Best of Snuff Films

Snuff is a 1976 splatter film most notorious for being marketed as if it were an actual snuff film. This picture contributed to the urban legend of snuff films, although the concept did not originate with it.

Last House on Dead End Street is a horror film released in 1977 about a disgruntled man, recently released from prison, who takes out his anguish by making snuff films.

Hardcore is a 1979 American drama film written and directed by Paul Schrader and starring George C. Scott. Writer-director Schrader had previously written the screenplay for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, and both films share a theme of exploring an unseen subculture.

Bloodline is a thriller film picture released in 1979. Based upon the novel Bloodline by Sidney Sheldon, it was produced by Paramount Pictures and directed by Terence Young with music by Ennio Morricone. The film was also released under the title Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline. It was the only R-Rated film to star Audrey Hepburn.

Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution. Francesca Ciardi and Luca Barbareschi were among the leads as native Italian speakers to qualify the film as European for distribution on the Continent.

Videodrome is a 1983 Canadian science fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg, starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, and singer Deborah Harry. Set in Toronto during the early 80s, it follows the CEO of a small cable station who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring extreme violence and torture. He soon finds out that the signal actually causes damage to the brain causing hallucinations. As he gets closer to discovering the origins of the signal, he gets sucked into a world of sadomasochistic sex, political conspiracies, and bodily transformations. The film has been described as "techno-surrealist".

Broken (informally known as The Broken Movie) is a 1993 horror musical short film/long form music video filmed and directed by Peter Christopherson, based on a scenario by Trent Reznor, the founder of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. The film is a companion piece to the band's 1992 EP Broken, featuring its songs and music and compiling its music videos (the exception being "Last" and the two hidden tracks). The movie, roughly 20 minutes in length, weaves Broken's four music videos together via a violent "snuff film" framing sequence, concluding with an otherwise unreleased video for the EP's final song "Gave Up," setting the conclusion of the film's frame story to the song. Due to its extremely graphic content, the Broken movie was never officially released (and likely never will be), but was leaked as a bootleg which became heavily traded on VHS in the 1990s, and more recently via the Internet.
Trent Reznor once said that the Broken movie "...makes 'Happiness in Slavery' look like a Disney movie." and while his comments about the movie have been cryptic at best, he makes no secret of the film's existence.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is a 1986 crime horror film (released in 1990) directed and co-written by John McNaughton about the random crime spree of a serial killer who seemingly operates with impunity. It stars Michael Rooker as the nomadic killer Henry, Tom Towles as Otis, a prison buddy with whom Henry is living, and Tracy Arnold as Becky, Otis’ sister. The character of Henry is loosely based on real life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas.
The film was shot on 16mm in less than a month with a budget of only $110,000.

Tesis (Thesis) is a 1996 Spanish film. It is the feature debut of director Alejandro Amenábar, and was written by him and Mateo Gil. The movie won seven 1996 Goya Awards (and was nominated for an eighth), including the award for Best Film. It stars Ana Torrent, Fele Martínez and Eduardo Noriega. The 1999 film 8mm was loosely based on this movie.

Strange Days is a 1995 cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and produced and co-written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks, starring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Michael Wincott and Vincent D'Onofrio. The film has garnered a cult following over the years for its dystopian and cyberpunk themes.

Mute Witness, is a 1994 thriller/horror shot in Moscow, Russia written, directed and produced by Anthony Waller. Although made in 1994, it was not released in the USA until the fall of 1995 (with the UK not seeing it till the following year). Known for having Alec Guinness in cameo as a Mystery Guest Star along with a mostly European cast.
An American remake of the film is scheduled for 2011.

The Brave (1997) is a film adapted from the Gregory McDonald novel of the same title directed by and starring Johnny Depp.
This film was Depp's directorial debut. He co-wrote the screenplay with his brother, directed and acted in it. The film was first shown at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival where it received mixed reviews. The film was released in theaters and on DVD internationally, but not in the United States.

8mm is a 1999 mystery/thriller film, directed by Joel Schumacher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It features a private investigator who delves into a world of pornographic snuff films. It stars Nicolas Cage.

Urban Legends: Final Cut is a 2000 slasher film and sequel to the 1998 film Urban Legend. It stars Jennifer Morrison, Matthew Davis, Hart Bochner, and Eva Mendes. The movie was directed by John Ottman who also both edited the movie and composed the score.

Snuff-Movie is a 2005 gothic horror film by British director Bernard Rose. It stars Jeroen Krabbé as a horror film maker named Boris Arkadin, whose pregnant wife was brutally murdered by a Manson-like gang of hippy psychopaths during the 1960s. Because of this he has become a recluse, until, several years later, he makes a come-back and invites some actors to a large mansion in the English countryside to 'audition' for his new film. But unknown to them they are being filmed by hidden cameras linked to a 'snuff' website.

The Guinea Pig films (ギニーピッグ Ginī Piggu?) are a series of seven controversial 1980s and 1990s Japanese exploitation gore-horror films. The series achieved global notoriety mostly for the first two films, which were mondo-inspired fake documentaries painstakingly shot and edited to resemble snuff films.

Untraceable is a 2008 American thriller film starring Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, and Joseph Cross. It was directed by Gregory Hoblit and distributed by Screen Gems. The film is a social commentary on Internet schadenfreude.
Set in Portland, Oregon, the film involves a serial killer who rigs contraptions that kill his victims based on the number of hits received by a website ("www.killwithme.com") that features a live streaming video of the victim. Millions of people log on, hastening the victims' deaths. Lane plays the protagonist, a cybercop named Jennifer Marsh, who pieces the mystery together at great risk to herself and her family.

August Underground's Mordum is an independent exploitation film released by the Pittsburgh-based film production/special effects/design company Toetag Pictures in 2003; like its predecessor.

A Serbian Film (Serbian: Српски филм / Srpski film) is a 2010 Serbian horror film and the first feature film directed by Srđan Spasojević. It tells the story of a down-on-his-luck porn star who agrees to participate in an "art film", only to discover that he has been drafted into a snuff film with child rape and necrophilic themes. The film stars Serbian actors Srđan Todorović and Sergej Trifunović.
Upon its debut on the art film circuit, the film received substantial attention for its graphic depictions of rape, necrophilia, and pedophilia. The Serbian state prosecution opened an investigation to find out if the film violates the law. It is being investigated for elements of crime against sexual morals and crime related to the protection of minors.
It was banned by a court in San Sebastián, Spain for "threatening sexual freedom" and thus could not be shown in the XXI Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror (21st Horror and Fantasy Film Festival). The film was shown at an adults-only screening at the Spanish Sitges Film Festival during October 2010. As a result, the festival's director Ángel Sara was charged with exhibiting child pornography by the Spanish prosecutor who decided to take action in May 2011 after receiving a complaint from a Roman Catholic organization over a pair of scenes involving the rapes of a young child and a newborn. The charges were later dropped.
The film was banned in Norway after two months of sales due to violation of criminal law sections 204a and 382 which deal with the sexual representation of children and extreme violence.

Snuff 102 is a 2007 horror film written and directed by Mariano Peralta.