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| Life is cheap. |
Today’s entry is special. There are two versions of it: one that contains extreme levels of horrible detail and one that’s much less grisly since I don’t want to alienate those who want to follow this blog series religiously.
This diversification of the blog is easy to explain: today’s entry is on Snuff Films. If you aren’t familiar with them, then boy oh boy are you in for a trip. If you’re reading this particular intro, odds are you’re doing it in passing or you’re looking for something less nightmarish and hard-to-stomach. So let’s get to it! Or you can scroll down for the NSFL version.
Look Into the Camera and Smile: The Mystery of Snuff Films
As is the case with any great researcher: I’m pulling my information to start from Wikipedia. The definition of a snuff film is a movie in which a person actually dies—be it they were murdered or commit suicide. Whether or not this film is then distributed in an attempt to make a profit is irrelevant, all that matters is the footage is circulated (be it physically or on the Internet). One final thing to note is that these murders are not something like an execution (such as those recorded by the Islamic State). Snuff films are recorded for one of two purposes: to make a profit off of the death of another human being or for entertainment purposes.
As such, it’s best if we understand one thing going forward: snuff films do exist in a way. There have been deaths that have been recorded, be it by bystanders or by security cameras, that have surfaced online. I have seen videos of people who’ve been shot by police/civilians, run over by cars, died in tragic work accidents, and even been split in half by trains or other vehicles. The mystery here isn’t as to whether or not snuff films exist, but rather: is there a market for one; are snuff films being deliberately made by people who then circulate it to make a profit off of these acts of evil?
Well, in order to find that out, we must first go back to the beginning and discover where the idea of snuff films originates.
Historically: the word “snuff” has been used since 1874 and originally referred to the part of a candle wick that had already been burned. Nowadays, and more officially, the term “snuff movie” was first used in the 1971 book by Ed Sanders “The Family: The Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion.” In this book, Sanders claims that The Manson Family made a film in California where they recorded their murders. There’s no proof of this however and while it remains a contested aspect of the Manson murders to this day, it’s generally agreed that Manson never had his followers record the murders they carried out.
One man disagrees with the official report though: film studies professor Boaz Hagin. He claims that the idea of snuff films goes back over half a century before Sanders’ book: as early as 1907. It was in that year that a Polish-French writer by the name of Guillaume Apollinaire published a short story called “A Good Film”. This story was about newsreel photojournalists who stage and film a homicide due to the public’s fascination with news regarding crime.
Whatever the case may be: snuff films have become a huge part of urban legend lore. They’ve been at the center of some hysteria from decades ago and continue to fascinate some people to this day. Their first leap into modern culture—to some degree anyways—was with the 1976 film Snuff, which has a history that I’d like to cover one day in a separate entry.
For now, that’s the history of snuff films in the general sense. The hype surrounding them has never exactly died down, but they aren’t the hysteria causing machine that they used to be. However, there have been a few instances where films have caused controversy for being snuff films. Ironically, Snuff isn’t one of them.
The following three films are listed on Wikipedia as having been mistaken for real snuff films. They are as follows:
#1: The Guinea Pig Film Series
The first example comes in the form of the notorious Japanese Guinea Pig series. These films were intended to appear like snuff films, having been filmed in a grainy video style and with unsteady camera movement. The films also featured some of the most lifelike special effects to ever be shown on camera.
The grainy video and unsteady camera movement was unique to the first two entries (to the best of my knowledge anyways). That style did serve as the basis for where the second film, Flower of Flesh and Blood (which was released in 1985), was actually mistaken for an authentic snuff film. In 1991, Charlie Sheen was so convinced that the film was a real snuff film that he informed the FBI. The Bureau began an investigation into the film, but closed it after the producers of the film released a “making of” and showcased how the special effects were utilized to create the murders shown in the film.
#2: Cannibal Holocaust
This film is legendary for how controversial it is—so much so that it’s claimed to be banned in more than fifty countries. Adding to this: Entertainment Weekly named it the 20th most controversial film of all-time.
Directed by Ruggero Deodato, Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 exploitation film that managed to get the director arrested and charged with first degree murder on several accounts. This was due to the actors not having been seen since before the film’s release. Deodato had an explanation for that: he made them all sign a contract that prevented them from doing anything for a year following the film’s release. Instead, he had them take on new identities to live their lives. Once the actors appeared in court to verify this and Deodato showed the court how they did the now infamous pole impalement scene, he was cleared of all charges.
