1976 saw the theatrical release of notorious 'nasty' Snuff, a film that was proudly promoted by its enterprising distributor Allan Shackleton as depicting genuine footage of a woman being brutally butchered for the sake of entertainment. Although common sense dictated that the claim was pure hokum, cinema-goers still came flocking out of morbid curiosity.What audiences saw was a forgettable 1971 exploitation flick originally titled The Slaughter, rounded off with a new, gory, movie-within-a-movie ending in which the cameras continue to roll as one of the actresses is murdered. Although exposed as a hoax soon after its release, rumours about the authenticity of the film's final scene persisted, guaranteeing the film the notoriety its makers were banking on; the banning of the video in the UK during the 80s 'video nasty' campaign later served to heighten its already legendary status.Given its unusual heritage and reputation, this pioneer of the 'faux snuff'/found footage genre is interesting viewing for all serious horror fans, but those who decide to watch the film in its entirety, rather than skipping straight to the 'good stuff' at the end, be warned: the going is hard at times... The Slaughter didn't sit on the shelf gathering dust for five years for no good reason!Viewers opting for the full Snuff experience are faced with 70 or so minutes of cheap, Charlie Manson-inspired nonsense about an evil cult leader, appropriately named Satan, and his all-female hippy biker acolytes, who plot to murder the unborn child of an aspiring actress as part of a ritual (at least that's what I think it is about—it's all very disjointed).This trashy, tasteless (at times being a little too similar to the Tate/LaBianca murders for comfort), and sometimes unintentionally funny garbage comes complete with really bad dubbing, terrible dialogue (Pig! Filthiest of all animals! I will cut your heart from your body and feed it to the dogs!), the dreadful use of stock footage in a futile effort to convince viewers that certain scenes are taking place at a carnival, a couple of poorly executed stabbings and shootings, and plenty of boobs, before finally arriving at the infamous murder, in all of its finger snipping, hand slicing, intestine yanking glory.I rate this film 3 out of 10 for everything leading up to end, and 6 out of 10 for the mean-spirited snuff stuff—an average of 4.5, which I will round up to 5 for IMDb.

I vaguely remember the outrage over this one, but finally seeing it years later, I'll embarrassingly admit it was kinda fun. The real movie is a pretty disjointed Manson cult movie called "Slaughter" with a gang of pretty girls who worship a dude named Satan (suh-TAHN). He makes them kill for drugs and money. The gang of hotties is pretty brutal to a girl named Ann. An American actress comes to Brazil to make a movie, takes a lover and gets pregnant. Satan says the child is supposed to be a sacrifice, and from there on out, nothing makes a lot of sense, but we do get some shots of Carnival. But you don't care about the real movie. What brings you to rent the infamous "Snuff" is, well, the infamous snuff sequence. SPOILERS FOLLOW As the main movie ends, the camera pulls back to reveal a film crew. A guy and a girl are making out on a bed and it turns out it's a snuff film! Her arm is cut, a finger is chopped of with pliers, her other hand is cut off with a ripsaw - wholesome stuff. Then she's cut open and her guts are played with for a while. The screen goes blank and you can hear the crew talk about how they ran out of film. How conveeenient. It's not very well done, or even all that shocking. In fact, all the tacked on snuff sequence did was make me want to see all of "Slaughter." But you live and learn.

"Snuff" is actually a pretty notorious little film for propagating the snuff film myths.However it's also really bad,an amateurishly acted,written and dubbed Charlie Manson inspired story about a crazed hippy who controls pretty girls and makes them worship him and kill.The 5-minutes long pseudo-snuff segment added to the end of the film contains the sequence in which an actress in the movie is slashed,her fingers and hands chopped off and then disemboweled in unconvincing,prototypical Guinea Pig fashion.If you want to see the closest thing to snuff ever put on screen try to find Psychic TV's very graphic "First Transmission" video from 1982.

It may come as a surprise to learn that my DVD of "Snuff" is the most played disc in my collection. I must add that this isn't down to the film's playability. No, the reason why this DVD was played night after night was its amazing sleep-inducing properties. It took me at least 4 or 5 attempts to finally finish this movie. "Snuff" is as bad as the reviews say. In fact, it's worse.Despite some interesting ingredients (a bevy of beautiful women, a seventies' soundtrack with an interesting Steppenwolf-like quality, a splattering of blood and gore, exotic settings, etc.), the film manages to be way beyond the realms of enjoyment.The last 5 minutes that gave this film its notoriety can be caught on documentaries such as UK Channel 4's "The Dark Side of Porn - Does Snuff Exist?" Even if you're a completist, save your money. This film just isn't worth the outlay.Dire. 1 out of 10.