snuff film

snuff film

A film that shows the actual murder or death of a person. Although snuff films are illegal, they are still widely circulated on the black market. The death scenes were so realistic that the director and producers were actually arrested at one point for making a snuff film.
See also: film, snuff
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

snuff film

n. a film that records an actual death or killing. Some of these snuff films have a loyal following of real sickies.
See also: film, snuff
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • snuff movie
  • snuff it
  • up to snuff
  • pinch
  • be a/the poor man's (someone or something)
  • be a/the poor man's sb/sth
  • fact checker
  • fact checking
  • fact check
  • Beau Brummel
References in periodicals archive
It's a hilarious and biting satire on a very violent and gory snuff film.
The Passion
Writing in The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier denounced the small-minded Gibson and his sacred "snuff film"--soaked in blood, reveling in torture, and resurrecting anti-Semitism as religious dogma.
'The Passion': powerful but disturbing
It was literally a "snuff film," designed to horrify and titillate.
Berg beheading caps U.S. failure in Iraq media wars
I will then be in a better position to discuss the picture in relation to snuff film mythology--undoubtedly the most extreme case of "cinematic realism" in the horror genre.
The life and crimes of ben; or when a serial killer meets a film crew in man bites dog
It's nothing more than a snuff film," wrote Mark McGuire of the Times Union in Albany, N.Y.
WITNESSING A MURDER
To support his contention that the Lao government was massacring ethnic Hmong, Vang produced a grainy videotape that resembled a `70s snuff film minus the music.
Avoiding the Laos Trap
The first one, Snuff, released in 1976, actively sought to create scandal by its aggressive marketing (see Scott Aaron Stine: "The Snuff Film. The Making of an Urban Legend," Skeptical Inquirer 23(3), May-June 1999:29-33).
La mort en direct. Les snuff movies [Death "Live." Snuff Movies]
Saying that a snuff film or a rap lyric offends public morality offends the civil libertarian in us, an overdeveloped part of our collective personality.
Essays on Decency, Law, and Pornography
During the trial, his defence lawyer said someone else attacked her for warning Chartres-Abbot he was going to be killed in a snuff film. The victim's blood was found on his clothes and he was also found in possession of her phone.
Australia: Man Arrested for Murder of Gigolo 'Vampire' Rapist
Better that they be remembered for their real lives and deeds than for this manipulative snuff film.
Airsick
For one thing, as several technological experts have pointed out, the phone-line transmission may not be immune to hacking or decryption--raising the prospect of a McVeigh snuff film in the near or distant future.
McVeigh's Last Mile
Sorkin, writer of the recent Facebook movie 'The Social Network', also accused the Fox News contributor of making a 'snuff film' after the latest episode of Palin's 'Alaska' featured the politician going hunting with her father and shooting a caribou, reports the Guardian.
'Sarah Palin's Alaska' branded a 'snuff film'
Is the snuff film a "horrible aberration" (224), as much popular media and the occasional police investigator would have us believe?
Killing for Culture: An Illustrated History of Death Film from Mondo to Snuff. (Book Review)
And I fervently wish, for the sake of Pearl's widow, Mariane, and his two-week-old baby son, Adam, and all of the rest of his surviving family and friends, that the ghastly snuff film didn't exist.
Dan Pearl's killing should not be shown
Despite a few false notes concerning a snuff film ring and a moralizing female pimp, Pera is remarkably adept at pulling it all together, producing a work of gritty lyricism and disturbing intensity.
Troublemaker