There is much to be said for this timely collection of essays ... It provides a rich archive of sources for interested readers; it is diverse in range but coherent in remit, and it addresses the topic broadly enough to appeal to many different scholars ... [This] is a serious intervention deliberately situated at the intersection of debates about violence in society and violence in representation, which has long been a somewhat sensationalized space; it is an original and stimulating contribution to an otherwise undersubscribed area of intellectual interest. This book will be valuable to anyone interested in the ongoing debate about visuality, violence and death.

Visual Studies

These essays meticulously examine the history and mythology of the visual media's ‘unholy grail’—the spectral ‘real’ behind film's reality effects. Tracing snuff's evolution from pornography to propaganda, from cult phenomenon to mainstream culture, this is the most comprehensive effort to date to track down the elusive phenomenon hovering at (and often defining) the boundaries between life and death, voyeurism and violence, terror and titillation, art and exploitation, realism and reality. Anyone seeking an unflinching glimpse of media in the digital age cannot ignore this collection. What was unthinkable a decade ago is now routine. Never have violence and terror been at once so visible and, as a result, so banal.

Joel Black, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Georgia, USA

In the 1970s a toxic brew of urban decay, rising crime rates and the 'porno plague' gave rise to a new myth: that of the snuff film. Although the combination of sex and murder in the feature <i>Snuff </i>(1976) was quickly revealed as a hoax and the FBI could find no evidence that the real thing existed, the concept of the snuff film has endured and, ironically, taken on a life of its own. This collection of fascinating essays advances a scholarly and rigorous consideration of how the fringes of popular culture have become mainstreamed, and how media myths can become disturbing realities.

Eric Schaefer, Associate Professor of Visual and Media Arts, Emerson College, USA, and author of “Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!”: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959