All language subtitles for 08.The Dark Side of Porn [Part 8 of 9] does snuff exist (eng)

It's completely conceivable to
me that there is some part of

the world where somebody is
paying money to walk into a

room and kill somebody
as a sexual act.

There's no greater controversy, no
greater taboo than snuff murders.

I think anything that people will
pay money for exists in the world.

And if people wanna pay for
snuff, snuff will exist.

I'm sure in the age of
video, one exists somewhere,

but I don't think
it's being circulated.

I think that in a in a
sense, snuff is like the holy grail.

Much talked about, long
sought after, but never found.

The existence of snuff movies
remains one of the most

enduring of urban legends.

Persistent rumors of an
underground industry continue

to concern police
around the world,

so much so that the FBI have
even developed their own

definition of what
a snuff movie is.

The key element is, number one,

it has to be a visual depiction.

Could be still pictures,
moving images, whatever.

On this visual image,

someone was alive alive at the
beginning and they're dead at the end.

The motivation for the murder is
because the script requires it.

And this visual image is being
put together for the sexual

gratification of viewers.

Okay. Great. And people look at
this to get sexually aroused.

And then the final element
is that this visual depiction is

commercially distributed.

Snuff has been a cinematic
bogeyman for over a quarter of

a century and has its roots in
one of the most shocking murder

sprees in criminal history.

A movie director Roman Polanski.

It was his wife, Sharon Tate,
who was one of the victims.

In August, nineteen
sixty nine, Sharon Tate,

the heavily pregnant
wife of film director,

Roman Polanski was murdered.

These murders occurred
on August the ninth

on Cielo Drive in
West Los Angeles.

The killers, Charles
Manson and his followers,

then went on a deadly rampage
supposedly filming as they went.

Those films were never
retrieved by the police,

and the rumors spread that
copies were being bought and

sold on the black market.

Snuff as applied to a movie
obviously relates to the idea

that someone is snuffed
out like a candle,

I. E. Killed.

Seven years later,

Alan Shackleton decided
to exploit these rumors,

buying a low budget
film called Slaughter,

based on the Manson
family murders,

in which a gang of female
hippies go on a killing spree.

The film's rough and ready
shooting style and terrible

acting gave it a limited appeal,

but Shackleton would add a new
and controversial final scene

that would give
birth to the legend

pockets.

So Allen rented my studio and
hired a film crew to come in.

Thank you to go and show me.

They tried to match the
last scene in the movie.

They shot this little
special effects scene where,

the girl is slaughtered,

supposedly by the film crew.

Why don't you and I talk over
to the bed and we'll we'll

get turned on,
turn each other on,

With all these people watching
The camera pulls out from the

last scene of the original
movie to reveal what appears to

be behind the scenes footage
of the production crew.

But instead of being a
seamless continuation,

it feels more like the
start of a different film.

Nothing matches. No.

The actors or the film
stock or anything like that.

And then a woman is,
duped into, you know,

getting a little amorous
with the director on a bed.

What are you doing?

And then he's he murders
her on camera in close-up.

You are a boy.

Bring you the camera.
Give me a cell.

Let me go. Let me go. Let
me go. Let me go. Let me go.

Let me go.

Let me go. Let me go. Let
me go. Let me go. Let me go.

Let me go.

Let me go. Let me go. Let me go.

Let me go. Let me go.
Let me go. Let me go.

Let me go.

Let me go. Let me go.
Let me go. Let me go.

Let me go

cuts off her wrist.

From there on down
was a phony arm,

and it was joined
right at the wrist.

And the actor put his hand over
the joint so you couldn't see it.

So her hand was
gripping his hand,

and they had the jigsaw would
cut through the phony arm.

It was actually very
amateurish because,

after the the, arm was cut
off, the hand is still moving.

The special effects
are really cheesy.

Dime store rubber hand,
raspberry syrup, blood.

Pretty much was
laughable and and dull.

The action climaxes when the
director snuffs out the actress

by ripping her stomach
open and disemboweling her.