That said: this film did include some genuine deaths—six in fact. Five animals were killed on camera and one off camera. The film also contains numerous scenes of sexual violence. Both the deaths of the animals and that aspect make the film extremely controversial to this day.
#3: The August Underground Trilogy
Ah, the August Underground films. These grisly movies are written, directed, and star Fred Vogel. They center on the supposed home movies that are made by a serial killer and his friends and depict gore, sex, torture, and homicide (or so says Wikipedia). The practical effects used in the films are so lifelike that scenes are often distributed on the Dark Web and claimed to be real life snuff films.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Canadian officials either. When Vogel was traveling to Canada to go to the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear in Toronto, he was arrested and had pending charges of “transporting obscene materials into Canada” after copies of August Underground and its sequel—August Underground Mordum—were discovered by customs officials, along with some merchandise he had planned on bringing to the convention.
Lucky for Vogel, the charges were eventually dropped, but not after he had spent around ten hours in a customs prison and his films had been sent to Ottawa for “further observation.”
Meanwhile, copies of August Underground Mordum ended up being confiscated by customs officials in 2004. The reason for this seizure was that “they offend against the standards of morality, decency, and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be imported.”
With those three examples out of the way though, it’s worth mentioning that the reality of films—as in ones released to the general public—containing actual deaths isn’t true. There are claims that Brandon Lee’s real death was kept in The Crow and that the accident on the set of The Twilight Zone Movie—which killed Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, weren’t kept in their respective movies. The footage was destroyed. The urban legends saying it was kept in are just that: urban legends.
Though what of actual snuff films? Do they exist? That is, after all, the point of this entry. So let’s get to it. The following are a few notorious snuff videos/films that have made their rounds on the Internet—both on the surface web and the dark web. Five of the six below I, admittedly, picked from this video by LayLoFilms. However, I’ve added onto their history where I could. Nevertheless: all credit goes to him and him alone; I’m also deeply sorry if this qualifies as poaching content.
#1: 3 Guys, 1 Hammer
The Dnepropetrovsk maniacs consisted of three Ukranian men: Viktor Sayenko, Igor Suprunyuk, and Alexander Hanzha. Their crimes amounted to 21 counts of murder in the first degree and robbery (in the case of Hanzha, who only got nine years in prison while Sayenko and Suprunyuk got life in prison). All three were only 19-years-old when this occurred. We’ll one day go over their story in much more detail. You can find some details in the NSFL version of this entry. For now, let’s just into what 3 Guys, 1 Hammer is.
This is one of the most famous snuff videos that’s readily accessible and its notoriety isn’t unearned. The video—which I have unfortunately seen—is extremely grisly. The video showcases the three aforementioned boys as they beat an elderly man in the face with a hammer. It’s nothing more than that and no matter how bad you think the video may be, odds are that it’s worse than you can imagine. Two of the boys are now serving life in prison (Sayenko and Suprunyuk) while the third, Hanzha, got 9 years for robbery. I have no idea why.
If you want to watch the video for reasons I cannot fathom: it’s available on LiveLeak and other gore-related websites.
Now as for why this is mentioned: the local media where the murders occurred had initially reported that the three boys had planned on getting rich from the various murders they recorded. Adding to this, there’s a claim that Supunyuk was in contact with an “unknown, rich foreign website operator” who had allegedly ordered a total of forty snuff videos and would pay a large amount of money should they be made. This claim comes from a former classmate of Suprunyuk’s and one of the three boys girlfriends, who stated that the three had intentions of making a total of forty videos of murders. This theory, however, has been shot down by authorities. Regional security chief Ivan Stupak stated that there was no evidence that the three had intentions of making snuff videos. Adding to this, Detective Bogdan Viasenko said:
“We think they were doing it as a hobby, to have a collection of memories when they get old.”
Deputy interior minister Nikolay Kupyanskiy also commented on the matter by saying:
“For these young men, murder was like entertainment or hunting.”
I’ll leave it up to you as to whether or not they truly intended on getting rich from these videos as in the end: their legacy has been immortalized through what has become known as 3 Guys, 1 Hammer.
#2: Karate Murder
This one I don’t know much about to be honest. From what I know: a man walked into a karate dojo and claimed that his teacher was God. He then challenged the karate master, who beat him—severely. Even after the man was on the ground, the man stomped on him until he died. All of this was recorded and the man was dragged out of the dojo, a trail of blood leading out of the dojo.
