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Articles

Vol. 5 No. 2 (2009): The Scene

Snuff Boxing: Revisiting the "Snuff" Coda

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14288/cinephile.v5i2.197940
Submitted
March 11, 2023
Published
2009-06-01

Abstract

Over thirty years since its release, Snuff (Findlay/Nuchtern, 1976) receives very little critical attention outside of historical analyses of film violence and the antipornography movement, or paracinematic critiques that more often than not mock the undeveloped gore-literacy of those who fell for the hoax at the time of the film’s release. But considering that snuff film has remained such a consistently viable source of terror (despite shifts in both camera technologies and modes of distribution), an exhumation of the Snuff coda raises a startlingly overlooked feature. While the unnamed ‘director’ figure and his blonde victim remain two of the most notorious onscreen figures in paracinematic history, the presence of a third figure, ‘June’ (the only named person in the entire sequence) has gone almost completely unacknowledged. It is in light of this omission that this article revisits the Snuff coda.