She was actually lying
in a hollowed out section

of the bed, and her her
body went from about here

down underneath
this layer of pig

and beef intestines that
were in a mannequin.

And he reaches in
and just lifts,

this massive opal.

Pulls it up as if it was real.

To maintain the illusion that
audiences are seeing footage

meant for the
cutting room floor.

Shit. We run out of film. Shit.

The film simply ends when
the camera runs out of film.

We got it on. Yeah.
Let's get out of here.

Despite the crudity
of the effects,

the idea behind snuff was
irresistible to audiences.

The film opened on Broadway and was
an instant smash at the box office,

outgrossing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest for three weeks in a row.

It was a phenomenon.

People really believed that
they were seeing the first,

real snuff film caught on,
you know, caught on film live.

Shackleton didn't market the
film as a real snuff movie,

but he didn't deny
it was one either.

And his outrageous methods of promotion
guaranteed the film was a success.

I

think he alerted a
lot of these women's,

rights groups about the film
just to get them outraged,

which they were.

And they picketed and all the
newspapers showed up and a lot

of people fell for it.

Join us.

There were people on television
calling it pornography and the

fall of civilization
as we know it.

But what started as a publicity
stunt was soon accepted as fact

by the general public.

And the legend was given even more
credence by the movies that followed,

and by crazed fans who decided
to make life imitate art.

The release of the film snuff
in nineteen seventy six had

established a new genre of film
where people were supposedly

killed on camera for
the entertainment of others.

Hollywood soon began to cash
in on the phenomenon with

mainstream releases
like hardcore.

Hardcore is a very powerful
film about a minister who is

looking for his daughter, who's
been engulfed in the porno

industry, and, you
know, this straight

laced guy has to go go
into this underground

to try to rescue his daughter,

and he has to kinda
wallow in the filth.

Released in nineteen
seventy nine,

Hardcore reinforced the idea
that an active criminal network

existed that produced
and distributed snuff movies.

A film like this eight
millimeter film cost two or

three hundred dollars to make.

Sold out right in a store.
Shown in paint machines.

It's impossible to track
down. Nobody makes it.

Nobody shows it. Nobody sees it.

It's like it doesn't even exist.

In his search for his daughter,

the main character played by
George c Scott reluctantly

watches her in a porn movie
and then has to sit through a

fictional snuff film to
find out if she's in it.

You know, shot in a way by Paul
Schrader to so you believe that this is

this stuff exists
on the underground.

This is what it looks like.

There's a couple in in
this grainy footage.

He's stabbed in the stomach,

and then the white the
girlfriend has her throat slit.

And it's it's pretty
realistic and graphic,

because the the
fact it's so crude.

And then we feel the revulsion
of the main character because

we're kinda complicit in the
scene as well because we're

watching him watching
it, and it's just very

disgusting and very upsetting.

A year later, the underground exploded
into the mainstream with the release

of Cannibal Holocaust,

whose stunning panoramas
and memorable score mysteriously

belied the savagery
of its content.

Cannibal Holocaust falls into
that category of a movie that's

so low budget, you
kinda believe it's real.

And then you look at
the people they use,

and they use real
cannibals and, like,

jungle savages when
they film this.

You think, what monster
made this movie?

The courts accused me of really
killing and torturing people.

The court wanted to
see the film with me,

so they took me
to a special room.

Immediately from the judge's
reaction because he grimaced

every time he saw
a shocking scene,

I could see that I
would be convicted.

The film opened in Italy
on the eighth of February,

nineteen eighty
and caused uproar.

It appeared to show documentary
footage where people were

beheaded, castrated,
and eaten by cannibals.

It resulted in it being
banned in Italy and Britain.

Four youngsters who
never came back.

But let's have a look at them
at the beginning of their

incredible The movie centers
on four documentary makers who

disappear in the South American
jungle whilst filming a study

of local cannibals.

Then, their footage and bodies are
found by a shocked rescue party.

The shaky camera work and
haphazard direction exactly

mirror the kind of footage an
observational documentary team would shoot.

