Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Fellas, this is going
Speaker 3: to be darkwater, not appropriate for all audiences. Maybe we
Speaker 3: start this way as where all film buffs. What is
Speaker 3: the most disturbing film you've ever seen, not just in
Speaker 3: terms of like bad or disappointing, but something that genuinely
Speaker 3: bothers haunted.
Speaker 4: Eight millimeter with Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 3: I'm kidding, it's not that disturbing.
Speaker 4: I scared the crap out of me when I was
Speaker 4: a kid, and it was my first introduction to snuff films.
Speaker 4: But another one that is very recent that I think
Speaker 4: I've pitched to y'all before is an incredible Canadian French
Speaker 4: Canadian film called Red Rooms that absolutely modernizes the idea
Speaker 4: of snuff films and takes it to the dark Web,
Speaker 4: and the central plot revolves around a trial of an
Speaker 4: individual who is accused of creating and selling these snuff
Speaker 4: films on the dark web, and there it's actually a
Speaker 4: real internet parlance. It's called red room films. And I
Speaker 4: highly recommend this film. It's not violent, everything happens off screen,
Speaker 4: but that does not make it any less disturbing. It's
Speaker 4: one of the truly most chilling films I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: And Matt, what's something a film you saw that haunted
Speaker 3: or disturbed or stays with you in a bad way?
Speaker 2: Are you talking about just fictional movies, any.
Speaker 3: Piece of media that you can see, whether it be
Speaker 3: any moving camera footage.
Speaker 2: I think it's well, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's something we're going to talk about today. But
Speaker 2: the nine minutes twenty six seconds of George Floyd, like
Speaker 2: just like watching that absolutely and then being compelled to
Speaker 2: watch it not only because you want to experience like
Speaker 2: the thing in some kind of solidarity, but also because
Speaker 2: you can't look away. And also, I mean, there's.
Speaker 3: Just it's a state sponsored murder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's something too that. But to sit
Speaker 2: there and actually watch it for the length of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, y'all will also, I'm sure recall when there were
Speaker 4: a lot of you know, decapitation videos floating around from
Speaker 4: you know, terrorist groups and the cartel. Yeah, cartels, et cetera.
Speaker 4: That was there was certainly a moment for that as well.
Speaker 3: It continues, sure does.
Speaker 4: But I just remember a time where it was like, wow,
Speaker 4: this is just out there and you know.
Speaker 2: Aailable Well, those are the days of live leak.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, and gore forums, which also continued today.
Speaker 3: Films that I saw that disturb me that were fictional
Speaker 3: are things like a Serbian film Come and see Requiem
Speaker 3: for a Dream. As you guys know, I had a
Speaker 3: terribly doomed double date to see that film without knowing
Speaker 3: what we were getting into. We went to Applebee's afterwards,
Speaker 3: which made the entire experience somehow more surreal and disturbing.
Speaker 3: The or it was a TGI Fridays. But the real
Speaker 3: life footage that we see all over the world, executions, assassinations, etc.
Speaker 3: The experts will tell us that those do not count
Speaker 3: for today's purposes. In tonight's episode, which may end up
Speaker 3: being a series, we're exploring the allegations that people, either
Speaker 3: as individuals or criminal organizations, have made films, including genuine torture, defilement,
Speaker 3: and murder, for the express purpose of profit. This is
Speaker 3: the fact in fiction surrounding things that are often called
Speaker 3: snuff films.
Speaker 4: And if anybody did happen to catch that Nicholas Cage
Speaker 4: movie from the nineties eight millimeter, the plot of that
Speaker 4: was this concept of real snuff films and the idea
Speaker 4: that most of them, if not all of them, are faked,
Speaker 4: are more like torture porn sort of you know, judged
Speaker 4: up to look as real as possible, kind of flat
Speaker 4: footage flatter exactly. But then, of course the twist of
Speaker 4: that is that he is searching for the creators of
Speaker 4: a potential real snuff film.
Speaker 3: Please be aware, fellow conspiracy realist, this episode or episodes
Speaker 3: on this genre may not be appropriate for all listeners.
Speaker 3: We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors, and
Speaker 3: then we'll dive into how snuff films got into the zeitgeist.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts, all right, we're film motion picture nerds,
Speaker 3: and you guys know way more than I do about
Speaker 3: most things. So it's correct that film has been around
Speaker 3: since the late eighteen hundreds, right, But the urban legend
Speaker 3: of a snuff film true murder or torture for the
Speaker 3: express purpose of profit, that didn't gain public recognition until
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventy, so way after the invention of film.
Speaker 3: Is that correct? Absolutely?
Speaker 4: Popular examples would be things like Cannibal Holocaust, which we will.
Speaker 3: Get to a little bit later.
Speaker 4: This idea that some of these genre splatter films were
Speaker 4: potentially real, and even examples of the filmmakers using that
Speaker 4: as like a marketing tool, like not curating the cast,
Speaker 4: you know, for interviews. Blair Witch Project is another example
Speaker 4: of that, though snuff exactly, but it is I would
Speaker 4: say it occupies a similar space to what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's an excellent setup because the rumor is
Speaker 3: that there was a clandestine network or multiple networks of
Speaker 3: murderers creating films showing in graphic, detailed, genuine homicide, torture
Speaker 3: and defilement. The stories goes that these things had semi
Speaker 3: professional production, They were made like any other film for profit,
Speaker 3: no ideology, no terroristic threats, just monstrous murder for a
Speaker 3: secret group of deeply disturbed, well to do customers. And
Speaker 3: it followed the same pattern as other urban legends. Everybody
Speaker 3: had heard of this. People might say they know someone
Speaker 3: who knows someone who encountered one in real life. Yet
Speaker 3: no one, when you drilled down, had seen such a
Speaker 3: film for themselves. And to your earlier points, Noll, this
Speaker 3: urban legend, especially in the United States, gained huge prominence
Speaker 3: on January sixteenth, nineteen seventy six, with the release of
Speaker 3: a film called Snuff, which, by the way, no offense.
Speaker 3: I'm not Ciscolm or Ebert, but I think it's a skip.
Speaker 3: There are other things to watch, for sure.
Speaker 4: And it is based loosely on the Manson murders of
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty nine, Cellow Drive and all of that more
Speaker 4: recently dramatized to frankly with pretty hilarious results, and once
Speaker 4: upon a time in Hollywood the kind of fictionalized alternate
Speaker 4: reality version of that. But that loomed large in the zeitgeist,
Speaker 4: in the public consciousness, and this was capitalizing on that.
Speaker 4: Snuff is what you would call a splatter film, a
Speaker 4: genre that is still alive and kicking today. It is
Speaker 4: a you know, you could argue that the terrifier movies
Speaker 4: are splatter films. The whole point is to be as
Speaker 4: prurient and despicable and reveling in unpleasantness, torture, murder, and death.
Speaker 3: That is the That is the feature, not the bug.
Speaker 2: Hmmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that point in this film to give
Speaker 3: you a sense of the plot as it originally stands.
Speaker 3: There is an actor named Terry London, that's the character.
Speaker 3: She is pregnant, and she and her producer and some
Speaker 3: friends visit an unnamed South American country. They run a foul.
Speaker 3: This is the Manson part. They run a foul of
Speaker 3: a guy named Satan, and Satan learns a female biker cult. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the colt stalks and murders the character Terry London along
Speaker 3: with her friends. It's gruesome, but it is not particularly
Speaker 3: unusual for its genre until the very end. In the
Speaker 3: last few minutes, the film breaks the fourth wall and
Speaker 3: the camera pulls away.