If this case is the one that I found via Google, the man was thrown into a dumpster and the Karate Master was charged with murder.
#3: Dagestan Massacre
During the War of Dagestan, Russian prisoners of war were recorded as they were executed. These execution videos were reportedly discovered throughout the entirety of the war by Russian soldiers. The content of the videos varies, though most were similar to what’s been recorded by ISIS nowadays.
One of these tapes was made in September of 1999. In it, six Russian soldiers—one who was only 19-years-old—were all mercilessly executed, with a knife being pressed against their throats before being withdrawn. The soldiers were toyed with before eventually being beheaded by the Chechen militants.
According to experts: these videos were made for two reasons. The first was to frighten their enemy while the second was a way to advertise what they’ve done. As for the snuff film aspect: some of these videos were later sold with the foreknowledge of their content. This, naturally, led to them ending up online.
This particular massacre—which is officially known as the Tukhchar Massacre—is sometimes mistaken for another incident in 1996 where four Russian soldiers were executed at the end of the First Chechen War.
#4: Robert Dwyer’s Suicide
Robert Budd Dwyer was the Treasurer of Pennsylvania and was expected to resign after being indicted on bribery. He had held a press conference on January 22, 1987 where he was expected to resign as Treasurer. After he finished speaking, he handed out notes to his staffers and, from an envelope, drew a blued Smith & Wesson Model 27 .357 magnum.
Nobody in the crowd that had come to see him speak was sure of what Dwyer would do with the firearm; Dwyer himself having backed up against a nearby wall as he held it in the air. After a bit, Dwyer calmly said the following:
“Please, please leave the room if this will… if this will affect you.”
Immediately, a few people fled with the intention of calling for help. Those who stayed, meanwhile, begged Dwyer to surrender the gun. A few attempted to approach him. Dwyer, however, warned them all to stay back; his final words being,
“Don't, don't, don't, this will hurt someone.”
Seconds later, Dwyer pulled the trigger, firing a single shot into his mouth. He died immediately, though he wasn’t pronounced dead for another half hour.
A grand total of five news cameras had recorded the events, with one of them remaining focused on Dwyer the entire time. It had also caught close up footage of the shooting’s aftermath as his lifeless body fell to the floor.
Dwyer’s press secretary, a man by the name of James "Duke" Horshock, went to the podium and told the media to leave immediately and requested that medical assistance be called, along with the police.
Dwyer had requested his organs be donated in the letter’s he’d handed out (which also contained suicide letters). One of Dwyer’s aides would later state that his corneas were capable of being transplanted, but that every other organ was unusable by the time his body had reached a hospital.
This next part I must admit is going to be opinionated and I apologize as I, as a writer and an aspiring author, am someone who wishes to always remain neutral. Whether it’s on politics, conspiracies, religion, or any other topic. I am someone who has no desire to ever go down the route of blaming one belief or take for being the reason that something happens or for anything along those lines. That said, the reason Dwyer is in this entry; the reason he is a part of something related to snuff films, is thanks to what I’d consider to be one of the most astoundingly callous, egregious, and exploitative instances in United States media history.
Several television stations throughout the state of Pennsylvania ended up broadcasting the footage that had been recorded of Dwyer’s suicide to a “midday audience.” In the case of Philadelphia station WPVI (Channel 6 according to Wikipedia) showed Dwyer pulling the .357 Magnum’s trigger and slumping backwards, but it didn’t show the bullet’s path. Yet, inexplicably, for the next several hours, news editors had to figure out how much of the footage they wished to air.
Meanwhile, stations like WCAU and Pennsylvania’s Group W stations KYW and KDKA opted to take the more conservative path and “froze” the footage just prior to the gunshot. However, KYW and KDKA opted to keep the audio in as the image froze. This action done due to William L. Martin, Group W’s news cameraman, and reporter David Scollenberger having had a camera set up at the conference. Both decided to air the audio with a freeze frame of the magnum in Dwyer’s mouth.
Meanwhile, a few news stations decided to outright air an unedited version of the suicide. WPVI in Philadelphia decided it’d be a good idea to simply rebroadcast the footage in its entirety on both their 5 P.M. and 6 P.M. Action News broadcasts without any warning whatsoever. This same news station also the source for the suicide still being available on the internet. Thanks, WPVI!
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that WPXI in Pittsburgh broadcast the footage—uncensored—on an early newscast. When asked why they did this, By Williams, the operations manager at WPXI, said the following:
“It's an important event [about] an important man.”