One of the most controversial
moments in the film is when Le

Crewe crew discover the impaling
of one of the cannibals.

And I've watched the scene over
and over with a girl impaled on

a pole, and we thought
that has to be real.

Like, of course, they took a dead
body and just shoved the pole on.

It's

it's it's unbelievable.

It's it's horrible.

That scene is one of the
grossest images ever,

you know, recorded for any film.

It was pretty,
unpleasant and nasty,

but it was a powerful moment.

When the film made its way
to the UK in the early eighties,

the lack of video licensing
laws meant it was freely

circulated, and many thought a genuine
snuff movie had finally surfaced.

There was a policeman who who
publicly said he he'd seen a

snuff movie, and it was
called Cannibal Holocaust.

And that was part of
what caused the sort of,

moral panic about video
analysis was this this view

that children could get
access to this material,

and there was nothing
in law to stop them.

The director of public
prosecutions responded to the

resulting public outcry
by banning the film.

The DPP set up a list of
videos which were approved for

prosecution, and that became
known as the the video nasty list.

And and that that persisted
until nineteen eighty four when

the Video Recordings Act
established regulation of all

videos in the UK.

Blurring the line between
fact and fiction had serious

consequences for the director
when the Italian authorities

put him on trial for the
murder of the actors.

I originally had a originally
had a contract with the actors

where they were asked
to disappear for a year.

But when I was in court on
murder charges and things were

going really badly, I had to
bring one of them back to testify.

Diodato was pretty much a
genius at try the way he tried

to fool the audience with the camera
running out of film and stuff like that.

You know, he was very clever.

As unpleasant as the film is
and as, as crude as it is,

you know, he does have a
a pretty good grip of the

cinematic technique.

By appropriating the techniques
of the documentary world,

Diodato had skillfully
persuaded audiences into

thinking they were
watching real uncut scenes.

This is especially true of
the last footage shot by the

documentary crew in which they
capture their own murders.

You look at the people they use,

and they use real cannibals and like
jungle savages when they film this.

How do you direct a
bunch of cannibals

in Colombia, in the jungle?

How do you do that?

Just that alone seemed to me like
I I it was just it just

felt like some of
it had to be real.

There's no laws. No
one's watching them.

You just you it just gives you
this really creepy feeling.

To avoid jail,

the director even had to reveal
the secret behind the famous

impaling scene,

which had duped many into
believing it was real.

Like, what crew
members say, hey.

I'm gonna stick a
pole up your ass.

It's gonna come out your mouth,

and you're gonna sit there naked for
a minute on camera covered in mud.

Like, who would allow
themselves to do that?

And she doesn't move.
You don't see her blink.

You don't see anything.

I just don't know how
they did that shot.

Special effects gave me a pole
with a bicycle seat on it.

The pole was put
into the ground.

The girl sat on the seat,

and she had a rod of light
balsa wood in her mouth.

Then everything was covered
in blood to hide the seat.

The way they faked that scene and other
scenes in the movie, were, you know,

something that Hollywood
special effects guys probably

couldn't duplicate with
millions of dollars.

The outcry caused by a cannibal
holocaust and the public's

belief in a real trade in snuff
compelled the police to investigate.

Throughout the eighties,
it was Michael Haines'

job as head of
the obscene publications department to

uncover the truth.

We dealt with the most
extreme end of, if you like,

the market, the pawn market.

So we were constantly seeing

terrible scenes
of sadomasochism,

and there was
always a suggestion

that in amongst all this, this,
we would find a snush movie.

And so we're always
aware, you know,

and alive to that possibility.

Haines' inquiries uncovered
The Flower of Flesh and Blood,

a film thought by many to be
the first example of real snuff.

It follows a sadistic samurai
as he butchers a young woman in

his secret lair.

Made for the gore hungry
Japanese market in nineteen

eighty five, it was not only
promoted as a snuff film,

but its brutality
suggested it to be one.

Here he comes.