Speaker 4: A man who appears to be the director like you're
Speaker 4: seeing behind the scenes, starts to flirt with a female
Speaker 4: crew member. They begin to get into a little heavy
Speaker 4: petting as the crew continues filming, and then suddenly think
Speaker 4: take an incredibly violent term.
Speaker 3: So, with the assistance of the rest of the crew,
Speaker 3: this guy who appears to be the director proceeds to torture, murder,
Speaker 3: and then disembowel the woman who was just kissing. The
Speaker 3: crew keeps filming, and so Snuff ends abruptly and it
Speaker 3: looks as though the camera ran out of film stock.
Speaker 3: This was enormously controversial, but there's more to the story
Speaker 3: because Snuff gained attention for its marketing campaign. Its marketing
Speaker 3: campaign is a conspiracy. It blurs the line between fact
Speaker 3: and fiction. A predecessor, we could argue, in some ways
Speaker 3: to the Blair Witch project of nineteen ninety nine, which
Speaker 3: we talk about a little bit in an earlier episode
Speaker 3: of Ridiculous History with our pal, the journalist and author
Speaker 3: Ross Benisch. So the story behind this behind Snuff is
Speaker 3: that a guy named Alan Shackleton, who is I'll say it,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, he's kind of a sleeze bag. He
Speaker 3: was associated with sexploitation films and very low genre stuff
Speaker 3: we could call it. He is a producer at the
Speaker 3: time he buys the distribution rights for this again fictional film, Snuff,
Speaker 3: and he has also earlier read some articles in the
Speaker 3: newspapers about rumors of genuine snuff films being created in
Speaker 3: South America. Again, our definition being films made with real murder,
Speaker 3: purely for commercial profit, not for ideological stuff, not for
Speaker 3: sexual gratification. So Shackleton reads this and it inspires him
Speaker 3: in a very dark way. He changes the ending of
Speaker 3: the film without the original director's knowledge. He adds that
Speaker 3: scene that Noel's describing there, and he sets out on
Speaker 3: this marketing campaign that purposely implies the homicide and torture
Speaker 3: depicted on are real. They're very ambiguous about it, but
Speaker 3: they're leaning into it. The film bore a tagline when
Speaker 3: it released it was this.
Speaker 4: The film that could only be made in South America,
Speaker 4: where life is cheap.
Speaker 3: And Shackleton goes on to, as you mentioned, remove the
Speaker 3: credits from the film to add to the mystery, and then,
Speaker 3: in a Brene style thing, he hires fake protesters to
Speaker 3: picket outside the theaters showing snuff. It starts as a
Speaker 3: publicity stunt, and he is astounded that shortly thereafter actual
Speaker 3: protesters begin picketing as well, people who are not in
Speaker 3: on the grift. It goes viral, everyone from media pundits
Speaker 3: to politicians, journalists, concerned citizens groups. They weigh in obviously
Speaker 3: Thankfully they're all condemning the film, but it doesn't take
Speaker 3: too long for journalists to figure out this is a
Speaker 3: work of fiction.
Speaker 4: And I mentioned earlier, I just want to double back
Speaker 4: really quickly. Cannibal Holocaust is another example of almost the
Speaker 4: same ploy and I would argue it's probably inspired by
Speaker 4: that because this came out in nineteen eighty. It's an
Speaker 4: Italian splatter film directed by Ruguero Diodato, and it was
Speaker 4: so controversial, not only because of the graphic violence and
Speaker 4: frankly xenophobic. With the time, maybe wasn't as much of
Speaker 4: an issue, but it certainly didn't age well because of
Speaker 4: the way it treats indigenous people as like brutal, you know,
Speaker 4: body devouring maniacs, Inferno and those were very much inspired
Speaker 4: by Cannibal Holocaust, But when they did the marketing for it,
Speaker 4: they really leaned into this idea that it was real
Speaker 4: and that the violence depicted in it was genuine and
Speaker 4: did not have any of the actors participate in any
Speaker 4: of the marketing. And it was so controversial that I
Speaker 4: believe there was a lawsuit of some kind of there
Speaker 4: was legal action being threatened against the filmmaker to the
Speaker 4: point where he had to reveal that these people were
Speaker 4: in fact alive show proof of life to the authorities.
Speaker 4: So fascinating stuff. They didn't actually brutally kill a turtle though,
Speaker 4: So that did happen, and it's really gross, unclean.
Speaker 3: And the water buffalo in Apocalypse Now was also killed
Speaker 3: on camera. This is another thing that echoes the pattern
Speaker 3: we see in larger urban legends without getting to meta.
Speaker 3: If we go back to Shackleton, we'll see that he
Speaker 3: purposely made ominous and cryptic statements and interviews. He was
Speaker 3: asked in Variety amid the controversy about the film stuff,
Speaker 3: whether the murder at the very end is real, and
Speaker 3: he simply responded, if the murder was real, I'd be
Speaker 3: a fool to admit it. If it is not real,
Speaker 3: I'd be a fool to admit it. Can't buy this
Speaker 3: kind of publicity, right, That's what he's thinking, man, And
Speaker 3: so there's this public outcry that triggers an investigation by
Speaker 3: the authority. The DA of the time in New York's
Speaker 3: district is guidamed Robert Morgenthau, and he dives in. He
Speaker 3: concludes the violence is fake, and he like, like we
Speaker 3: were talking about with a cannibal holocaust. He is able
Speaker 3: to confirm with local authorities in South America that the
Speaker 3: actor who appears to be murdered, tortured, dismembered has been
Speaker 3: found by local police, has been verified to be alive
Speaker 3: and well. And Morgenthau comes out and says, look, I
Speaker 3: don't see anything qualifying for criminal prosecution. This doesn't count
Speaker 3: as pornography. The marketing is misleading, but it doesn't count
Speaker 3: as consumer fraud. And then he goes on and he
Speaker 3: says essentially that he finds the whole thing pretty reprehensible,
Speaker 3: pretty icky, And he notes a serious concern which we
Speaker 3: see echoed today, said, you know, even as a work
Speaker 3: of fiction, this film might encourage folks to commit real
Speaker 3: life violence against women. And look, we get it. This
Speaker 3: might sound like ancient history nineteen seventy six, almost half
Speaker 3: a century ago, but the public's morbid fascination with the
Speaker 3: urban legend of snuff films continues. So maybe now we
Speaker 3: try to separate some disturbing fact from fiction. Let's ask ourselves,
Speaker 3: are there real snuff films? Is someone out there committee
Speaker 3: murder on film purely for profit?
Speaker 4: We'll find out after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2: Did you guys see the voicemail about this person, Lucifer Valentine.
Speaker 2: This is another another filmmaker from the early aughts, I
Speaker 2: think that created one of these disgusting films. It's got
Speaker 2: a horrible name to it, slaughtered Dolls. It just looks
Speaker 2: horrifying as some somebody called in, Anu called in and
Speaker 2: let us know about it. And it's another one of
Speaker 2: these things that is it is meant to look real,
Speaker 2: almost like found a footage of someone who is being
Speaker 2: kept alive and tortured and forced to do things, horrible things,
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of questions about who this
Speaker 2: person was, and it's maybe it's a story for another day,
Speaker 2: but it's just it's someone who was trying to follow
Speaker 2: in the footsteps of a thing like we just talked
Speaker 2: about snuff, right, who is trying to create something that
Speaker 2: it gets buzzed because it seems like it might actually
Speaker 2: be real. And some of this stuff depicted on it
Speaker 2: is real, but not the maybe not the actual death part,
Speaker 2: but the stuff, the degradation stuff, yeah, the horrible things
Speaker 2: that lead up to it. So it just, you know,
Speaker 2: it seems as though there's more of that out there,
Speaker 2: especially when you think about movies like Hostile that became
Speaker 2: so popular.
