Snuff (film)

Snuff is a 1976 splatter film, and is most notorious for being marketed as if it were an actual snuff film. This picture contributed to the urban legend of snuff films, although the concept did not originate with it.

Independent lowbudget distributor and sometime producer Allan Shackleton took the film and shelved it for four yearsbut was inspired to release it with a new ending, unbeknownst to the original filmmakers, after reading a newspaper article in 1975 on the rumor of snuff films produced in South America and decided to cash in on the urban legend. He added a new ending, filmed in a vrit style by Simon Nuchtern,citation needed in which a woman is brutally murdered by a film crew, supposedly the crew of Slaughter. The new footage purportedly showed an actual murder, and was spliced onto the end of Slaughter with an abrupt cut suggesting that the footage was unplanned and the murder authentic. This new version of the film was released under the title Snuff, with the tagline The film that could only be made in South America... where Life is CHEAP.Once the film was released, distributor Shackleton reportedly hired fake protesters to picket movie theaters showing the film. This soon became moot when Women Against Pornography began staging real protests, outraged at the films purported imagery of sexual violence. The groups protest received coverage by such media outlets as the CBS Evening News. ........

Source: Wikipedia