Morbid curiosity and Snuff films

Morbid curiosity – The ‘I can’t not look’ theory

• A morbid curiosity is an addictive curiosity in death, violence, or anything that may cause harm. Overall the curiosity makes us feel better because the after effect is not as bad as the initial viewing – going from scared to realising we are not in danger makes us feel calmer than we would have before. When we compare the fear we feel to the relief after it makes us feel happier. 
• According to Aristotle, in Poetics, we even "enjoy contemplating the most precise images of things whose sight is painful to us." (This is often called the 'Car Crash Syndrome' or 'Train wreck Syndrome’). This term can also be linked to the German term ‘Schadenfreude’ which means feeling satisfaction at someone else’s misfortune – we feel happy because we are grateful it is not us.

• A good example of a film franchise which uses this concept is ‘Saw’; slasher-horror films use our morbid curiosity to make it into entertainment. ‘Black Mirrors- National anthem’ also commented on this theory as it was because the whole country was too focused on the television broadcast to notice that the princess had been released.

Snuff films

• A snuff film shows the actual murder of a person or people, without special effects, for the only purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation. 
• The existence of profit snuff films is generally an urban legend. Some filmed records of executions and murders exist but have not been made or released for commercial purposes.

Fake Snuff - The Guinea Pig films

• The first two films in the Japanese Guinea Pig series are designed to look like snuff films; the video is grainy and unsteady, as if recorded by amateurs. 
• After viewing a portion of Flower of Flesh and Blood, the actor Charlie Sheen thought that the murder depicted was genuine and contacted the MPAA, which contacted the FBI. The FBI and the Japanese authorities were already investigating the film makers, who were forced to prove that the murders were fake. 
• While the Guinea Pig films are not snuff films, two were purported to be based on snuff films.

Fake Snuff - Cannibal Holocaust

• The Italian director Ruggero Deodato was charged after rumors that the depictions of killings in his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust were real. He was cleared of the charges when he could prove the actors were not dead.
• Other than graphic gore, the film contains several scenes of sexual violence and the genuine deaths of 6 animals onscreen and one off screen, issues which find Cannibal Holocaust in the midst of controversy to this day. 
• It has also been claimed by the USA release that Cannibal Holocaust is banned in over 50 countries, although this has never been verified. In 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named Cannibal Holocaust as the 20th most controversial film of all-time.