#12
April 8th 2011 06:57
T
he mythology of the so-called snuff movie has probably been around for as long as the motion picture itself. Real footage of people really being killed and the films then sold on the black market or privately delivered to the filthy rich and decadent, for a price. The apparent existence of the snuff movie came to cultural prominence in the 70s, arguably the most transgressive decade in the history of film, when a movie called Snuff (1976) was released purporting to be the real deal. It was later revealed to be a cut-and-paste hack (pun intended) job where a movie called The Slaughter (1971) was edited into another movie and a faux-snuff ending tagged on by another director at the distributor’s behest. The result is utterly unconvincing. And a waste of a half-decent title.
The superb non-fiction book Killing for Culture goes into great detail about the history of death film and the spectre of the snuff movie. The reality is this: there is evidence of such films existing (terrorist executions are death films, not snuff movies). However any intelligent-minded person would have to agree that because there the evidence doesn’t exist doesn’t mean snuff movies aren’t being made. The evil is out there, and I’m sure the market is out there, however niche and hard to find.
Horror filmmakers and horrorphiles have always been fascinated by the possible and probably existence of snuff movies, and faux snuff movies have been produced for decades, nearly all of them a pile of rubbish. The sensibility and approach alone is very much an acquired taste. The most well-known, and arguably the most successful, of the faux snuff movies are the August Underground trilogy (2001-07) made by Toetag Pictures in America. The Japanese Guinea Pig series, in particular Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985) became infamous amongst snuffophiles when Charlie Sheen made the winning move of contacting authorities believing he had watched a real snuff movie. He hadn’t. It was all special effects and directorial technique. Italian director Ruggero Deodato was brought to trial after Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was released when charges were laid that he had had his actors killed on-screen for the purpose of the movie. Special make-up effects artist Carlo Rambaldi testified in defence of Deodato (no lawyers represented the poor animals who were genuinely butchered!)
The concept of a snuff movie existing in the world of mainstream cinema is an anomaly. It simply wouldn’t happen. But with the manipulative mask of the Internet at filmmakers’ disposal they continue to push the envelope in the hope of pulling the wool over unsuspecting audiences and critics. So now with the whole “found footage” sub-genre becoming trendy we find the snuff movie aesthetic rearing its ugly head once more. Which brings me to #12 (2011).
American director Jorje Krippe’s movie is fabricated to look like a real snuff video. So much so that the director has had a fake website constructed – Renegade Video :: Cutting Edge Entertainment – which is designed as an online store to purchase videos featuring beatings, maiming and killing; essentially real torture and death porn … but not. None of it is real, just as none of the three filmmakers went missing in The Blair Witch Project (1999) despite a convincing website prior to the movie’s release that said they did. A some of the clips on the Renegade site would be distressing if it weren’t so obvious that the site was fake. I don’t think real snuff movies would be available to purchase for only $9.99 (#1), with the most expensive (#11) costing $299.99. Man even three-hundred bucks is a bargain! I emailed the site, and it was returned sayin not such address exists. Okay Mr. Krippe, you got some explaining to do!
Actually Jorji Krippe doesn’t need to explain. I understand the game plan. But I’m curious as to what his marketing ploy is now that #12 has had its world premiere at A Night Of Horror International Film Festival. The movie isn’t listed on imdb.com and it’s next to impossible trying to source any production credits. There are none on the movie itself, apart from Renegade Films and the website.
“at Renegade Films we know what you really want to see. We feature the hottest ‘actresses’ around. We hand pick them ourselves – then we strip them naked, torture them and kill them. And we film it all for your viewing pleasure. #12 is our twelfth film – and it was supposed to be our best. We cast the hottest actress yet. We scripted a death for her that was, well, unforgettable. Ultimately I think youll agree: she gave the performance of her life. enjoy.” [sic]
A businessman husband arrives home and finds a video camera in the kitchen with a post-it note saying “Turn me on”, so he does, thinking his wife is playing a little hanky-panky. Upstairs in the bedroom the husband discovers bloodstains. Three men assault the husband and force him to drive to an undisclosed location, or else. He must continue videoing the entire time. The man arrives at a motel where under duress he is instructed to enter one of the units. There he discovers a prostitute who he had been seeing. His instructions dictate that he abduct the young woman and deliver her to an abandoned high-rise building somewhere in one of the city’s (Detroit) many derelict areas. Several men, all of who have had their faces digitally obscured, manhandle the two victims into a specially prepared snuff room. It is here in this large room that the husband and the prostitute are bound and humiliated. But not everything goes to the snuff director’s plans, and it is this video footage, almost entirely in real time that provides the remainder of #12’s 80 minute running time.