Speaker 3: I don't care for torture. I don't either, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. If it's not supernatural, then why am
Speaker 3: I watching it?
Speaker 4: I just as I get a little older, just like,
Speaker 4: really mean spirited stuff like that just kind of I
Speaker 4: just can't do it. It does remind me as well
Speaker 4: of nineteen eighties splatter genre series of films called the
Speaker 4: Guinea Pig films, one of which is called Flower of
Speaker 4: Flesh and Blood and it is literally just a camera
Speaker 4: single shot view of a guy dressed up as a
Speaker 4: samurai dissecting a woman who is alive and she's just
Speaker 4: like you know, on this table. And there are others
Speaker 4: very much in the Yeah, a lot of weird stuff
Speaker 4: too in the Southeastern Asian sphere in East Asians. Apparently,
Speaker 4: Charlie Sheen caught a glimpse of this film at a
Speaker 4: party or something in Hollywood, and he contacted the authorities
Speaker 4: because he thought what he was seeing was very, very real.
Speaker 3: Jeez.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess what it shows us ultimately is that
Speaker 2: there is an appetite for this kind of thing, whether
Speaker 2: or not it's actually an appetite to watch true death. Right,
Speaker 2: there are enough people. Hostile was a really popular movie
Speaker 2: and there were sequels made, and it was that thing
Speaker 2: we're describing where it just watching people die.
Speaker 3: Right. There's a reason I've said before on the show,
Speaker 3: there's a reason people slow down at car accidents. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they want to see bad things happen at or remove
Speaker 3: or to other people. Maybe the answer to this conspiracy
Speaker 3: or this urban legend of snuff films. It really hinges
Speaker 3: on definition. The horror magazine Fangoria. Did you guys ever
Speaker 3: read Fangoria? I always flip.
Speaker 4: Through it when I go through a magazine store of
Speaker 4: Barnes and Noble or something like that. It's always interesting,
Speaker 4: interesting photo layouts, for sure.
Speaker 3: I had a subscription. Nice Yeah, oh yeah. They they
Speaker 3: describe snuff films probably with the best definition. A while
Speaker 3: ago they said a stuff film is a film in
Speaker 3: which a person is killed on camera. Death is premeditated
Speaker 3: with the purpose of being filmed in order to make money.
Speaker 3: And we'll go back to that distinction again and again.
Speaker 3: They continue, oftentimes there is a sexual aspect to the murder,
Speaker 3: either on film or that the final project is purportedly
Speaker 3: used for some sort of sexual ratification.
Speaker 4: And I think that distinction is really important because your
Speaker 4: mind might immediately pop to something like the Faces of
Speaker 4: Death series, which are, if I'm not mistaken, genuine footage
Speaker 4: of car crashes and you know, people dying under horrific circumstances.
Speaker 4: But they are not manufactured for the purposes of the film.
Speaker 4: They just are caught and then put together in this
Speaker 4: macabre kind of collection.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're compiled. The perpetrators did not commit the acts
Speaker 3: that are being depicted. These are executions, accidents, assassinations. So yeah,
Speaker 3: they're real murders, they are genuine acts of violence on film.
Speaker 3: They're a ton of examples. Like you said, in many
Speaker 3: cases the deaths caught on tape maybe accidental, or in
Speaker 3: the case of terrorist videos, the footage is made to
Speaker 3: fulfill an ideology rather than to sell something on the
Speaker 3: dark web. In the case of murderers and some serial killers,
Speaker 3: films are made entirely for one's own personal interest, right,
Speaker 3: that's a dark pause interest. But this is I mean,
Speaker 3: this is what causes fact checking sites like our pals
Speaker 3: at Snopes to say there has never been a verified
Speaker 3: example of a genuine commercially produced snuff film. So if
Speaker 3: you're looking for a snuff film example, or indeed an industry,
Speaker 3: Snopes argues, you will not find it because it simply
Speaker 3: does not exist.
Speaker 4: Well, how some of those decapitation type videos we're talking about,
Speaker 4: political killings, executions, those don't qualify because they're not done
Speaker 4: for that specific purpose. They're done for at end. You
Speaker 4: know they're done for political reasons.
Speaker 2: I just imagine the depths of things that are accessible,
Speaker 2: you know, with the onion router and other things. The
Speaker 2: depths of stuff that exists online that we can't all access, right,
Speaker 2: that there are passwords for and all that other stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you can say there isn't an industry,
Speaker 2: because I don't know how we have found it.
Speaker 3: Right. This is the thing, you know, And I'm glad
Speaker 3: you brought this up because this is why I, personally,
Speaker 3: with great respect, disagree with snoops. That may have been
Speaker 3: true in the past. Snuff films may have been an
Speaker 3: urban legend in times gone. However, the economy of scale,
Speaker 3: combined with technological innovation, means that the once expensive film equipment,
Speaker 3: the once expensive monopolized distribution roots are no longer a barrier.
Speaker 3: Stuff is more readily available, cheaper and easier to use
Speaker 3: than ever before.
Speaker 4: Well, even in eight millimeter, that's it's an entirely film
Speaker 4: based process. It's an entirely like the collectors have to
Speaker 4: have projectors, you know. It's like a very niche kind
Speaker 4: of thing the way it's depicted, But it's literally titled
Speaker 4: a million percent and that is of course the grade
Speaker 4: of a film that's used for more kind of low grade,
Speaker 4: kind of trashy type films as opposed to sixteen or
Speaker 4: thirty two millimeter. But once again, I can't recommend Red
Speaker 4: Rooms enough because Matt, it delves into everything you're talking about,
Speaker 4: the password protection aspect of it, the using crypto to
Speaker 4: pay for it, aspects of it, what types of folks
Speaker 4: are in these chats, how does it work if you
Speaker 4: win the auction, how do you get verified?
Speaker 3: All of that stuff.
Speaker 4: And it is chilling and seemingly as accurate a depiction
Speaker 4: of this kind of world as could possibly be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it does make me think about the days
Speaker 2: of VHS, the days when if you had, you know,
Speaker 2: a cassette player and you had something to record that
Speaker 2: on and handicam and you could hand off tapes totally.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be.
Speaker 4: That of entry in early days of hand h camp quarters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, time, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I'm just imagining. I think where I would agree with
Speaker 2: Snopes is that there's not there could not be some massive,
Speaker 2: massive industry like this, right.
Speaker 3: It would be underground really probably regionally dependent, maybe backpage
Speaker 3: ad kind of stuff at that point, before social media.
Speaker 3: Because what we've seen now with technological innovation is this,
Speaker 3: I think it's important for us to make the positive point.
Speaker 3: There is an amazing renaissance of independent film and creators,
Speaker 3: people who could once upon a time never have had
Speaker 3: a voice, right to have a platform to have their
Speaker 3: story told. Now they can distribute work all over the world.