Watching

a Japanese warrior

who is cutting off
the hand of a woman

or what appears to be

very unpleasant,

unpleasant in each room.

The flower of flesh and blood not
only found its way to Scotland Yard,

but it also made it to LA where
a Hollywood actor saw it and

was convinced it was
a real snuff film.

A gentleman who was writing
for Fangoria at the time,

he used to get all these
extreme movies including this

guinea pig film from Japan and
he turned some friends on to

it who showed it to Charlie Sheen
who he was working with at the time.

Charlie Sheen, thought the film was
real and went to the FBI with it.

The film is so anatomically
accurate that it's almost

impossible to tell
if it's real or not.

This realism extends to the
clinical method of dissection

complete with gruesome
sound effects.

When I hear that this celebrity
looked at a film and said that

it was the real thing,

that causes me to become more
skeptical about the allegation.

So a lot of times,

what they're reporting is the myth
and the legend of the snuff film,

and they dramatize that
exaggerated and embellishing.

The flower of flesh and
blood was discovered to be a

sophisticated fake,

but it remains one of the most
convincing in the history of snuff.

It's extremely,

extremely nasty.

I'm looking at, the
dismembered head

of the young girl, and
the Japanese man who

did that is now licking
the blood off her face.

Gross.

The film caused such a stir in
Japan that in nineteen eighty

six, using behind
the scenes footage,

the making of Guinea Pig was
released to show how they

created the incredibly
realistic special effects.

The body parts mutilated by the
samurai were, in fact, all prosthetic.

It isn't it isn't genuine,

but it looks bloody real.

But the audiences loved it.

At a time when Cannibal
Holocaust was outselling ET in

Japan, Flower of Flesh and
Blood rocketed into the top ten

video sales.

But the effects of its success
took a sinister turn when in

nineteen eighty eight,

it was once again at the center
of a police investigation,

fueling the debate of the link
between real life and screen violence.

Anybody who might be aroused by
someone dying could have those

arousal patterns fueled and
reinforced by looking at snuff,

a simulated snuff type film.

Tsutomu Miyazaki had abducted
and killed four little girls

aged four to seven to
satisfy his strange desires.

He was finally caught in July
nineteen eighty nine attempting

to kidnap his fifth victim.

Amongst the twenty seven
year old's extensive video library

was a copy of Flower
of Flesh and Blood.

Inspired by his favorite
scenes from the movie,

Miyazaki reenacted them on his
victims, filming their torture,

dismemberment, and murder.

But despite being inspired
by a fake snuff movie,

Miyazaki's own recording is not
considered to be an example of

the real thing.

Where this person was not
killed for production value,

this person was killed for the
sexual gratification of this

violent sex offender.

And after the visual
record is made,

it's not for commercial
distribution,

but those are not snuff films.

After seven long years,
Miyazaki was deemed sane and

was sentenced to
death by hanging.

After a decade of
hype and hysteria,

a genuine snuff film
had yet to be found.

But subsequent movies made it
even harder for audiences and

police to tell whether they were
watching the real thing or not.

The arrival of cheap home video
cameras would mean snuff could

finally become reality.

Professional and amateur videos
were thought to show assaults

and murders, including
so called snuff videos.

It was different from the type of
material which is readily available.

In the 1980s, the availability of
cheap home video cameras enabled the

general public to capture
life and death images as they

happened in a way that
wasn't previously possible.

It signaled a new direction
in the story of snuff.

For the first time
in cinema history,

the greatest fear The birth of
the eighties saw faces of death

emerge from the underground.

It claimed to be a compilation
of the most graphic images ever

recorded, including scenes from

accidents, executions,
and mortuaries.

Your own face of death.

This film came out at a time
when nobody had done anything

like this before.

We came out at a
time when this dark,

journey into the unknown,

had never really been explored
on such an exploitive level.

Faces of death compiled the
news clips deemed too extreme

to show on TV or in cinemas,

such as this police shootout
where the hostage taker is

brutally gunned down on camera.

It broke new ground by showing
actual clips of real life

tragedy caught on home video,

like this fatal
parachute accident,

which is all the more
shocking for being real.