The main location, a decrepit, fifteen-to-twenty-storey building, is incredibly impressive, and it provides #12 with a genuinely menacing and frightening atmosphere. The air is thick with fear and anxiety. It’s a shame the actor playing the husband wasn’t a better performer; I wasn’t convinced by him in the slightest. The girl, however, was very good. As the above statement from Renegade Films states, she is smoking. She valiantly attempts the role of Final Girl. But, as the tagline to A Serbian Film (2010, which deals with the snuff movie industry) goes, “Not all stories have happy endings.”
I wanted to be impressed by #12 more than I was. It wasn’t just the dodgy performance of the husband that let the movie down. The movie should have been shorter; rather than the conventional 80-90 or so minutes it should have been around the 70-minute mark to maintain an underground aesthetic. And where was the extreme, graphic violence the whole damn thing promises?! We see a few bloodied corpses, but that was it. Not a beheading or dismemberment in sight. Bah humbug! I was gearing up for a clever “How the fuck did they just do that?!” moment right at movie’s end when the prostitute finds herself on the building’s rooftop edge, still with camera on, exhausted and at her wits end, and nowhere to go but a long drop. Unfortunately director Jorji Krippe wasn’t able to create the illusion I was anticipating, or maybe he didn’t even bother to try.
However. Despite my reservations, #12 is still resonating with me. I saw it last night at A Night Of Horror film festival, and I can’t get it out of my mind; that creepy building, the white blurred faces of the assailants, the hooker in her tight black pants limping up the stairwells, whimpering, managing to hold onto the camera, still videoing her endless nightmare.
God bless her.
Here’s the “trailer” in the guise of an excerpt:
The superb non-fiction book Killing for Culture goes into great detail about the history of death film and the spectre of the snuff movie. The reality is this: there is evidence of such films existing (terrorist executions are death films, not snuff movies). However any intelligent-minded person would have to agree that because there the evidence doesn’t exist doesn’t mean snuff movies aren’t being made. The evil is out there, and I’m sure the market is out there, however niche and hard to find.
Horror filmmakers and horrorphiles have always been fascinated by the possible and probably existence of snuff movies, and faux snuff movies have been produced for decades, nearly all of them a pile of rubbish. The sensibility and approach alone is very much an acquired taste. The most well-known, and arguably the most successful, of the faux snuff movies are the August Underground trilogy (2001-07) made by Toetag Pictures in America. The Japanese Guinea Pig series, in particular Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985) became infamous amongst snuffophiles when Charlie Sheen made the winning move of contacting authorities believing he had watched a real snuff movie. He hadn’t. It was all special effects and directorial technique. Italian director Ruggero Deodato was brought to trial after Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was released when charges were laid that he had had his actors killed on-screen for the purpose of the movie. Special make-up effects artist Carlo Rambaldi testified in defence of Deodato (no lawyers represented the poor animals who were genuinely butchered!)
The concept of a snuff movie existing in the world of mainstream cinema is an anomaly. It simply wouldn’t happen. But with the manipulative mask of the Internet at filmmakers’ disposal they continue to push the envelope in the hope of pulling the wool over unsuspecting audiences and critics. So now with the whole “found footage” sub-genre becoming trendy we find the snuff movie aesthetic rearing its ugly head once more. Which brings me to #12 (2011).
