Dying On Film: 5 Movies About Snuff Movies

Whilst certainly not a bad film, Terror Trap wasn’t exactly the grindhouse shocker I thought it would be. The central premise, a creepy motel used as a front for a snuff movie studio, is instantly charged with so much potential. While not a wildly original idea (Vacancy did this a few years back), it is still a provocative one, and the fact that the residents of the small rural town the motel is situated outside, are aware of what it is used for, adds another perverse level to an already sinister set up. And hey, ever since there was some nasty business at the establishment of Norman Bates and his mother, the humble motel - haven and sanctuary to weary travellers in transience - has been a reliably sinister location in horror movies.

While lamenting the mediocrity of Terror Trap, I got to thinking about other films that revolve around the idea of snuff movies; films that are said to depict the actual death/murder of someone, without the use of special effects. Here are five films that draw on the urban legend of snuff movies…

Mute Witness (1994). A deliriously taut exercise in sustained tension and suspense, Mute Witness is about a mute special effects artist on a low budget horror movie. Staying late at the studio one night, she witnesses the filming of a snuff movie and is relentlessly pursued around the sprawling studio buildings by the filmmakers. Add to the already twisted premise the fact that the main character can’t speak – therefore she can’t call for help or alert anyone to her whereabouts – and you have a deliciously thrilling and prolonged game of cat and mouse that builds to a shockingly violent climax.

My Little Eye (2002). Whether you view this as a barbed critique of contemporary society’s obsession with voyeurism and ‘reality TV’, or a tightly wound, slow-burning chiller, My Little Eye is an effective shocker that succeeds admirably on both levels. A group of strangers audition for a Big Brother style web-series in which they stay at a remote house in the middle of snowbound-nowhere, while their every move is recorded by myriad CCTV cameras throughout the house. Events take a turn for the sinister when the group realise the site they’re being broadcast on is a snuff site… Bloody murders, paranoia and bleak denouements ensue.

Vacancy

Vacancy (2007). The premise of Terror Trap sounds a lot like that of Nimród Antal’s gritty survival horror, Vacancy. A young married couple are stranded at an isolated motel and after the discovery of hidden video cameras in their room, they realize – to their horror, natch - that unless they escape, they are set to become the reluctant stars of a snuff film. Also like Terror Trap, this begins with much promise as Antal piles on the dank suspense and panicky feeling of helplessness before descending into conventional clichés and shocks with wild abandon. The briefly glimpsed snuff movies in this one are dark, despairing and surprisingly disturbing for such a mainstream Hollywood horror.

Tesis (1996). The debut feature of Alejandro Amenábar, director of Open Your Eyes and The Others, Tesis (Thesis) focuses on a film student who, while researching her thesis on violence in cinema, inadvertently watches a real snuff movie and is drawn into the hellish world of snuff film-making. Taking a highly reflexive approach to its subject matter – the effects of cinematic violence on audiences – Tesis addresses thorny issues head on and unflinchingly. That it is also a tension-fuelled thriller as it does so, is no mean feat. While it dares to ask why audiences are so enthralled by scenes of violence and bloodshed, it doesn’t hold back on treating us to a disturbing trek into highly unsettling territory. It inspired the Nicolas Cage-starring, Andrew Kevin Walker-scripted 8MM.

Peeping Tom

Peeping Tom (1960). Critically panned on its release, this film effectively ended the career of its director, Michael Powell. It was only years later that Peeping Tom was given the reverence and respect it deserved. Unfolding as a Hitchcockian thriller in which a disturbed young man murders various women and films their terrified faces as he does so, Peeping Tom also serves as a disarming investigation of the voyeuristic nature of film audiences and their fascination with fear and death. Placing the audience firmly in the place of the killer (he uses a spiked tripod leg of a film camera to kill his victims as he films them), Peeping Tom had an overwhelming influence on the work of Dario Argento and sundry slasher movies in which the audience, the voyeurs, are implicated in the onscreen murders through incriminating point of view camera work.

Terror Trap is released on DVD from February 28th.

Cert: 18
Running time: 83:10
RRP: £15.99
Special Features: Trailer
Cat Number: ABD4921
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1