Faces of death was banned
in forty six countries,

including the UK.

The more controversial
something is,

the more people are
told they can have it,

the more they want it.

And thus, you know,

banning Faces of Death was probably
the greatest press it could ever have.

April twenty second nineteen
The reason audiences were so

convinced by Faces of Death
was its clever use of real and

mocked up clips,

all shot on the same cheap cameras
available to any member of the public.

I bought footage of a woman who was
committing suicide jumping off a building.

That footage was
about forty seconds.

So what we did is
we shot inserts.

Video inserts of firemen
running up the stairs and then

cut to her out front, and then
all of a sudden she jumps.

And then we see her
drop to the ground,

and then we did an insert
shot with another actress with

brains on the sidewalk.

Much of the footage is faked.

Although for the
the casual viewer,

I think it's quite difficult to work out
sometimes what's faked and what's not.

Many people were duped by
the electric chair scene,

which isn't real either.

It's time.

We built an an electric
chair. We went up to Chino.

We hired an actor to play this
this guy who's on death row.

Good luck, Joe.

And then we cut to as
he turns the corner,

we cut to the a cell which
we had built in a friend's loft.

The process is simple.

The victim is placed in the
chair where electrodes are

attached to his leg and head.

And they taped his eyes and and
they strapped him into the chair.

His eyes are taped to prevent them
from popping out of their sockets.

And then we lined the guy's
mouth with toothpaste.

We had tubes going around
the back of his head

hidden by the tape so that
when he actually got zapped,

I was calling out,
alright. Here we go.

He would just have these
convulsions and eventually we

had makeup guys squeezing blood.

We had toothpaste
coming out of his mouth.

And the guy gave a really,

an Academy Award
winning performance.

And that's why to this day,

people actually think we
actually got footage of an

electric chair execution.

If you go out and you put your
money down to get a film in

which people are dying,

there's a tendency for
you to just kind of hey.

This is cool. People
are dying in here.

And are you really using your
critical thinking skills to

whatever extent you have them?

A lot of times people are
not prepared to do that.

The final trickle of blood
marked the conclusion to this

grotesque execution.

Because it contains some real
and disturbing images of dying,

Faces of Death was
reported as a snuff movie.

Faces of Death is
not a snuff film.

A snuff film is when somebody
is is murdered on camera,

and it's really just down out
down in dirty murder and sex.

Faces of Death is an
exploration into death,

and no one was murdered to to
expedite death in our film.

More than fifteen years
after Snuff's release,

and despite there being no
documented case of a real snuff

movie, the belief that they
were out there persisted.

And the myth gained greater
credibility by the actions of

depraved individuals
like Alec Doughty.

In the porn industry, we
had quite a few informants,

and one of them
got in touch with

us to say that Doughty had been
in touch with him saying that

he wanted to murder,
torture two prostitutes,

and record it on film.

We had our undercover
guy, who we'll call Todd,

get in touch with him,

and they arranged a meeting
at a bar at Euston station,

and this guy started to
talk about, quite freely,

what he wanted to do.

They would snatch the
girls off the street,

drug them with chloroform,

take them to a location
which they were discussing,

and to torch them and kill them.

All the time we were
saying that, you know,

this this must have
just be pure fantasy,

but but it got to the stage
where he actually he started to

draw the implements themselves.

And then at one meeting,

he gave Todd some liquid.

I I mean, we had it tested.
It was noxious substance.

So he was getting
towards the act.

He then gave Todd

a name and telephone number
of a woman in South London.

And we made inquiries and found
out that she was, in fact,

a prostitute and she existed.

I thought we can't let
this go on anymore.

We arrested him, and he
was dealt with under the Mental

Health Act.

He was a very dangerous man.

If he'd succeeded and the
police hadn't been involved,

then clearly that would
have been a snuff movie.

Yeah, absolutely.

Alec Doughty had the desire,
but lacked the ability.