American director Jorje Krippe’s movie is fabricated to look like a real snuff video. So much so that the director has had a fake website constructed – Renegade Video :: Cutting Edge Entertainment – which is designed as an online store to purchase videos featuring beatings, maiming and killing; essentially real torture and death porn … but not. None of it is real, just as none of the three filmmakers went missing in The Blair Witch Project (1999) despite a convincing website prior to the movie’s release that said they did. A some of the clips on the Renegade site would be distressing if it weren’t so obvious that the site was fake. I don’t think real snuff movies would be available to purchase for only $9.99 (#1), with the most expensive (#11) costing $299.99. Man even three-hundred bucks is a bargain! I emailed the site, and it was returned sayin not such address exists. Okay Mr. Krippe, you got some explaining to do!
Actually Jorji Krippe doesn’t need to explain. I understand the game plan. But I’m curious as to what his marketing ploy is now that #12 has had its world premiere at A Night Of Horror International Film Festival. The movie isn’t listed on imdb.com and it’s next to impossible trying to source any production credits. There are none on the movie itself, apart from Renegade Films and the website.
“at Renegade Films we know what you really want to see. We feature the hottest ‘actresses’ around. We hand pick them ourselves – then we strip them naked, torture them and kill them. And we film it all for your viewing pleasure. #12 is our twelfth film – and it was supposed to be our best. We cast the hottest actress yet. We scripted a death for her that was, well, unforgettable. Ultimately I think youll agree: she gave the performance of her life. enjoy.” [sic]
A businessman husband arrives home and finds a video camera in the kitchen with a post-it note saying “Turn me on”, so he does, thinking his wife is playing a little hanky-panky. Upstairs in the bedroom the husband discovers bloodstains. Three men assault the husband and force him to drive to an undisclosed location, or else. He must continue videoing the entire time. The man arrives at a motel where under duress he is instructed to enter one of the units. There he discovers a prostitute who he had been seeing. His instructions dictate that he abduct the young woman and deliver her to an abandoned high-rise building somewhere in one of the city’s (Detroit) many derelict areas. Several men, all of who have had their faces digitally obscured, manhandle the two victims into a specially prepared snuff room. It is here in this large room that the husband and the prostitute are bound and humiliated. But not everything goes to the snuff director’s plans, and it is this video footage, almost entirely in real time that provides the remainder of #12’s 80 minute running time.
The main location, a decrepit, fifteen-to-twenty-storey building, is incredibly impressive, and it provides #12 with a genuinely menacing and frightening atmosphere. The air is thick with fear and anxiety. It’s a shame the actor playing the husband wasn’t a better performer; I wasn’t convinced by him in the slightest. The girl, however, was very good. As the above statement from Renegade Films states, she is smoking. She valiantly attempts the role of Final Girl. But, as the tagline to A Serbian Film (2010, which deals with the snuff movie industry) goes, “Not all stories have happy endings.”
I wanted to be impressed by #12 more than I was. It wasn’t just the dodgy performance of the husband that let the movie down. The movie should have been shorter; rather than the conventional 80-90 or so minutes it should have been around the 70-minute mark to maintain an underground aesthetic. And where was the extreme, graphic violence the whole damn thing promises?! We see a few bloodied corpses, but that was it. Not a beheading or dismemberment in sight. Bah humbug! I was gearing up for a clever “How the fuck did they just do that?!” moment right at movie’s end when the prostitute finds herself on the building’s rooftop edge, still with camera on, exhausted and at her wits end, and nowhere to go but a long drop. Unfortunately director Jorji Krippe wasn’t able to create the illusion I was anticipating, or maybe he didn’t even bother to try.
However. Despite my reservations, #12 is still resonating with me. I saw it last night at A Night Of Horror film festival, and I can’t get it out of my mind; that creepy building, the white blurred faces of the assailants, the hooker in her tight black pants limping up the stairwells, whimpering, managing to hold onto the camera, still videoing her endless nightmare.
God bless her.
Here’s the “trailer” in the guise of an excerpt:
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Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
It's pretty much a horror movie as far as I can see. I certainly had expectations. How can one not, when it's being "sold" as an apparent snuff movie?
Comment by Anonymous
Good stuff at the site. Thanks!
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Comment by Natalina
My Life My Muse
Beta Girl Blog
Snuff a Film About Killing on Camera
I saw it on Netflix a few weeks ago. Weird stuff.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile