snuffer.html -
noun (Lifestyle and Leisure) (People and
Society ) Used attributively of an illegal film or video (in snuff video etc.): depicting scenes of cruelty and killing in which the victim is not an actor, but is actually tortured or killed.
Etymology : A reference to the horrific snuffing out of life which these videos portray. History and Usage: Privately circulated snuff videos have allegedly been known to the police since the seventies.
They figured briefly in the news in 1990, when police claimed to have cracked a paedophile ring which had been involved in the production of
these films, and linked the crimes with the disappearances of a number of young boys in the UK during the eighties. New York
City police detective Joseph Horman said...that the 8-millimetre, eight-reel films called 'snuff' or 'slasher' movies had been in tightly controlled distribution. Whig-Standard (Kingston, Ontario)
2 Oct. 1975, p.
3 As
police in
east London continued investigations into the disappearance of
young boys, Mr Waddington, Home Secretary, yesterday expressed his 'absolute horror' at the
possibility that some of them may have been murdered during the making of pornographic 'snuff' videos. Daily Telegraph 28 July 1990, p.
3 See also nasty and slasher