But whereas in the past,

movie production required expensive
kit and highly trained crew,

amateur filmmakers were now
able to direct their own films

with cheap home video cameras.

Jeffrey Jones did just that
in April nineteen eighty six

when he recorded himself
murdering a young girl.

Jeffrey Jones was
charged with murder.

He had hanged his victim,

and he had done so
under the pretense,

of making a serious
film of a decent nature,

whereas in fact, he had set
out to make what in modern violence

would be called a snuff movie.

Jones used his own home
as a filming location.

He lived in a suburban

house on the outskirts
of Birmingham,

and in some ways, it's
almost bizarre that the ordinariness

and decency of the of
the whole neighborhood,

there should be a house in
it where the attic of the.

Jones attracted would be
actress Marion Terry to his

home with an advertisement in
his local news agents to make a

film called Enough Rope.

He described making a film which

was going to culminate with
a fake scene of hanging.

The rope was over a
beam and a hook in the

attic of Jones's house.

Whilst the camera was turning,

she would be standing on the chair
with a noose around her neck,

and it was at this point that
he must quite deliberately have

kicked the chair
away from under her.

In court, Jones insisted
Marion's death was an accident,

and he was merely filming
a simulated hanging.

I expect he would have,

anticipated that she
would have hung there

alive, struggling for
her life for, let us say,

five or ten minutes.

Just the very stuff of the
perverts of snuff movies.

The film Jones was making
has never been found.

I have a theory of my own
that because he was so

deeply into all these versions,

he may have been in contact
some sort of network of people

who were interested
in snuff movies.

So in other words,

the film may have been made
not merely for his own,

bizarre gratification,

but actually for the purpose
of making money out of it.

If somebody has
made a snuff movie,

then they're not really going to
show it to the world at large.

That's direct firsthand
evidence of the

murder being committed.

You would be more likely
to just keep it hidden.

Despite the lack
of video evidence,

the jury were quick to find
Jones guilty of murder,

and he was sentenced
to life in prison.

To take the life of any other
human being deliberately

is an horrific act.

But to do it in
such a calculated,

bizarre way, and to want
to make and create a record

of your doing so, perhaps
the word monster is not

wholly out of place.

Alec Doughty had the intention
of producing a snuff film,

but was arrested
before he could do it.

Jeffrey Jones had made a
tape that was never found.

But a case in Germany suggested
the snuff movie industry might

be more than just an urban myth.

In November nineteen
ninety seven,

the two men kidnapped a twenty
four year old prostitute from

the Christmas
market in Dortmund.

They tortured her in front
of their video camera,

but she escaped and led the
police to a farmhouse near

Hagen, where they were to
discover something far worse.

During the course of
the investigations,

a body was found
on the property.

A twenty one year old Turkish
woman who was a prostitute had

been severely tortured prior
to her death and had also been

sexually abused.

On further investigation,

they found a small torture
chamber fitted out with carpet

so no one could hear the screams
when they videoed their victim.

They also found a tape.

The two minutes and three
seconds on the video film that

was seized made it clear what
the perpetrators had done to her.

You can see that the victim had
to suffer the most agonizing

pain for many hours.

This has been amongst the most
violent thing of this nature

that police officers and
myself have ever seen.

The prostitute had
been brutally killed.

The murdered woman's body
was found very tightly bound.

Her head was totally wrapped
in tear proof sticky tape.

Due to these circumstances,
she died through suffocation.

Ernst Dieter Kausen was the
sadistic torturer of the duo.

A psychiatric report on him
found that beatings and abuse

were a regular part
of his childhood.

During this period,

his experiences led to a strong
connection in his mind between

fear, pain, and also lust.

In April nineteen ninety nine,

Khorsen and Mahn
were jailed for life,

becoming the first people
in Europe to be convicted of

murder while producing
a snuff movie,

which they'd hoped to sell in the
USA for sixteen thousand dollars

It seems that the disturbing
truth behind why no snuff movie

had ever appeared before was
that criminals had lacked the

means to make one, but not the

intent.

