The Great American Snuff Film (2004)

Snuff films were an urban legend that became real: Leonard Lake and Charles Ng made them, as did Maury Travis. This film is not based on them, but it bears an uncanny resemblance to Bittaker and Norris; the dominant one looks a bit like Bittaker, and the slow one is even called Roy. A documentary about real serial killers serves a purpose, but a film that is simply gratuitous sadism, rape and murder with a bit of necrophilia thrown in, well, it reminds us there are plenty of sick minds out there besides these unspeakables.This film is trash. One point for the soundtrack.

I feel like this movie was made by a sadistic 16 year old in film class. It is supposedly a documentary on a "real life" serial killer. Any research of his name reveals that this is not true making this movie worse. The poor acting/ sound/ lighting and direction could have been OK if it was supposed to be a documentary. But it's not. simple as that. This film fell flat with no redemption. The "real footage" at the end is obviously not real. (Nor did I want it to be, if it was as it was claiming to be, a true snuff piece). I feel this whole movie was made on a whim by a couple of board kids who wanted to meet pretty girls, so they threw them in this horribly made "movie"

The Great Ameican Snuff Film starts as two sick freaks named Roy (Ryan Hutman) & William Allen Grone (Mike Marsh) kidnap two young girls named Sarah & Maddy (Melinda Lorenz & Holi Tavernier), they take them to the junkyard deep in the desert which Roy owns miles from anywhere of note. There Roy & William intend to make a snuff film on super 8 film with Sarah & Maddy as the unlucky stars...Going straight-to-video after sitting on a shelf unreleased for a number of years where it should have stayed, written, produced & directed by Sean Tretta The Great American Snuff Film is crap, I'd call it pathetic filth but it's not even that good. The script was apparently based on the real life case of William Grone & the 2 and a half minutes of footage that was found when police raided his house, this footage is supposedly presented at the end with a warning that 'veiwer discretion is advised' but this so-called real footage is probably the most fake & unbelievable scene in the whole film. Plot wise it is as bare-bones as they come, you can basically work out the entire film just from the title. There'sonly about seven people in the entire film none of which are particularly likable. The Great American Snuff Film seems to be a ultra serious attempt to get into the mind of a sick f*ck like Grone as it almost relies totally on his constant tedious & clichéd monologues for it's narrative even though not much happens anyway. The whole film goes to plan exactly as one would expect & when there's a clichéd flashback that suggests Grone's current state is down to childhood abused you realise there really is nothing here that you haven't seen before & that The Great American Snuff Film really isn't going anywhere new or revolutionary.Director Tretta manages to evoke a certain sadistic & nasty tone throughout the film simply because of the subject matter rather than what actually ended up on screen. Now I don't mind torture, gore & violence in the films that I watch, in fact I actively encourage it, I cannot & will not enjoy the constant sadistic torture, both psychical & mental, of women by retarded men for entertainment. While I know it's just a film I really cannot understand anyone who genuinely enjoys watching this crap as the torture & degradation of these two girls is the only thing this film seems interested in. I wouldn't call it scary or creepy & surprisingly there's very little gore considering the subject matter, in fact I can't think of any apart from some blood splatter.Technially The Great American Snuff Film is pretty poor, the colour seems very bright during daytime shots which give it a distracting & unrealistic look & then there's the awful music which plays constantly during the first half of the film & to make things worse sometimes it's louder than the dialogue spoken by the actors which is not a good combination. There's also the baffling instances of being able to hear the wind blow against the mike & since certain scenes were probably shot over a certain period of time the wind from one shot to the next in the same scene has different levels of this noisy blowing wind. The acting isn't too bad especially by the girls.The Great American Snuff Film is the sort of film I hate, it provided zero entertainment & I found it abhorrent from start to finish. Total crap as far as I'm concerned & it's as simple & straight forward as that.

This film is not your sleek, glossy Hollywood production, revolving around an intricate plot and developing characters.This film is, to use well known examples, the bastard child of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original version) and Natural Born Killers.From the chaotic "amateur" camera work to the constant presence of the narrator this film does an excellent job of telling exactly the story it wants to tell, a direct interpretation of the mind of William Grone.People complain of it lacking special effects, but they should bear in mind this was a low budget indie film, and for what they had to work with they did a good job. Fantastic work on choice of actors, set design, music and all the small things that draw together to create a consistently believable and compelling atmosphere.As for plot, presuming they are following Grone's journal to the letter, if you don't like it, it's hardly the fault of the film maker if they follow a true story.As for the bit of supposed snuff at the end, of course I'm extremely skeptical about it's origin, but bear in films exist to tell us entertaining lies. Bickering over it's plausibility is as bad as people who read The Da Vinci code and believe every last word.As a film in it's own right, I'm happy to call it a 7 out of 10, a satisfying way to waste an hour and a half at 1am on an uneventful Friday night. Not exactly exciting or entertaining, but compelling and expertly crafted.Looking at it from it's creator, Sean Tretta's point of view, I'd call it a perfect 10. It does everything I believe he set out to do. I can't fault it as a translation of his idea onto the screen.To use a fairly tenuous simile, this film is like a good stamp collection. It's creator has done a wonderful piece of work, compared to other stamp collections it's top notch. Stamp enthusiasts will all recognize this utter beauty. The ordinary man however will look at it and say "But it's just stamps", they may find it interesting that someone might go to so much effort and look through it in morbid fascination, but they just won't quite get the point.