Williams went on to avoid broadcasting the footage during the evening news. He stated that the reason was this:
“Everyone knows by then that he did it. There are children out of school.”
Despite this, at the time of the Dwyer’s suicide, most children weren’t in school. This was because of a snowstorm that had affected central Pennsylvania. Nice work, By Williams!
Meanwhile, the Harrisburg TV station WHTM-TV decided it’d be a good idea to one-up WPXI and broadcast the suicide twice that day. This was in spite of the hundreds of complaints they received from viewers after the first one. In response, they stated that their decision was due to the important nature of the story as a whole.
In the end though, one radio reporter—a man named Tony Romeo—developed depression from this incident. He was standing a few feet from Dwyer before he pulled the trigger and opted to take a break from journalism after the incident.
As for those who saw the incident on television: a study revealed that older students who saw the footage ended up creating many darkly comedic jokes. This isn’t uncommon nowadays as many tragedies often lead to many jokes similar in tone and can be seen on websites such as 4chan. These jokes were the most common in areas where the uncensored footage was aired.
#5: 1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick
Luke Magnotta is the man behind the video that goes by the name 1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick, which was allegedly promoted 10 days in advance, and shows the heinous murder of international Chinese studen Lin Jun.
On May 25, 2012, an 11-minute video with that title was uploading to the website BestGore. In it, we see a naked man (Luke) who was tied to a bed frame before being stabbed repeatedly with both an ice pick and a kitchen knife.
As all of this is going on, the 1987 song “True Faith” by New Order plays.
Luke proceeded to mutilated Lin’s body before the video cut off. Canadian authorities later stated that they obtained a longer version and say that Luke may have done more than was originally seen in the video.
In June of 2014, Luke was arrested at a Berlin Internet cafe. In December of that same year, he was sentenced to life in prison.
#6: Daisy’s Destruction
Given that this is the safe for work version, I’ll keep this very brief.
Daisy’s Destruction was at one point considered an urban legend, but when Australian child rapist and murderer Peter Scully was arrested in 2015, the world learned that this legend sadly had a basis in reality.
Where this film’s sordid legacy falls into the realm of snuff comes in a bizarre mixture of rumors and in Scully himself. He was accused of having distributed a film of himself strangling a child to death and some claim that Daisy’s Destruction also contained the murder of a child. However, this isn’t true. As it stands, most classify this sick, disturbing excuse of a so-called “film” as a snuff film due to the unfathomably extreme nature of its content. The NSFL version of this entry goes into some detail on what happens in it, but unless you can stomach the type of things that would make an FBI agent cry, I'd advise against it.
With those stories out of the way, one can safely say that snuff videos do, in fact, exist to some degree. That’s without a shadow of a doubt. However, just how readily available are they and to what extreme[s] do they go?
It goes without saying that Daisy’s Destruction sets the bar obscenely high. While it may not feature a murder on camera, it’s classified as one due to its extreme nature and grisly acts. As such, don’t yell at me for being the one to include it. I’m the messenger, not the author.
Anyways, there’s one instance that, while not as extreme as Daisy’s Destruction, does bring to mind the classic mental image of a snuff film. It comes from a man by the name of Mark L. Rosen, a legendary horror producer during the 1970s and 1980s. He worked on films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1976) among many, many other films. His story was one that I first read on the Lost Media Wiki, so all credit goes to them.
Four years before his death in 2012, Rosen was interviewed for Killing Joke Films’ Snuff: A Documentary About Killing on Camera. The documentary, which runs at a brisk 76 minutes, centers on the legend of snuff films across five chapters. Rosen tells two of these; the first of which centers on an account that was documented: a child snuff ring that was based in Russia that was “intercepted by British Intelligence MI5.” I did a Google search for this and couldn’t find anything, though the documentary that’s mentioned is online. If you wish to berate me for not being able to stomach any more child killing, please have at it in the comments below.
Moving on: the second chapter is the one we want to focus on (and is the one that Lost Media Wiki focuses one). It’s a personal account from Rosen and one that a disclaimer prior to the film’s epilogue states is “true” and that Rosen has only ever given this account to a select few people in his life. The story goes that Rosen was tasked early in his career to scout or screen an array of “adult entertainment films” for approval and, likewise, possible distribution on behalf of other individuals in the industry. In one case, a man from the Philippines contacted Rosen and stated that he wished to meet with him and his representatives to view a film that he had the intention of getting distributed. The man stated the film was, “unique”, “hard to acquire”, and “unlike anything he had ever seen.”
