain paper wrapper, with no marks identifying a company. The movie itself is presented with no menus, no chapter stops, no nothing. You just put it in the DVD and it plays until you stop it, and that’s it. In other words the distributor (Blue Underground, only given away by the part number starting “BU” on the spine) did everything possible to make it look like a bootleg release.

On one hand, I can appreciate the joke here. In order to create the impression that Snuff might actually be a snuff film (it isn’t, of course) you have to release it with no credits or extras. On the other hand, it’s been a long time since anyone really thought Snuff portrayed a real murder, and it’s long overdue for someone to tell the story of how such a stupid little film became so infamous and created an enduring urban legend. Most people take it for granted that there really is a market for snuff films and a whole industry exists that creates them, and Snuff is responsible for, if not creating the legend, at least crystallizing it. I think Blue Underground really missed an opportunity to create a really interesting context for the film on the DVD with a documentary and maybe some interviews. You can read an interesting story about how Snuff fits in with the creation of the snuff film myth here, and you can read an interview with someone peripherally involved in the making of Snuff here.

Posted: Sun - January 22, 2006 at      

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