Snuff Films Essays -- essays research papers

Also cognise as "white heat" films and "the real thing," the snuff film myth lives on like Bigfoot, despite the fact that no law enforcement agency in America has publicly admitted to ever locating one. Alan Sears, former executive director of the lawyer Generals commission on pornography during 1985-86, agrees with the more than two dozen law enforcement agencies I interviewed. "Our experience was that we could not find any such thing as a commercially produced snuff film," says Sears. "Our commission was all-inclusive and exhaustive. If snuff films were available, wed have found them." This sentiment is echoed by Ken Lanning, a cult expert at the FBI training academy at Quantico, Virginia. "Ive not found one single documented case of a snuff film anywhere in the world. Ive been trenchant for 20 years, talked to hundreds of people. Theres plenty of once-removed sightings, but Ive never found a credible personality who personally saw one." Y et the rumour of snuff persists. The scenarios are incessantly the same - a remote jungle village in South America, a deserted beach in Thailand, the landscaped garden of a German industrialist, a lonely Everglades swamp. The victims are usually women, often performing a sexual act, their deaths sensitional and unexpected. One of the most resilient snuff rumours concerns convicted "Son of surface-to-air missile" killer David Berkowitz, who allegedly filmed the mop ups of some of his victims. Maury Terry, author of "The Ultimate Evil," a book about Berkowitz and cult killings across America, tells me, "Its believed Berkowitz filmed his murders to circulate within the church of Satan. On the night of the Stacy Moskowitz killing, there was a VW van parked across the road from the murder site under a bright sodium street lamp. "Witnesses have confirmed this, although the van never appeared in the patrol report. Berkowitz or an accomplice filmed Moskowitzs mu rder, using the street lamp to light the subject as she sat in her car across the street." The 20-year-old Moskowitz was killed in 1977 in Brooklyn. Terry says the film was apparently made for Roy Radin, the Long Island impresario and "wannabe Cotton Club financier." "Radin was known for his huge porno collection and wanted to add a snuff film to it. Ive heard there are ten... ...hit we ran out of film." Another voice whispers, "Did you use up it all?""Yeah, we got it all.""Lets get out of here."The sound of breathing ends.The reason why the film was a scam?1. Who would promote a film that showed the actual murder of one of its crew? 2. How can a single camera show several POV shots but not lose the continuity of the action?3. How can police and the Manhattan district attorney interview a charwoman who has been murdered on screen?Robert M. Morgenthau, the district attorney for Manhattan, announced in a news meeting that he had determin ed the on-screen murder of a woman as being a hoax. "It is nothing more than trick photography," he said, adding, "the actress is alive and well." Prompted by move complaints and petitions, Morganthaus findings were the conclusion of a month long investigation, in which the murder victim had herself been located and interviewed by police. Shackelton, too, had been traced via the Monarch Releasing Corporation and admitted, after threats of considerable forfeiture, that it was not a real woman who was murdered. It appears that controversy sells tickets.