Rosen naturally agreed and later met the man at the Century Plaza in Chicago. The man was described by Rosen as being standoffish and stated that his bodyguards weren’t the kinds of people one would expect to have anything to do with film. He also stated that the way they vaguely spoke of the film made him uncomfortable.
Once Rosen and the man arrived in the hotel room, Rosen was shown the film. He described it as being a violent, hardcore S&M adult film that involved an array of graphic sex acts. Rosen would later state that it was “rougher” than any other BDSM film he’d ever seen in his life. This was later amplified as the film went on; the actress had a plastic bag over her head and, according to Rosen, appeared to be struggling and attempting to take it off. However, the male actor wouldn’t allow her. As the actress began to breathe heavily—and seeming to be on the verge of passing out—Rosen states that the male actor forcefully lifted her head up and drew a large hunting knife. He then slit the woman’s throat.
Appalled by what he saw, Rosen left the hotel and told his representatives about what he had seen, claiming that it had been “too real” to possibly be special effects. He ended the story by stating he only ever had one more encounter with the mysterious man, stating that it was when told him and his representatives that he had no interest in picking up the film as it “wasn’t for them.” Rosen also added that he had no idea where the man went and he has no idea if anybody else had any interest in the film he wished to distribute.
When the director of the documentary, a man by the name of Paul von Stoetzel, asked Rosen what made his story more believable than others, Rosen stated that someone died making the film he saw and that, at the time, special effects didn’t exist. He also claimed that people—especially those that work within the film industry—dismiss the concept of snuff films being a reality as they don’t want to accept the possibility that something like them could ever be real.
After the documentary was released, speculation arose as to whether or not Rosen’s story was, in fact, real—or if it had been made up by the filmmakers simply for the purposes of adding drama. This was further amplified by the trailer to the documentary, which suggested that the movie that the filmmakers had received and reported to authorities was, in fact, the one that Rosen speaks about.
The entry on Lost Media Wiki closes out by stating that, should one believe Rosen’s account, then there’s more or less no way to prove as to whether or not the film was real or fictitious in nature. It’s unknown if it was picked up by a distributor or is in the collection of a private collector. There’s also no evidence that Rosen ever had a business exchange with a man at that point in history. Nonetheless, for all intents and purposes: the film is yet another legend in the long, sordid history of snuff films.
That is, for the most part, the history of snuff films. They’re a weird legend that brings to mind many different kinds of thoughts—none of which are particularly good if we’re to be kind about it. Still, there exists a different kind of snuff film, one for the modern age. They’re called Red Rooms and we’re going to take a quick glance at them for the sake of completion.
Decide Their Fate: Are Red Rooms Real?
First up: a quick acknowledgement. Red Rooms appear on the Conspiracy Iceberg. For what reason: I’m not 100% sure. I mentioned that it’s possible that the government is covering them up, but I cannot confirm nor disprove that theory. Despite what I said: we won’t be covering the conspiracy angle today. I apologize, but things change and this entry has taken up so much of my time writing it that I cannot look into what is and isn’t a conspiracy theory. Don’t worry though, I’ll return to discuss Red Rooms more in the near future—hopefully before summer time.
Now then: what are Red Rooms? Well, that’s easy to answer. They’re supposedly live streams on the dark web where someone is abducted by a group of psychopaths who then had a group of heavily vetted individuals watch and pay money to have the streamers torture or rape the victim. The amount of money paid is generally said to be in the thousands, though I’ve heard a few claim it’s in the millions.
This is, of course, all speculation. Red Rooms are something that have never been found—officially anyways. There do exist two that have been discovered on the dark web that are the closest to the legend that anyone has ever discovered. They are as follows:
#1: Project A.L.I.C.I.A.
A website appeared on the deep web at some point (I cannot find the exact year) with a countdown. There was a 10 minute audio loop in the background with what sounded like a woman screaming. When it expired, a live stream started, but you couldn’t see anything. The same audio was still playing. Most believe that this was a hoax or a troll.
#2: The ISIS Red Room
Similar to Project A.L.I.C.I.A., the ISIS red room had a countdown. The claim was that a group of ISIS jihadists were captured and their torture/deaths would be livestreamed for all to witness. Unlike the previous live stream, this one actually went live. In it, we could see a man in the corner of a room with a bag over his head. Another man enters and places some bacon on a table and orders the man to stand up. Then sit down. Then stand up again, only to make him sit back down. Eventually, the plate of bacon is thrown at the prisoner and the man leaves.