If you go back to
the Moors murderers, Hindi and Brady,

when they killed those children,

they recorded the
deaths on tape.

It's certain in my mind that
had there been video recorders

in those days, they would have
recorded those deaths on film as well.

So when you think
about snuff movies,

they were creating
snuff audio tapes.

So the genre

was there.

If access to video had given
criminals the potential to make

their own snuff films,

the creation of the internet
would unleash enormous numbers

of potential buyers.

What the internet is is the
greatest invention in the

history of mankind for
people who have narrow and

small sexual interests or really
any interest to find each other.

San Jose police were amongst
the first to recognize the

dangers of the net.

At the beginning of
nineteen eighty nine,

a detective pioneered going
undercover in cyber space by

posing as a bisexual pedophile.

He went on a sex bulletin board where
he met Dean Lambie, thirty three,

and later, Daniel
Depew, twenty seven.

These were two individuals who
began to communicate with each

other about the possibility
of kidnapping the snuff

film.

During a six month relationship,

the two Virginia men developed
a plot to kidnap a boy from the

northern end of their state.

The plan was to keep him
in captivity for two weeks,

repeatedly molest him, each time
torturing him to just short of death,

eventually murder him and
videotape the whole thing.

Why would you trust somebody you just
started to talk to on the Internet?

This is not a smart thing to do,

particularly when you're
talking about abducting and

murdering people.

But again, it's this
need for validation.

A lot of these people
communicate with each other

because what they want
somebody to say is,

you know what I'm
thinking about doing?

I'm thinking about abducting
a kid, torturing him,

killing him, and filming it.

Now if you say that to
your next door neighbor,

they say to you,
you sick weirdo.

What's wrong with you?
I'm calling the police.

The anonymity of the internet
lulled the duo into a false

sense of security.

These individuals were placed
under elaborate surveillance

and monitored and watched.

In August nineteen eighty nine,

when Lambie told the undercover
police officer he had spotted a

likely thirteen year old victim
riding his bike and that he

intended to carry out the
plan at his Richmond home,

police and the FBI
were forced to act.

Are we gonna wait till he grabs
the kid and gets him in the car,

and then we're gonna arrest him
before they get to the location

where they were gonna kill him?

I don't think so. So you have
to move in pretty quickly.

Their plot, hatched on
the Internet, was foiled,

and the two men are serving
thirty years in federal prisons.

Although DePew and
Lambie were convicted,

the increasing access to
technology would make it easier

and easier to capture death
on camera and to distribute it

without fear of being caught.

Cyberspace with all of its
global opportunities was

calling and snuff was
not about to turn away.

With the invention
of the internet,

snuff found its natural home.

Any kind of deprivation was
available online and tracing

those who put it there
was complex and difficult.

If a genuine snuff movie
was ever to surface,

this is where it would be found.

But the innovators in this area
came from an unlikely source.

No.

I mean, the closest thing I saw to
a snuff film was one of those Al

Qaeda decapitations,
and that was enough.

Now, you literally could go on
your computer and type Al Qaeda

Daniel Pearl and click a video and
watch this guy getting decapitated.

And it's real. It's horrifying.

I can watch endless
decapitations in movies because

I know it's theater.
It's a magic trick.

When we see people like Nick
Berg and Daniel Pearl murdered

on camera or pictures of it
in the newspaper, you know,

that tops anything that
Hollywood could come up with.

Because now, you know,

the the filmmakers are the
terrorists who are making their

own snuff movies and and
holding the world hostage with

images of of real horror.

The deaths

in Iraq where people
have been beheaded

are probably not
snuff movies as such.

They are films that are being
made for different purposes.

The purpose being
to frighten us all,

and as as a weapon of terror.

But evidence that technology
is enabling snuff to become a

reality emerged in October
two thousand and four.

A thirty seven year old man
lost his life to the latest

phenomenon sweeping Britain,
known as happy slapping,

where acts of violence
are recorded on mobile phones.

People are getting some
sort of gratification,

not necessarily
sexual gratification,

but but they're
getting gratification

and so called fun Knock one.