Speaker 3: We're a huge fan of creators. All in all, that's
Speaker 3: a pretty swell time to be a fillm nerd. Yet
Speaker 3: technology has no moral compass, and so along with all
Speaker 3: that great stuff that is coming from these new, frankly
Speaker 3: superhuman abilities, there's a dangerous increasing opportunity for very messed
Speaker 3: up people to do very evil, unclean things and then
Speaker 3: capture it on film. This is a dark golden age
Speaker 3: for violent, genuine depictions of murder and torture and all
Speaker 3: sorts of unimaginable depravity. I mean online feeds alone. They've
Speaker 3: long hosted death footage, terror propaganda, cartel murders, homicides captured
Speaker 3: on closed circuit television and then propagated, but those typically
Speaker 3: are for propaganda, intimidation and documentation, not for direct retail.
Speaker 4: Well, and then you have stuff that's like approaching this
Speaker 4: kind of thing, like I think we've talked about mccamee Manner,
Speaker 4: the extreme haunted house situation.
Speaker 3: I hate that. Oh it's suspicable.
Speaker 4: And then there's a documentary about it, and this guy
Speaker 4: is clearly just an hour absolute curve and tool, and
Speaker 4: he's it's it's becomes very clear just if anyone doesn't
Speaker 4: know this is you sign a waiver, you agree to
Speaker 4: be essentially abducted, and then you know, put through the
Speaker 4: ringer of all kinds of despicable torture, not bodily injury
Speaker 4: per se, but psychological torture, being covered in cockroaches, water boarded,
Speaker 4: things like that. But the implication when you're watching this
Speaker 4: documentary is that this dude is doing streams of it,
Speaker 4: and it's like selling these streams and or footage because
Speaker 4: it's about as close as you can get to what
Speaker 4: we're talking about without killing somebody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, possibly possibly selling to bedding rings also true, who's
Speaker 3: gonna make it? That's how far they'll make it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And that's not a good haunted house because there's no
Speaker 3: implication of something supernatural. It's just people being very gross. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I want to say, there's even like a thing where
Speaker 4: they don't even they're supposedly a safe word, but they like,
Speaker 4: don't honor your safe word.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There's a lot of controversy to that, and I
Speaker 3: think it's come up in a couple of other explorations
Speaker 3: we've done. Yeah, So how about this, let's together, you
Speaker 3: listening along at home us here in the studio, look
Speaker 3: at some examples of verified depictions of murder and torture
Speaker 3: and see whether they fit that somewhat hair splitting definition
Speaker 3: of stuff. State executions, Right, let's start there. The true
Speaker 3: definition of the state, spoiler, folks, is the entity that
Speaker 3: possesses a monopoly on violence. That's why it's legal in
Speaker 3: so many parts of the world during times of both
Speaker 3: war and peace for governments to execute people. Witnessing executions
Speaker 3: was part of the process way before the invention of
Speaker 3: motion cameras. You know, citizens gathered in public spheres, right.
Speaker 3: There were graphic drawings, woodcuts, paintings of executions in every
Speaker 3: imaginable method, burning at the steak, the guillotine of course,
Speaker 3: hangings for ever, and in some more modern cases there's
Speaker 3: video footage of modern state sponsored execution.
Speaker 4: I mean, like you said, Ben, the original it was
Speaker 4: part of the bread and circuses of it all. Like
Speaker 4: that was entertainment. You would go and bring the family
Speaker 4: for a little picnic lunch and watch someone being beheaded
Speaker 4: or you know, sent to the guillotine or you know
Speaker 4: the the.
Speaker 3: Gallows favorite weird apocrypha about guillotine deaths. Apparently there was
Speaker 3: a guy who and this is probably not talked well.
Speaker 3: He I like that one because it would be spooky.
Speaker 3: But that guy, there was one guy who apparently was
Speaker 3: able to get a hold of a pin and he
Speaker 3: traced a dotted line on the back of his neck
Speaker 3: and say, cut here, that's funny, just to go out respect,
Speaker 3: you know that. Yeah. Yeah, there is no humor like
Speaker 3: Gallows humor. There is no whistle like a graveyard whistle.
Speaker 3: But the footage that we're seeing of the state sponsored
Speaker 3: stuff is made for documentation, right, because witnessing a state
Speaker 3: sponsored execution, to your point, noal has always been has
Speaker 3: always been very important to governments and hierarchies. Or it's
Speaker 3: made for intimidation, you know, don't do what this guy did,
Speaker 3: or this will happen to you. It can improve it,
Speaker 3: uh huh, just so, And then their advantage is it
Speaker 3: is political. It is a power grab, right, it is intimidation,
Speaker 3: but it is not made for economic gain. It can
Speaker 3: be traded like that.
Speaker 4: It can be used that way by certain sick individuals
Speaker 4: to get ahold of it. But it does not meet
Speaker 4: the cut and dried qualifications for a snuff film.
Speaker 2: Well, let's do the old record scratch here, Dylan and
Speaker 2: jump to November twenty second, nineteen sixty three. Anybody remember
Speaker 2: the Zapruter film. M of course, was that maybe state
Speaker 2: sponsored execution? Then you think about the millions and millions
Speaker 2: of dollars that have been made on that moment and
Speaker 2: that film in particular being shown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but za Bruter didn't do it. Well.
Speaker 4: But to that's point, I think maybe what you're you're
Speaker 4: hitting at is like it all depends on how deep
Speaker 4: the conspiracy goes and who was involved, and yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we we also know this reminds me of our
Speaker 3: Serial Killer memorabilia episode tangentially, right, some people who did
Speaker 3: not commit acts make a make a pretty petty profiting
Speaker 3: off that, right. So it's that's why we're calling the
Speaker 3: definition of snuff film somewhat legalistic.
Speaker 4: I'm waiting for the four K restoration of the Zapruder film.
Speaker 3: I hope it happens. Uh, And where's the bonus footage
Speaker 3: the making U.
Speaker 4: Noticing the making of the moon landing with Kubrick's commentary.
Speaker 3: That'd be fun. Oh yeah, yeah, what was that old
Speaker 3: joke we had to fake the moon landing? But I'm
Speaker 3: an OWD tour, so we actually faked it on them.
Speaker 4: Well, it's like a lot of people really truly thought
Speaker 4: that Christopher Nolan detonated a nuke, you know, for Oppenheimer. Yeah,
Speaker 4: or at the very least that's the kind of rumor
Speaker 4: that could get traction because of how committed he is
Speaker 4: to like doing the thing.
Speaker 3: And let's let's continue with the record scratch Dylan if
Speaker 3: we could get another one perfect, Because we also see
Speaker 3: the line between what does or does not constitute a
Speaker 3: state execution is increasingly blurred. Matt to your earlier points
Speaker 3: regarding the assassination of President Kennedy. The Wagner group that
Speaker 3: you may recognize from some earlier episodes of stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know, has been as of this year,
Speaker 3: found sharing videos of war crimes, including torture and homicide
Speaker 3: via encrypted messaging apps like Telegram, and sometimes those are
Speaker 3: behind paywalls. Jesus Christ, so are they are that if
Speaker 3: something's paywall, they're making some kind of profit from it,
Speaker 3: even if it's a small amount. But they're also Vagner
Speaker 3: group is also an arm of the Russian military. It
Speaker 3: could stick a check out our episodes on them, but
Speaker 3: they're doing it for intimidation and propaganda purposes. I would
Speaker 3: suggest this still blurs the line between military activity, terrorism
Speaker 3: and snuff films. And we know that a lot of
Speaker 3: evil people film murder.
Speaker 4: Well, and you could also there's that weird murkiness between
Speaker 4: is it a state sponsored execution, if it's a terrorist
Speaker 4: group that perhaps has a little bit of underlying state support,
Speaker 4: that maybe is that's front and center, Like with the
Speaker 4: beheading of Daniel Pearl, the journalists, you know, that was
Speaker 4: I think the one that I that my mind went
Speaker 4: to in terms of like one of those videos that
Speaker 4: was just out there.
Speaker 3: That's a great point. We could also walk that out
Speaker 3: a little further and ask about filmed cartel crimes and
Speaker 3: murders because in some parts of the world, in Latin America,
Speaker 3: cartels have replaced the state in a very real way.
Speaker 3: So is that state sponsored execution? It goes back to
Speaker 3: what is recognized as a legitimate regime in a given place.
Speaker 3: You know, conversations most recently circling that kind of stuff
Speaker 3: are the Taliban, which runs Afghanistan right now as we record,
Speaker 3: So is that a terrorist group is a legit government?
Speaker 3: How close did Escobar come to being the state of Columbia?
Speaker 2: You know, reminds me of when there was leaked cell
Speaker 2: phone footage of Mumar Agadaffi. It was I don't think
Speaker 2: it was his death. It was right after his death,
Speaker 2: but just when it was shown as a proof of
Speaker 2: state action or you know, action against a leader that
Speaker 2: was once the head of the state. It's not the
Speaker 2: same thing. I think Saddamad something like that too. Is
Speaker 2: like after the execution, there was footage there was floating around.
Speaker 3: Right of either the defiled corpse or the discovery right,
Speaker 3: because Hussein was discovered hiding in a small compartment, and
Speaker 3: Gaddafi died in a purposely humiliating way in a dation.
Speaker 4: And the group that abducted and murdered Daniel Pearl, Harkat
Speaker 4: ul Mujahadeen, was a Pakistan based Islamis Jiahatis group with
Speaker 4: links to Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. You know,
Speaker 4: so there's you know, it's just sort of wheels within wheels.
Speaker 4: And how far do those spider webs kind of extend
Speaker 4: out into the state to the point where there is
Speaker 4: a crossover.
Speaker 2: And how what does this perspective have to do with right?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Are you fighting for freedom or a greater good? It
Speaker 3: depends upon whom you ask, right, And if you think
Speaker 3: you're fighting for a greater good, that is a powerful
Speaker 3: rationalization for all sorts of inhuman things. And there's a
Speaker 3: there's a story we'll share in a moment that I
Speaker 3: think could be an episode all its own in this milieu.
Speaker 3: Before we get to it, we gotta we gotta go
Speaker 3: back and say, obviously, the Internet has blurred the definition,
Speaker 3: the previous non Internet definition of snuff. You know, you've
Speaker 3: got absolute monsters like Luca Magnota or Vester Lee Flanagan.
Speaker 3: The second UH mass shootings have been filmed. Pretty much
Speaker 3: every imaginable crime has been live streamed at this point.
Speaker 3: And if it's live streamed, does that not mean that
Speaker 3: the platform upon which it is streamed makes some sort
Speaker 3: of profit? Yeah? Right, Well, and you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: what do you guess?
Speaker 4: Well, if you we heard about all of the trauma
Speaker 4: that is experienced by folks who work for like the
Speaker 4: twitters of the world and who have to literally comb
Speaker 4: through the content and flag these types of things, We've
Speaker 4: we've heard examples of people doing these jobs experiencing stuff
Speaker 4: that is very snuff adjacent, Yeah, and flaggable, So it's
Speaker 4: removed from the platform.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's a place where algorithms could actually be
Speaker 3: very helpful. C ASM investigators have encountered similar trauma and
Speaker 3: have to be rotated out on a pretty regular basis
Speaker 3: just for their mental well being. Insanity. We know that
Speaker 3: social media this is the dark side of the dopamine casino. Right.
Speaker 3: We can go to Steve Lilliban, a journalist, educator, is
Speaker 3: author of a book called The Devil Cinema, and he
Speaker 3: has done a lot of research on Magnuta that case
Speaker 3: in particular, and he says, look, this social media trend
Speaker 3: is powering a new trend in crime. There are murderers
Speaker 3: who document or broadcast their acts for nothing more than attention.
Speaker 3: They're not getting paid financially. They're getting paid in likes.
Speaker 3: They're getting paid in people looking at them. And I
Speaker 3: think that's a very dangerous thing.
Speaker 4: So in the magnota case, the murderer engaged in editing.
Speaker 4: There's a certain I don't know, stylization. I guess you
Speaker 4: could argue he put a song on top of it.
Speaker 4: This led Fangoria, the aforementioned authority on all things splatter
Speaker 4: and horror, to call it, quote the closest thing to
Speaker 4: a real snuff film. However, it was published for attention,
Speaker 4: not exclusively for a cash.
Speaker 2: Grap so money down the line maybe theoretically, what could
Speaker 2: we call it that?
Speaker 4: I guess it's about intention, there isn't.
Speaker 3: It right, it's about the money or the message. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and these are very disturbed people where we're discussing if
Speaker 3: we go back to cartels and terrorist groups and some
Speaker 3: mass shooters. Yeah, they film executions and torture, whatever their
Speaker 3: specific ideology and goals. Terrorist networks have long understood the
Speaker 3: propagandistic power of filming heinous acts, you know, setting an example,
Speaker 3: forced confessions, beheading, shooting, stabbing, strangulation. The list goes on,
Speaker 3: and this is one of the stories that I think
Speaker 3: could be an episode. Have you guys heard of William
Speaker 3: Francis Buckley? No, I don't think I know this case. So,
Speaker 3: William Francis Buckley was a company man, CIA station chief.
Speaker 3: It was a big deal and he was working in
Speaker 3: Beirut where he got assigned to station chief in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty four. In nineteen eighty five, he was kidnapped by
Speaker 3: Husbola and he was tortured brutally for fifteen months before
Speaker 3: his execution. During this time, Hibela sent at least three
Speaker 3: separate videos of the process that the CIA folks in
Speaker 3: Athens got a hold of. The disturbing things here are apparent,
Speaker 3: But one thing that a lot of people might miss
Speaker 3: is that the torturers are professionals. It is very difficult
Speaker 3: to keep somebody alive for fifteen months while you're making
Speaker 3: their life a literal living hell and just not quite
Speaker 3: pushing them into the grave. He was injected with narcotics
Speaker 3: from what analysts can tell, hallucinogens probably as well. Who
Speaker 3: was blindfolded, chained, probably locked in a coffin for a
Speaker 3: lot of those months, and hisbela would continue sending Uncle
Speaker 3: Sam videos of this guy losing his mind, signing confessions
Speaker 3: all the old Frankly, the torture tactics that the communist
Speaker 3: taught the world and the difference, I guess, the difference
Speaker 3: between amateur and professional here might seem counterintuitive. Do check
Speaker 3: out our series on whether or not torture works. But
Speaker 3: the thing is, these guys, these people torturing the CIA
Speaker 3: station chief. They worked to keep him alive and to
Speaker 3: some limited degree lucid during the process. The odds are
Speaker 3: pretty high that HESBLA also filmed Buckley's actual death, which
Speaker 3: we believe was probably an induced heart attack. They recovered
Speaker 3: his body when it was dumped in the road. The
Speaker 3: CIA has not acknowledged any footage of the actual death,
Speaker 3: but they have also not published the videos for obvious reasons.
Speaker 3: Horrific stuff. Probably an episode, but I don't think if
Speaker 3: it's the definition of snuff, because, as you were saying,
Speaker 3: you guys, the profit motive there is not financial. It's propaganda.
