Snuff

The phenomenon of so-called 'snuff movies' (films that allegedly document real acts of murder, specifically designed to 'entertain' and sexually arouse the spectator) represents a fascinating socio-cultural paradox. At once unproven, yet accepted by many, as emblematic of the very worst extremes of pornography and horror, moral detractors have argued that the mere idea of snuff constitutes the logical (and terminal) extension of generic forms that are dependent primarily upon the excitement, stimulation and, ultimately, corruption of the senses. Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media brings together scholars from film and media studies to assess the longevity of one of screen media's most enduring cultural myths. Thorough, provocative, and well argued, the contributions to this volume address areas ranging from exploitation movies, the video industry, trends in contemporary horror cinema, pornography and Web 2.0.

Neil Jackson is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Lincoln, UK. He is co-editor of Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media (Bloomsbury, 2016).

Shaun Kimber is Senior Lecturer in Media Theory at Bournemouth University, UK. He is the author ofControversies: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (2011) and is currently working on the co-authored book Writing & Selling Horror Screenplays.

Johnny Walker is Associate Professor in the Department of Arts at Northumbria University, UK. He is the author of Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and Society (2015) and founding co-editor of the Global Exploitation Cinemas book series (Bloomsbury).

Thomas Joseph Watson is Associate Lecturer in Media at Northumbria University, UK. He has forthcoming articles appearing in both the edited collection Rethinking Cinema and Television History (2014), and the Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance (2014).