Snuff (1976)
Yesterday, I reviewed a "narrative" movie designed to be a snuff film. Today, I review the movie that popularized the idea. SNUFF, as evident by anyone who's actually seen it, doesn't show this "shocking" act of violence until the last five minutes, when a film crew shuts down production in order to film the killing of one of the actresses. The preceding 74 minutes are instead devoted to another story about a model named Terry London being the target of a Manson-like cult, before it then cuts away to show the audience that it was all fake before the "real" action. This bait-and-switch was conceived by the film's producer Allan Shackleton, who bought a previous movie devised by the exploitative film couple Michael & Roberta Findlay, shot the new ending and shipped it off to grindhouse theaters. What made the film infamous was Shackleton's next step: He hired fake protestors to walk outside the theaters showing it, which then got attention by news outlets, which then lead to real protests. Like Public Enemy, you shouldn't believe the hype because this is one of the worst films ever made; BLACKENSTEIN and FEMALE VAMPIRE have a new friend. It reaches MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE levels of amateur incompetence. Let me list some of the most awful blunders: The opening scene has a drug-scalping lady shot and tortured by her fellow cult members before they then let it slide; The entire film is dubbed by bored community actors who sometimes speak with an echo; The Charlie Manson stand-in Satan (seriously) has nil charisma and hardly appears; A swimming montage featuring London has an intercut with a different woman in a different bikini; London announces she's pregnant off-screen and several scenes later, she's guzzling alcohol; London's boyfriend pulls a rape prank on her; A police detective's office is in the middle of a courtyard and right next to two huge warehouse doors; A couple of sequences are shot in black and white for no reason; Major dialogue exchanges are placed over an unending shot of sunlight reflecting off of dark water; There's an out-of-nowhere story flashback for one of the supporting characters, where she re-tells how she was raped when she was 12, despite looking like a twenty-ish Sissy Spacek and having the voice of Mr. Bill (joke reference courtesy of The Agony Booth); and there's an insane debate about a German businessman selling weapons to anti-Israel forces. Now please excuse me as I rest my weary head.
FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5
No comments:
Post a Comment