R - Rape
Rape is an inherent characteristic of Video Nasties. It is perhaps because of this violence against women that so many people were opposed to these films. Rape is a major story line in several Video Nasties. It forms the bones of the story of I Spit On Your Grave - which is a rape revenge film. There is rape galore in Cannibal Holocaust - the film crew rape a young native girl, a native man rapes a native woman with a stone dildo and Faye, part of the film crew, gets raped by the natives when everything goes awry at the end. House on the Edge of the Park begins with David Hess committing a vicious rape. Hess also proves his skills as a serial rapist in Last House on the Left. Paedophilic rape is behind the female lead's murderous activities in With Who Came in From the Sea. There is even necrophiliac rape of a corpse's orifices in Andy Warhol's Frankenstein. In Video Nasty land, women are usually cannon fodder for any sick pervert to cavort with as he pleases, but there are exceptions (such as The Witch Who Came From the Sea)
S - Snuff
First of all there is the lamentable film called Snuff which approximates as much to a snuff movie as I approximate to being an Eastenders fan. It concerns a silly Hippie cult and their atrocious deeds carried out under the umbrage of their leader Satan (pronounced Satann). Then it disintegrates into the world's silliest and most contrived snuff movie scene ever filmed. But incredibly, the press and lots of other people got their panties in a bunch about this one. i think it was mainly due to the clever advertising campaign. Filmed in South America! Where Life is Cheap! Screeched the posters. The bloodiest thing that ever happened in front of a camera! They promised. And people fell for it. When they actually watched the damn thing and realised it was a tame exploiter, boy did they have eggs on their faces! There are quite a few Nasties that have been smeared with the Snuff movie brush. Upon its release, Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust was seized by outraged film bodies and Deodato was accused of making a snuff movie - the film was that realistic. It took Deodato to parade the actors in court in order to prove they were alive to beat a murder rap Faces of Death was another movie hailed initially as snuff. It features real life death caught on camera - but it is accidentally captured. Not staged in real life for the camera as a snuff movie would demand to qualify as genuine bona fide snuff. There is a lot of misery and woe and at its best it could be called lugubrious, but Faces of Death follows more of the conventions of a Mondo movie than a snuff movie. Plus it has a high degree of simulated footage. Con artists!