Here are eight of the most definitive in slasher movie history. We know slasher movies as those that involve a killer, often masked, that murders his victims with some kind of blade or perhaps a chainsaw. But whether snuff movies actually exist is questionable. However, since then, the existence of snuff movies has only been rumor. When we hear psycho , we probably think of someone like Norman Bates. But when the word first originated in , it was shorthand for all things psychology and psychiatry, including psychopathic behavior.
Snuff is one of the best known and likely one of the least seen of the video nasties. The title and its reputation have passed into urban legend and served as one of the major boogeymen of the moral panic around the nasties, with the rumour always circulating that this was the film that showed a real murder. If it had been more widely seen, people would realise how funny this is. This is how Michael and Roberta Findlay found out what had been done with their film. They sued Shackleton, but settled out of court. This and more all happened before the film was shown. Later, Roberta Findlay left her husband for Shackleton, and they went on to produce hardcore porn films together.
Culture Film. Well for heaven's sake - one is tempted to reply - who cares about an issue as quaint as that, now that explicit violence in the movies is realer than the real thing, anyway? Incredibly, snuff porn, with its alleged scenes of authentic degradation, used to be a semi-serious topic of dinner party conversation in the seventies and early eighties, with solemn and scandalised talk about how just viewing such movies made you legally liable as an "accessory after the fact".
When you're sitting in a dark theater watching some particularly gory act of horror, it can be easy to forget that it's all just corn syrup and clever tricks. But every now and then, an especially ingenious special effect—or an especially gullible audience—has prompted police and courts to get involved. Here are five cases where audiences and the authorities became convinced that a horror film or film set might be evidence of a real violent crime. A quick word of warning: I've kept the images in here quite tame, but if you go Googling these films, be sure you have the stomach for what you might find.