After a bit, man returns with a hammer and a wrench and the torture begins. However, the stream allegedly lagged and you couldn’t exactly see much. In one of the few stable moments, viewers were able to see the prisoner dry heaving before the stream eventually shut off.
The validity of this red room is heavily debated; some think it was legitimate while others think it was another hoax. Me personally, I lean towards it being another hoax.
That’s my stance in general on red rooms as a whole. While there have been crimes that have been live streamed, the overall nature of red rooms is something I’m highly skeptical of. Nevertheless, they aren’t something that’s implausible. If there are any that have popped up, I’m inclined to think that they’re really FBI sting operations. I digress though, this was merely a time to cover what I’d consider more “modern” snuff films. Let’s get into the theories of those now.
Theories
With every that we’ve discussed, I wouldn’t be surprised if this entry seems very confusing. So, as a reminder: the mystery here is if there’s a market for snuff films. Given what we’ve seen so far, it goes without saying that there are only two theories: they exist or they don’t.
1. Snuff films do exist
The idea that snuff films exist is probably one of the most disturbing and unsettling ideas one can think of. The mere thought that someone is willing to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a movie where someone is tortured before being murdered for pure entertainment is something that I find unspeakably disturbing.
Yet, as we’ve seen, people will purchase footage of people being tortured and subsequently murdered. Whether you read the SFW version of this entry or the NSFL version, the point—I think—comes across all the same. There is a market for it. Though, a question arises: how big is it?
The incidents you read above aren’t exactly common. They’re extraordinarily rare in fact. So while there is factually a market for it, it isn’t one that’s particularly large. That leads into the second theory.
2. Snuff films aren't real and cases like Daisy's Destruction are an exception to the rule
Our second theory is that snuff films aren’t real. Rather, incidents like the ones you’ve read are just incidents that managed to become big enough news and the hysteria of snuff films from times of yore was resurrected.
This theory is the one that most people—along with law enforcement—have generally agreed upon. There are no snuff films and what you read on the Internet is merely urban legends that inoke a sense of fear and dread inside of you that takes hold of your heart. As such, you conflate a killer or rapist who sold what he did to someone else with the idea of a market for this, rather than a one-off crime that managed to get spread.
With that, the theories end. As for Red Rooms: the lack of anything concrete on them existing is why they won’t get their own theories. Incidents of people torturing people via live stream or live streaming mass shootings don’t fall into the same category as they don’t utilize audience participation via donations. That said, some think they’re heavily regulated and vetted and as such: we just don’t know about it because of that reason. Whether or not you believe this is entirely up to you.
My Take
I do think that snuff films are real and I do believe they are circulated. I don’t, in the slightest, think that Daisy’s Destruction is some sort of “exception” to the so-called rule. The Dark Web encompasses most of the internet and let’s face it: if child pornography can be circulated there with relative ease, there’s no reason to suspect that videos of people being murdered are exempt from this.
Now do I think there’s an entire black market of it? No, not necessarily. What I think is that there’s a niche demographic that will purchase—or at least be willing to pay some sort of fee—for access to it. Whether it be morbid curiosity or they get a rise out of it, I cannot say. Whatever the case may be, I think that in this day and age: snuff films are more likely to exist than they did in the 1980s or 1990s.
All of that said: I think the fact there even is a market at all is way too much. Given how large the dark web is, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that there could be an entire underbelly of an industry that exists that we just don’t know about. That alone should be terrifying enough.
Conclusion
This entry was one that was significantly more difficult to write about than anything else I’ve ever undertaken and I must say: I’m really happy I managed to get through it. While I am happier as a whole about the NSFL version than the SFW one, I am still extremely glad that I managed to find a way to edit this in order to share it with those who can’t stomach the grislier aspects of such a topic.
I hope that, no matter which version you opted to read, you enjoyed this trip through a topic that has spanned decades and continues to be something that’s discussed to this very day. I’d also love to know what you think about snuff films. Do you believe them to be real? Or do you think that they are merely an urban legend that has stood the test of time thanks to evolving forms; the mass accessibility of digital media having allowed it to evolve from being a VHS tape to being uploaded to the internet for rapid sharing amongst groups of sick individuals or even having the murders be live streamed? Let me know and I’ll see you tomorrow!
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