Brightest Young Things

Sitting in a pitch-black, freezing-cold warehouse theatre, the uncomfortable ambiance was set even before Snuff.mov began. Do you love repetitive psychotic behavior and violent pornography? Strong stomachs are necessary for this latest creation by Cherry Red Productions, founded by Ian Allen, who also wrote and directed the play-turned-movie.

Cherry Red prides itself on blood, guts, gore and nakedness. “Snuff.mov was originally staged as the horror play Thumbsucker in DC in 2002, and was alternately acclaimed and assailed by critics and theatergoers alike as one of the freakiest, edgiest, nakedest shows ever to crawl from the city’s fringe scene,” the company proclaims. Infamously, a Washington Post critic refused to review the horror play version, stating it was pornography.

“I'm not sure where [the inspiration] came from, really,” Allen said in an interview. “At the time I wrote the play, I was obsessing over some pretty dark stuff – David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Terrence Malick’s Badlands, and Knut Hamsun’s book Hunger. My mother was volunteering at a battered women’s shelter and telling me lots of truly awful stories. And 9/11 had just happened, which left me feeling pretty angry and confused and vulnerable. Somehow this story’s what emerged.”

Snuff.mov was filmed and edited by Christopher McKenzie, who collaborated with Allen in 2005 on Trapped by the Mormons. After Trapped’s acclaimed reviews from Gawker, The Village Voice and Salt Lake Tribune, the two decided to roll with their success and revisit the 2002 theatric production of Thumbsucker to create Snuff.mov, which will be sent to film festivals around the nation.

The best advice I can give you before seeing this 48-minute film comes directly from the mouth of the main character, Jack (Carlos Bustamante):

“Ignore being uncomfortable and you’re fine.”

Intrigued?
Check out more on: http://www.snuffmov.com/ . No wider release as of now.