Knock one. Knock one.

From

torturing other people.

And in the Southbank
Bank incident, obviously,

that was to the nth degree.

David Morley, a survivor of the
Admiral Duncan pub bombing in Soho,

became the random victim
of a violent London gang.

It was killed on the Southbank
by a group of teenagers who

were filming the attacks that
they were making on people on

their mobile telephones.

The teenage girl shouted,

we're doing a documentary
on happy slapping.

Then the attack
on the pair began.

Mister Morley was repeatedly
kicked and beaten.

He suffered forty four
separate injuries.

And as he lay helpless
on the ground,

his head was kicked
like a football.

The gang were arrested
and prosecuted.

And in January two
thousand and six,

their sentence was handed down.

Today, the gang of four youths found
guilty of David Morley's murder

were sentenced to between eight
and twelve years in prison.

Had the gang charged their mates
to look at what they produced,

they would have had the
perverse pleasure of fulfilling

all the criteria required
to define a film as snuff.

Now, thirty years after
Shackleton released his film

Snuff, mainstream cinema is
again exploring the concept.

On this on this
website that I saw,

you could just walk into a room
and shoot someone in the head.

Eli Roth's new film called
Hostel is based on a real

website where users can
supposedly pay ten thousand

dollars to travel to Thailand
and kill someone for kicks.

I think I'm pushing the
envelope in terms of,

oh my god, this
could really happen.

I mean, we have such horrible
atrocities happening to these

people, and there's no monster.

It's all done very realistic,

and it's actually
really disturbing.

But I'm never claiming
that it's real.

As in Hostel, no one dies
for real in Snuff movie.

It supports the argument that
because it's now possible to

make an utterly convincing fake,

there's no need to take the risk
of actually killing someone.

Gentlemen,

please join me.

I want a show like a magician who's
broken the code what the tricks are.

Stop.

It's the Doctor Strange love
of snuff movies because I think

it's kind of humorous
and piss takey.

What is this, candid
fucking camera?

But at the same time,

uncomfortable makes
you a little queasy.

At the climax of the film,

you purportedly see people
physically harmed and tortured.

You think this woman is having a
head shaved and she's being tattooed.

You think the guy's
being for sure

stabbed in his torso.

It's done in a way that it's hard
to believe it's not really going on.

But I can assure you it's fake.

Yes, they will never
release this movie.

They don't need to because
it'll be everywhere

all over the net.

It'll be passed on from
computer to computer,

unstoppable.

I've seen all kinds of films,

and most people have seen films
where for every standard that

anybody is aware of, it looks
like someone was murdered.

Why risk killing somebody when you can
make it look like you killed somebody?

And to the viewer who
wants to believe this,

they're gonna believe it.

And yet, the possibilities opened
up by internet and mobile technology

means there is less risk
attached than ever in creating

snuff for real.

It now seems only a matter of
time before a verified example

comes to light.

This is a theme that really
doesn't seem to go away.

It works quite well as a
plot in a horror movie.

But if such things
really exist, who knows?

The possibilities of recording things
on film is as extensive

as the human imagination
is at its most perverse.

It's something about mankind
that there are some people that

have the ability to do that
to another human being,

to take their life.

I'm not suggesting that there has
never been a snow film or

never will be a snow film.

Certainly, this is in
the realm of possibility.

I wouldn't be surprised if
there really is some kind of

sick perverted subculture
that watches these films and

that the real thing
probably is out there.

Although the existence of
an underground snuff movie

industry is yet
to be established,

the idea of it
refuses to go away.

Unfounded allegations of
snuff were first made against

mainstream cinema.

But now, it seems likely that an
amateur filmmaker could be the one to

make a real snuff film.

The truth is that snuff is
probably already out there.

We just haven't found it yet.

Tomorrow at five past
eleven, the real animal farm.

The story behind a porn film
that shocked a generation.

Next tonight, back to the
late eighties for raves,

naughty nuns,
secrets, and spies.

What the censors wanted
banned in the UK.