Speaker 2: Intimidation makes you think of the stuff that the CIA
Speaker 2: has filmed and sent to people, you know, because we
Speaker 2: know they like to be torture of people too, but
Speaker 2: they don't.
Speaker 3: Call it that. Oh yeah, yeah, just enhance the interrogation
Speaker 3: and so on.
Speaker 2: And they love to keep people alive too. Yes, it's
Speaker 2: really gross. It's all really gross.
Speaker 3: Agreed, this is a dark one for us, folks. We're
Speaker 3: actually how about this, How about we take a break
Speaker 3: for a word from our sponsors, just to touch grass
Speaker 3: and catch some air before it gets even worse. Okay,
Speaker 3: we have returned. We hope everybody had a good commercial break.
Speaker 3: Believe it or not, it gets darker. Cannibalism, am I right?
Speaker 4: Sorry, dear, I already talked about cannibal holocaust, but this
Speaker 4: is a very different case, the case of a gentlemen
Speaker 4: we've talked about on the pod numerous times. I believe
Speaker 4: notorious German cannibal and murderer by the name of Arman
Speaker 4: Muse who in very recent years March of two thousand
Speaker 4: and one, murdered, burned Brandis with his consent.
Speaker 3: Boil boy. This gets complicated. Yeah, let's do a disclaimer
Speaker 3: here as well. This is pretty graphic. Muse also, with
Speaker 3: as you said, Noel Brand's consent, severed Demand's penis, they
Speaker 3: attempted to eat it together. He killed Brands again as
Speaker 3: we can as far as we can tell, with his consent,
Speaker 3: and he spent ten months eating flesh from the cadaver.
Speaker 3: MWS is also a bit of a film enthusiast. Before
Speaker 3: his crimes, he filmed these videos of himself, really weird stuff.
Speaker 3: We have descriptions, but due to Germany's privacy laws, they
Speaker 3: have not been released to the public. Things where he
Speaker 3: would guys, he would cover himself and ketchup and mime
Speaker 3: cutting himself without actually doing it.
Speaker 4: There there's actually quite a rich history, which is maybe
Speaker 4: the wrong word, in German cinema as well, of this
Speaker 4: type of thing. The Necromantic series is pretty much this
Speaker 4: kind of thing. It is obviously fictionalized. I believe the
Speaker 4: guy's name is Butcherraig, and he's also made some other
Speaker 4: really really intense snuff esque fictionalized, some of them very
Speaker 4: high art and very interesting if that's your bag, if
Speaker 4: you want to check some of it out. But yeah,
Speaker 4: a lot of German cinema very niche, very horrific, that
Speaker 4: depicts a lot of the same kind of things that
Speaker 4: are being described here Ben, some real weird, kinky acts.
Speaker 4: Do you want to talk about the molding of the
Speaker 4: things into the things?
Speaker 3: Yeah. He would hang himself at his feet like a
Speaker 3: with a block and tackle kind of situation, like you'd
Speaker 3: see a hog at a butcher shop, and then he
Speaker 3: would shape marzipan and minced meat into the shape of
Speaker 3: various human body parts, especially penises. He got in trouble
Speaker 3: with his mother when she found some of this stuff.
Speaker 3: He started keeping it in a safe. He was always
Speaker 3: active online looking for people who would help him fulfill
Speaker 3: this fantasy, and that's where he found Brandis. After several
Speaker 3: false starts, he filmed that night. He filmed those horrific acts,
Speaker 3: and authorities found the footage. Again, it's not released to
Speaker 3: the public. Later investigators said Muse is clearly unwell. You know,
Speaker 3: the question of consent is very difficult in this kind
Speaker 3: of case, and they said, above all, he is sexually motivated,
Speaker 3: not financially motivated. So as terrifying as his acts are
Speaker 3: in the mind of authorities, by this definition, it doesn't
Speaker 3: qualify as a snuff film. And I've got to be
Speaker 3: honest with you, guys, I'm sure we're all on the
Speaker 3: same page. This one really bothers me. It reminds me
Speaker 3: of our previous conversation about the definition of genocide. If
Speaker 3: we all remember that one.
Speaker 4: Well, it's an ongoing debate to some anyway, right.
Speaker 3: Right, Why is the un so legalistic about this? Why
Speaker 3: is the idea of what what does or does not
Speaker 3: constitute a snuff film? Why is it hinging on this
Speaker 3: specific definition? After a certain point, you have to ask yourself,
Speaker 3: are the ignoring that innocent people have died? You know
Speaker 3: what I mean? Are we diminishing their lives by saying, oh,
Speaker 3: this is not quite the thing. I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's interesting because I mean, I guess I get I'm
Speaker 4: not fully against the nature of the definition, because the
Speaker 4: intent really does play a part, and it's sort of
Speaker 4: like definition of like maybe murder versus manslaughter or something.
Speaker 3: M Oh, yeah, I hear you, And I think that's
Speaker 3: a really good point, nol. It's just, you know, we
Speaker 3: all have strong stomachs. There are just some things that
Speaker 3: get to us. And having to be so deep in
Speaker 3: this is really you know what, folks, if you could
Speaker 3: longtime listeners do us a favor and just like email
Speaker 3: something nice like a compliment or a joke or something happy.
Speaker 3: After this conspiracydiheartradio dot com, etc. We'll tell you how
Speaker 3: to get to us at the end. We also have
Speaker 3: to acknowledge that multiple serial murderers serial killers have been
Speaker 3: tied to allegations of snuff filps. Henry Lee, Lucas, Hodest Tool,
Speaker 3: Leonard Lake, Charles Ing, Carl Carla Homocha, Paul Bernardo. The
Speaker 3: list goes on. Lucas and Tool, as we proved in
Speaker 3: previous episodes, were largely lying about things, and they were
Speaker 3: probably lying because they were telling investigators stuff they thought
Speaker 3: the authorities wanted to hear, which is part of the reason,
Speaker 3: you know, interrogations can be so ethically fraught. We know
Speaker 3: that Ing and Lake they filmed interactions with victims, but
Speaker 3: apparently they didn't film the murders themselves. So you know,
Speaker 3: we have worked extensively in this gruesome field of serial
Speaker 3: murderers and video or audience evidence of their crimes. Maybe
Speaker 3: throw it to you, guys, Matt Nole. I know we've
Speaker 3: all we've all worked on investigations of this sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: Have you guys seen anything from a serial murderer that
Speaker 3: will qualify as an actual stuff film.
Speaker 4: Not I've but Mad, I'm super interested in your work
Speaker 4: on the Lake and Ing stuff because that I was
Speaker 4: unaware of that case before you know, you started getting
Speaker 4: involved in that, and that did not realize that how
Speaker 4: specific and you know, was voyeuristic.
Speaker 3: A lot of what they did was.
Speaker 2: About I've first of all to answered the question, I
Speaker 2: haven't seen anything. It would be considered a snuff film
Speaker 2: if we're using profit still as our definition there, because
Speaker 2: specifically Leonard Thomas Lake and Charles Ing would they killed
Speaker 2: a lot of people, a lot of men that they
Speaker 2: generally didn't do this other process with which included enslaving someone,
Speaker 2: keeping them. I would use the r word raping them,
Speaker 2: torturing them, and they would kill them. They would take
Speaker 2: video footage of that process, most of that process, and
Speaker 2: it was recovered when when both men were eventually arrested
Speaker 2: and the place where they were doing this stuff was raided.
Speaker 3: Do do ings kleptomania, Yeah.
