Snuff-Movie Review

Snuff-Movie
A renowned horror director restages his wife's grisly murder in his next film, but is faking the actors deaths enough for him?

by Genevieve Harrison |
Published on
Release Date:

27 Oct 2006

Running Time:

93 minutes

Certificate:

18

Original Title:

Snuff-Movie

A virtual recluse since his pregnant wife was murdered by a psychotic gang (cue creepy Polanski parallels), horror director Boris Arkadin (Jeroen Krabbé) comes out of retirement to shoot a bloody recreation of the killings. But does he plan to murder his cast of unknowns for real, for the ultimate exploitation film?

Bernard Rose, a once-promising British filmmaker, misfires spectacularly with this lurid, DV-shot sleazefest. At best, Rose is punching above his intellectual weight; at worst, indulging himself, and exploiting his cast, just as Arkadin does. He could have saved himself a five-year struggle by renting Michael Haneke’s masterful Funny Games, which made the same point — the audience’s complicity in screen violence — more effectively. Disturbing and distasteful, and not in a good way.

Interesting concept very poorly handled so it just ends up gratuitously...er...bad.
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