Snuff (1975 film)

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Snuff is a 1975 gore film most notorious for being marketed as if it were an actual snuff film.

The film started out as a low-budget gore film titled Slaughter which was produced by the husband-and-wife grindhouse filmmaking team of Michael and Roberta Findlay. Filmed in Argentina in 1971 it depicted the actions of a Manson-esque murder cult. The film went unreleased for several years, though after the controversy that erupted when it was released in 1976, people claimed to have seen it before.

In 1976, the Findlays' distributor, Alan Shackleton, a low grade filmmaker and sometimes pornographer specializing in sadomasochism, added a new ending in which a woman is brutally murdered by a film crew, supposedly the Slaughter crew. Filmed in a vérité style, the new ending purported to show an actual murder. The new footage was spliced onto the end of Slaughter with an abrupt cut that suggested that the footage was unplanned and authentic, and the new version released under the title Snuff.

This was done as a marketing ploy so that the fake on-camera death could be promoted as being genuine. Shackleton even went so far as to hire fake protesters to picket the movie theaters showing the film. Soon this became moot, as the group Women Against Pornography began staging real protests, which received coverage by such outlets as the CBS Evening News.

The new ending was not organised nor shot by the Findlays. After realising that their film Slaughter was being reused they threatened to sue Shackleton, later accepting an out-of-court settlement. Shortly thereafter, Roberta Findlay left her husband for Alan Shackleton, who taught her to make hardcore pornography.

The cast included Aldo Mayo, Alfredo Iglesias and Mirtha Massa.

Snuff is believed to be one of the bases for the urban legend of snuff films.