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, I used to try to steal a vice
Speaker 2: out of the store and he got caught. And there's
Speaker 2: you know, previous weapons charger. There's a book called Die
Speaker 2: For me that I stually Scott gave this one to
Speaker 2: me because he was a big.
Speaker 3: Scott of car stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a bunch of books you can read
Speaker 2: on those guys if you're into this kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: But I would not recommend trying to make a whole
Speaker 2: story on it. We ended up not making that show, by.
Speaker 3: The way, it was because it was just too much,
Speaker 3: too much. It's it's dark, you know, especially looking at
Speaker 3: Lake's inspirations and the fact that the fact that he
Speaker 3: was lucid. We know he was lucid because he committed suicide.
Speaker 3: He took the cyanide pill when he knew the hammer
Speaker 3: was coming down. So this was not someone who was hallucinating.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 3: But we don't know whether or not they would have,
Speaker 3: you know, if the technology was available at the time,
Speaker 3: would they have gone onto a gore side or a
Speaker 3: dark web and tried to make some profit.
Speaker 2: I certainly don't know, but I don't think so that
Speaker 2: that was I mean, the dude, you can read all
Speaker 2: about the guy Leonard was obsessed with this thing called
Speaker 2: the Collector, and you'd go deep into all of that,
Speaker 2: and so it was definitely a personal thing.
Speaker 4: I don't it was a just it was.
Speaker 3: It was a hellish It was a hellish fantasy and
Speaker 3: an aspiration that he wanted to He wanted to create
Speaker 3: that world in real life.
Speaker 4: He got a wonder too in some ways how, like
Speaker 4: the popularization of stuff like the saw films and the
Speaker 4: hostile films, and you know, of course a lot of
Speaker 4: the underground stuff that we're talking about as well, Like
Speaker 4: is there a world where that stuff existing? Is almost like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, some sort of balm for people that
Speaker 4: might commit those types of crimes. Did they not have
Speaker 4: access to sort of like stand in material? You know,
Speaker 4: I'm not doing a very good job of saying what
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get across, No, I hear. It's sort
Speaker 4: of like essay, you know. And the idea of a
Speaker 4: lot of pornography where all the actors are of age
Speaker 4: but they maybe pretend to not be. And this idea
Speaker 4: of these materials existing, is that something that will keep
Speaker 4: people from committing these crimes? Or is it something that
Speaker 4: will make them more likely to commit these crimes?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 4: Well, Galvin, that's right, and I just inspire I wonder
Speaker 4: about that.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a question that's very difficult to answer, and
Speaker 3: a lot of we always go to the scientists before
Speaker 3: we go to the politicians right on this show. So
Speaker 3: there's been a lot of psychological research into exactly what
Speaker 3: you're asking, and that, unfortunately the answer is still not conclusive.
Speaker 3: We don't know the entirety of the mechanisms. We do
Speaker 3: know that in all the above cases we've discussed, these
Speaker 3: horrific acts did occur. They are on film, some are
Speaker 3: even live streamed. But still investigators will say they don't
Speaker 3: fit the definition of actual snuff and they'll agree with snoops.
Speaker 3: But our dark news for this Evening Conspiracy Realist is
Speaker 3: that this may have changed just last month thanks to
Speaker 3: some stunning work by a journalist named Ben Ditto over Advice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, this popped up and I was like, okay,
Speaker 4: here we are, you know, because I mean, I'm fascinated
Speaker 4: by this stuff, Like I keep bringing up Bait Millimeter.
Speaker 4: That was a movie that really like, Okay, this is
Speaker 4: something that maybe exists, and I've been fascinated by it
Speaker 4: ever since. And this may well be the first example
Speaker 4: of a quote unquote real snuff film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed. One more disclaimer, The next few minutes of
Speaker 3: this podcast are not appropriate for all audience members, for anyone.
Speaker 2: Do you even have to say, oh, it's hor or fine.
Speaker 3: It's real bad. Well, we owe people the truth.
Speaker 2: I think it's true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you can read the article if you want
Speaker 4: more of the details. So I think Ben, you've you've
Speaker 4: sort of spared us. Yeah, you condensed it a little bit.
Speaker 4: But there's a film at the surfaced and as did
Speaker 4: it reveals in his article, it's a video that started
Speaker 4: making the rounds through Telegram and other encrypted apps back
Speaker 4: in July of twenty twenty five, known colloquially, I guess
Speaker 4: or in these circles as the Vietnamese Butcher video, and
Speaker 4: he writes that the video shows a man lying on
Speaker 4: his back and a tiled room, pleasuring himself. At a
Speaker 4: point that he reaches orgasm, a second man decapitates him
Speaker 4: with a meat cleaver and a few very expert strokes,
Speaker 4: as he describes it, then drags the head off the body.
Speaker 4: And that man is wearing an Adidas tracksuit and a
Speaker 4: guy FOWX type mask, and he's being very slow and
Speaker 4: intentional with his movements and the victim much like the
Speaker 4: German case, that we talked about. Ben seems to be
Speaker 4: in on it, is not crying or begging for their
Speaker 4: life or struggling in any way.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and Ben ditto. We want to thank you
Speaker 3: because you did excellent work. We're also we're not just
Speaker 3: summarizing this article. I went through Telegram and delved into
Speaker 3: the case further and it genuinely got to me. It
Speaker 3: genuinely weirded me out, and I don't really want to
Speaker 3: talk about it, but again, we owe you the truth, folks.
Speaker 3: The video does continue and it shows the decapitation from
Speaker 3: various angles, and then it shows the dismemberment of the cadaver,
Speaker 3: including things like removing the intestines from the remainder of
Speaker 3: the body. And then it's followed by these unexplained images
Speaker 3: of food.
Speaker 4: Yeah, implication being perhaps that there was some culinary twists
Speaker 4: to the whole.
Speaker 3: Thing, right, Yeah, and there's we haven't verified what that
Speaker 3: what that unidentified meat could be, but it's clearly there's clearly,
Speaker 3: to your Pointnal, an intention on behalf of the filmmakers
Speaker 3: right to imply cannibalism. And then there's bonus content other
Speaker 3: gore sites, you know, things like Motherless and so on.
Speaker 3: We don't want to mention a bunch of these because
Speaker 3: they're not worth looking at. They platformed a larger version
Speaker 3: or longer version of the Butcher footage in which the
Speaker 3: executioner and the victim appear to do a rehearsal, a
Speaker 3: dry run. They're slowly walking through the motions of the
Speaker 3: murder that later occurs. So thanks again to Ben Ditto
Speaker 3: who verified this footage and said yes, these iterations, the
Speaker 3: original and the other stuff were likely sold online for
Speaker 3: commercial gain, making it what he calls quote, the first
Speaker 3: bonafide snuff film to find its way out in the world.
Speaker 3: And this is an unsolved case as we're as we're recording.
Speaker 4: Do we know anything about the identity of the victim?
Speaker 3: We do, Yeah, we do know. Yes, I would say yes.
Speaker 3: Both men appear to be speaking with a regional accent
Speaker 3: there in Vietnam, and the brands of everything depicted on
Speaker 3: camera have been identified, even down to the physical store
Speaker 3: that sold the tiles on the floor. You know, so
Speaker 3: people are working here. They haven't found the exact location
Speaker 3: Central Vietnam, northern maybe maybe across the border in Cambodia.
Speaker 3: They haven't found that.
