Short Review: 'The Great American Snuff Film' (2003)

Uber-realist, verite’ style horror movies have been quite in vogue in recent years, many of which revel in the more twisted, depraved behaviors of man and often pride themselves upon their shock-a-billy theatrics and no-holds-barred approach to cinematic violence. The apex of this sub-genre is the faux ‘snuff’ film: the exploitation of human beings by a crazed killer(s) for the purpose of capturing their death of film. With the exception of the rare gem the majority of these flicks are undeniably horrendous - both in subject matter and filmmaking skill (or lack thereof) – and tend to get caught up in their own blind degeneracy without consideration for the audience. Director Sean Tretta’s painfully self-indulgent debut, The Great American Snuff Film, may have spiked its aspirations high, however its greatest achievement is the complete annihilation of any and all viewer interest toward a shred of the events spilling across the screen.

Purportedly based on a true case, reclusive loser William Grone (Mike Marsh) and his hopelessly brainless pervert of a friend Roy (Ryan Hutman) kidnap and terrorize pretty young things for their own devious pleasures, cataloging their victims’ nightmares on Super 8mm film. Bill’s own personal mission is to capture an unparalleled ‘truth’ via his celluloid experiments, allowing the medium of film to expose their victims’ fear in the most unadulterated way possible. His many efforts to succeed in this master plan are continuously compromised, however, when Roy’s uncontrollable sexual desires get the better of him, resulting in many escape attempts by captives and a general deterioration of trust between the two criminals.

By nature of its very template the film-within-a-film concept is inherently self aware and knowingly referential, bound to a certain set of storytelling aesthetics by default. But where other films of its type succeed in being fascinatingly penetrative of the cinematic 4^th wall, The Great American Snuff Film’s perception of its audience is so insulting that any investment in its characters, situation or even bloodshed is obliterated after the first scene’s smug attempt at trying to convince you of its own importance. Through horrid narration, cliché’d exposition and pathetic attempts to rationalize the killer’s motivation via textbook child abuse events, Tretta expects his audience to blindly empathize with the sadists (at least on a contrived level) to the point where 90 minutes of non-stop torture, sodomy and plotless mayhem are meant to equate to skillful entertainment. The screenplay is utterly devoid of direction and/or a method of how to deliver a compelling story given the lurid material, making it incredibly difficult from an audience perspective to care at all about the fate of the characters, or anything associated with the movie for that matter. For an ultra low budget production, this failing is made all the more obvious as a result.

Despite the movie crumbling at its core with regard to the execution of narrative and character, The Great American Snuff Film does succeed in achieving a look and atmosphere so greasy and coked in human waste that it makes you want to take a shower immediately after smashing your DVD copy of the movie against the living room wall. Assumedly made for the total sum of a rice crispy square, the films’ desaturated photography, disjointed editing and glaringly patchy ADR all contribute to an overpoweringly nauseating experience reflective of many a grindhouse sleaze epic, albeit not as enjoyable. Regrettably, these somewhat positive attributes admittedly aren’t worth much when taking into account the rest of Snuff’s unfortunate disposition.

While The Great American Snuff Film may have had aspirations of rupturing the indie horror market and attaining a cult status of its own, it fails to acknowledge one crucial factor of successful horror cinema: in order for an audience to surrender their inhibitions they must first be convinced the movie has done the same. Instead this backwoods blunder takes the viewer for granted and hopes you’ll never notice.



Dir: Sean Tretta
Writer: Sean Tretta
Cast: Mike Marsh, Ryan Hutman, Melinda Lorenz, Holi Tavernier
Country: USA
Run Time: 87mins
Rating: R18+