Snuff boxing: rethinking the Snuff coda

Snuff (Findlay/Nuchtern, 1976) might not be the 'best' film produced in the Americas in the 1970s, but it may be the decade's most important 'worst' film. Rumoured to depict the actual murder of a female crewmember in its final moments, its notoriety consolidated the urban legend of snuff film. The snuff film legacy has manifested across a broad range of media, from fictional snuff narratives like Vacancy (Nimrod Antal, 2007) and 8mm (Joel Schumacher, 1999), to purportedly real snuff footage distributed online and through mobile phones. Despite Snuff's status as a unique trash artefact, the suddenness with which the controversy exploded into the public arena allowed it very little time for a 'micro' analytical moment.[1] The snuff film enigma was so intoxicatingly extra-diegetic that it instantly transcended the nuts-and-bolts details of the film itself. The shocking impact of those final five minutes appeared to render close analysis unnecessary: Snuff, like snuff, was predicated upon a hyperactive theatricality of ambiguity, rumour and moral panic.