Speaker 4: There's even a tattoo visible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on the executioners side, the victim to your question
Speaker 3: is a guy named we believe it's a guy named
Speaker 3: Nuyan pardon my pronunciation. He had quite a history in
Speaker 3: these gore communities.
Speaker 4: Yeah, participating in a lot of these extreme message boards.
Speaker 4: Had handle dot to beheading. He also had accounts on
Speaker 4: numerous other forums that discuss and trade in these types
Speaker 4: of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he even went on dating sites and reference
Speaker 3: wishing to be beheaded, having a death wish. Journalist online
Speaker 3: sleuths alike are fairly confident this is the victim to
Speaker 3: the murderer. Things get If you're looking at identifying the murderer,
Speaker 3: things are much more murky. Like you said, we know
Speaker 3: he's mail. He has a tattoo that reads thirteen nine,
Speaker 3: and there is speculation to his identity, but it's very
Speaker 3: very loose. It's not really holding water. We do know
Speaker 3: that apparently the person claiming to be the murderer has
Speaker 3: control over Dot's Facebook profile. Wow, Yeah, there's not an
Speaker 3: upside to this one.
Speaker 2: Well, the upside is there now exists this thing called
Speaker 2: AI and you can generate real up stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Now they don't actually have to kill anybody nice and well.
Speaker 4: That sort of intersects into my question whereas like, is
Speaker 4: there a world where that's better than the alternative or
Speaker 4: what does it mean? Like existentially speaking, I don't have
Speaker 4: the answer.
Speaker 3: I don't know right, like like fictionalized depictions or drawings
Speaker 3: of cism, you know, right right, it's it's very it's
Speaker 3: very dark stuff. I mean, this case in Vietnam or
Speaker 3: in Cambodia may well be solved as amateur researchers, journalists,
Speaker 3: and local law enforcement aren't continuing. They're grizzly but righteous
Speaker 3: mission to figure out what's happening. I don't know, guys.
Speaker 3: As we wrap up again, I'm keeping it together for
Speaker 3: this one, we have to ask what this teaches us.
Speaker 3: It teaches us that stuff films started as an urban legend,
Speaker 3: a made up campfire tail, and it was culturally tied
Speaker 3: to humanity's unceasing fascination with things dark and unclean. But
Speaker 3: combined with new technological capability, just like how large data
Speaker 3: models have created the ability to see into the future
Speaker 3: right or may create telepathy, technology turned this into a
Speaker 3: real thing. I think that's fair to say. And I'm
Speaker 3: really I'm really not chill. About acknowledging that. I don't
Speaker 3: know if you guys would.
Speaker 4: Agree, I would agree, Yeah, I would agree that it's nice.
Speaker 2: I still think it's something that's been around forever. We're
Speaker 2: just we're I don't think we're ever going to be
Speaker 2: privy to the actual depravity that exists in some corners of.
Speaker 4: I agree with that too, And I mean, one thing
Speaker 4: that the Internet does is it just enhances and magnifies
Speaker 4: and like, just what's the word I'm looking for? Disacerbates
Speaker 4: any pre existing kink and or fetish and or perversion
Speaker 4: and just what you want, how specific do you want
Speaker 4: to get there? It is, it's there if you know
Speaker 4: where to find it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll put the way I always like to say
Speaker 3: it is. The question is are there more skeletons in
Speaker 3: closets now? Or does civilization just possess better flashlights? And
Speaker 3: that may be the case.
Speaker 2: I keep going back to in my mind. I keep
Speaker 2: going back to the George Floyd video and thinking about that,
Speaker 2: trying to wrap my head around it as a snuff film.
Speaker 2: And I remember people talking about as a snuff film
Speaker 2: when it came out, when the footage was released, when
Speaker 2: all of the onlookers who were shooting footage, when the
Speaker 2: police cameras were released, when the footage inside the cup
Speaker 2: foods where he was before that was released, where you
Speaker 2: get to watch this man get killed, right, And how
Speaker 2: how many outlets covered it extensively, how much of that
Speaker 2: footage was shown. How many of us just watched it,
Speaker 2: and you know, for various reasons, mostly again, as I
Speaker 2: said at the top, for solidarity, but we were fascinated
Speaker 2: we watched it. Right, how many times we've watched the
Speaker 2: nine to eleven footage over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: where there's there are hundreds of people getting killed every
Speaker 2: you know second of those that footage, you're just watching death.
Speaker 4: It's only possible to parse out and drill down into
Speaker 4: every one of those motivations when you're watching a thing
Speaker 4: like that, right, because like, on the one hand, yeah,
Speaker 4: you have a reason you're watching it, solidarity, wanting to understand,
Speaker 4: wanting to be part of like this moment and experience
Speaker 4: that for good reasons. But then the mechanics of our
Speaker 4: psyche stuff going on, you know, it's.
Speaker 2: Think about the forest fire that was the Charlie Kirk
Speaker 2: footage that went out, the stuff that wasn't covered by
Speaker 2: national news me. It went on on social media and
Speaker 2: was just streamed over and over and over again of
Speaker 2: a man dying.
Speaker 4: I've gone out of my way to avoid that. By
Speaker 4: the way, I have not seen it and have no
Speaker 4: interest in looking for it. I don't know if you
Speaker 4: guys happen to catch it by accident or on purpose,
Speaker 4: but I just I've really tried to not see that stuff.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's part of the job to not
Speaker 3: turn away on my end, you know. And this leads
Speaker 3: us to the third and perhaps worst aspect here. What
Speaker 3: we're seeing is not a case really of legalistic definitions,
Speaker 3: nor is it a case one off maniacs. This is
Speaker 3: a trend enabled empowered by technology along with very old
Speaker 3: human impulses. So until something changes and we don't know
Speaker 3: the answer, this trend may well continue. Is it something
Speaker 3: where we need government to be able to clamp down
Speaker 3: on people posting via encrypted messaging apps right or wherein
Speaker 3: there is no anonymous internet such that these criminals and
Speaker 3: these monsters can be caught. I think part of the
Speaker 3: answer honestly goes into capitalism. If we're talking about the
Speaker 3: real definition of snuff films, as far as something evil
Speaker 3: made for profit. People will be murdered, they will be tortured,
Speaker 3: they will be defiled on camera. It's going to happen.
Speaker 3: It's happening now. The footage will, in a capitalistic society,
Speaker 3: end up being monetized in some way, and I'm not
Speaker 3: sure how that can be stopped.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, think about all of those examples we were
Speaker 2: just talking about the footage of all that stuff ends
Speaker 2: up on news sites that have ads running on them.
Speaker 2: That when you have something horrifying that happens like that
Speaker 2: and there's footage of it, then if you host a
Speaker 2: site that can show video, you are going to make
Speaker 2: book hoodles of money because of the number of clicks
Speaker 2: that are going to occur, the number of eyes that
Speaker 2: are going to be on it, the number of times
Speaker 2: it gets shared. Like, is it better morally or worse
Speaker 2: if it's not exclusively made for a profit but it
Speaker 2: ends up making a crapload of profit? Like, I don't
Speaker 2: know the answer to that, but it feels like we're
Speaker 2: in a world where that is just the reality.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there's just shades of worse in all
Speaker 4: of this, right, Like, I don't know if there's better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now I'm with you. Matt, and with this we
Speaker 3: can say that in this case our good friends at
Speaker 3: Snopes may be incorrect because of all these recent events.
Speaker 3: Even if we're going with the legalistic definition of snuff films,
Speaker 3: the trend, the continuation, that is the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. Be safe out there, folks. Thanks
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