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