SNUFF TRAP

BLIMEY. SPOILERS.

Maybe it's down to a shift in international releases of Eurogarbage movies, or maybe it was just me not paying attention, but I'd kind of forgotten about Bruno Mattei after his uncredited work filling in for Lucio Fulci on the endearingly rubbish Zombi 3 (released on British DVD as Zombie Flesh Eaters 2). That was back in 1988 but since then he put out another 26 films until his death in 2007, according to his IMDb listing - and none of them look to have had any UK distribution. This squalid and absurd porn-based thriller from 2003 certainly didn't, not because it's terrible - although it really isn't any good - but because the BBFC would most likely have sent the print back with a note advising them to sod off and stop wasting everyone's time.

Snuff Trap certainly gets off to an eye-opening start with a violent porn shoot consisting mainly of a masked psychopath repeatedly punching one bound naked woman in the face before murdering her co-star on camera. The gang at the heart of the extreme snuff porn circuit settle on their next star/victim and abduct her off the streets, either not knowing or not caring that her father is a senior politician. But her mother will go to any lengths, no matter how degrading or repulsive, to get her back from the clutches of the legendarily evil porn auteur known as Dr Hades....

It borrows from Paul Schrader's Hardcore and blatantly from Joel Schumacher's 8mm - even cribbing chunks of dialogue. Oddly, the grubbiness feels enhanced by the shooting on video rather than 35mm celluloid, since it's highly unlikely that in 2003 any actual snuff porn (if it really existed) would be shot on anything other than tape. The film veers from Paris to Amsterdam to Hamburg for no apparent reason except to get some location filming done, it makes no sense, the villains are ludicrous and the ending (with mother and daughter chained up and ready to be killed on video for the benefit of who, exactly?) is laughable. The sordid sleaziness kind of works, but it's still a stupid and unpleasant film.

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