Snuff 102

Snuff 102 is what happens when your film strays from source material. Argentinian born Mariano Peralta, decided to make a faux-snuff film, but instead made a bastardizing mess mixing "footage" with long and contrived shots of a young reporter in her loft, drinking coffee and eating apples. These quiet shots of suburbia are only intended for our false securities and just an example of the scenes which are out of place.

The plot (I didn't know there was supposed to be one) is about a reporter who is interviewing a film critic about violence in film. At the same time, three women are being tied up and getting tortured in cruel, inhumane ways. For some stupid reason, these two stories intertwine. It's funny when you watch two characters interact and you can clearly notice that the lines of which they read spout intelligence that the actor or actress is incapable of comprehending. This is the case in this film.

Many psuedo-philosophers in film have one method of being pretentious, for example.

Woman: "Don't you agree that violence is wrong"
Man: "What is violence? What are morales?"

It's these kind of rhetorical questions that drive me insane; as if these characters knew anything about that of which they speak. The main actress (I'll be damned to look up her name) might be the most idiotic actress that has ever graced the screen. I'll give her the respect for being able to scream and cry real well, but whenever she says a big word, I can see her face contort as if she doesn't even know what it means.


For trying to be a snuff film, even in it's "snuffish" parts, It seems to be wallowing in it's own mess. Cracks on the screen are fixed and edited in, sort of like Grindhouse, but at least they made it believable. A droning soundtrack compliments the "reality" of it all and the long shots focusing on a camera are supposed to be taken seriously. In one scene, when the reporter was researching Snuff Fantasy, we just have a 5 minute shot of over-edited shock videos collaged together with her facepalming during the intermission.

The one thing i must applaud this film for, is it's use of brutality. When the killer punches the pregnant lady, it looks very believable. Let's just be thankful that they can fake a punch rather than the pathetic example shown in the original August Underground. While being of a faux-snuff film, It really has nothing in common with any other film, besides shitty Hollywood serial killer films. I doubt they even have DVD's in Argentina (Sarcasm), let alone a copy of August Underground.

Another tasteless point of the film, is it's chronic use of shock footage. The film even opens up with a pigs throat being stabbed. Gasper Noe can pull this off because the man can film and find beauty in depravity while still being a realist. Peralta should be slung up from his ankles and sodomized for making this sad excuse of a film. All the controversy surrounding its premiere, with the director getting attacked and all, It comes as no surprise. Snuff 102 is a boring fucking film.

-mAQ