Snuff killer - La morte in diretta

I just came across this kinky flick due the director Bruno Mattei who I knew from a few flicks made in the heydays of the horror genre like his zombie flick Hell Of The Living Dead (1980) amongst others.

What did it offer me, not a lot except that it is shot in a typical Italian way and only made to offend people who aren't used to see shocking flicks. I mean, just watch it, and be offended I guess because this the story is rather simple, daughter being abducted by people who like to make snuff. The mother goes out to find her daughter all over Europe into the dark and sinister world of porn, but not the usual stuff but the world of bondage and fetish.

So no gore this time but a lot of faked shootings of porn. But it do has a lot of nudity of course and some fetish that as said earlier can offend people. High heels crushing testicles and burning candles used to drip on girls you can guess what's it all about.

Weak story however, the acting is mediocre it's all about the snuff...

Gore 0/5 Nudity 3/5 Effects 0/5 Story 1,5/5 Comedy 0/5

While making out in a car with a guy she picked up in a nightclub, blonde babe Lauren (Federica Garuti), stepdaughter of a French politician, is abducted by a European porn ring; when Lauren's stepfather refuses to call the police, fearing that the scandal might damage his career, his sexy wife Michelle (Carla Solaro) decides to take matters into her own hands, entering the dangerous world of extreme S&M and snuff movies to try and save her daughter.

I know that he was far from a great director, but I find it hard not to admire legendary Euro-hack Bruno Mattei for his sheer dedication to shamelessly sleazy cinema: long after most Italian rip-off merchants had packed away their Panaflex for good, Mattei kept the flame alive, continuing to churn out cheap, derivative, shot-on-video trash until his death in 2007.

Snuff Trap (2003) is his blatant imitation of director Joel Schumacher's 8MM. For the most part, Mattei is content to stick closely to his source material, even going so far as to copy entire scenes and snippets of dialogue verbatim; he does, however, add one or two touches of his own that help him to plumb the depths of depravity further than anything envisioned by 8MM's scriptwriter Andrew Kevin Walker.

By making his protagonist female (and very sexy), Mattei is able to introduce a new level of deviancy to proceedings, Michelle having to participate in sex acts to further her investigation (something that never happened to Cage's character, thank God!): she administers a blowjob to an underground filth-merchant, takes a beating to prove her interest in S&M, and humps a rich playboy (who looks like TV antiques dealer David Dickinson and whose pervy driver resembles Rolf Harris)—although that's just for the hell of it.

Given its risqué subject matter, Snuff Trap naturally features plenty of sexual brutality, but the majority of the violence is far too clumsily handled to be considered genuinely disturbing; that said, Mattei does manage to sneak in one or two surprisingly strong blink-and-you'll-miss-'em peripheral images (as Michelle peruses a selection of porno mags and when she enters the ante-chamber of sadistic movie-maker Dr. Hades) which succeed in making the film feel authentically grubby at times.

In a finale that looks set to be suitably downbeat, Michelle and Lauren are tied to crosses to be slaughtered in front of the camera, but Mattei successfully reminds his viewers of what a craptastic director he really is by having the police burst in through the windows, rescuing the women in the nick of time—precisely the kind of stupidity that Mattei fans find so enjoyable and strangely endearing.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for Anita Auer's unforgettable turn as creepy Dr. Hades.

Snuff Trap (2003)

** (out of 4)

Before his death in 2007, Italian director Mattei, known in some placed as the Ed Wood of Italy, made a semi-comeback with a string of low-budget movies ranging in various subjects from cannibals to zombies and of course women-in-prison. This film here comes off as a semi-remake of HARDCORE but those expecting a lot of sleaze might be disappointed. In the film, a mother (Carla Solaro) goes into the darkest corners of Italy and France trying to track down her daughter who was kidnapped and might have been sold for a snuff film. The mother must try and buy her way to the underground where killing women on film is high dollar. Mattei is known for ripping off various films and creating some of the worst bad movies ever made including the infamous HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD. His recent stuff must have been made on budgets lower than $10,000 and you can see it but at the same time I must admit that this is perhaps the best movie I've seen from him. Not in terms of gore or entertainment but in the technical sense of film-making. The movie manages to be mildly entertaining even if it does go on for way too long and Mattei actually manages to build some suspense towards the end when we start to learn what has happened to the daughter. There are a few plot twists late in the film that are easy to spot but for the most part this film works. Those expecting a lot of sleaze are going to be disappointed because Mattei actually takes it pretty easy considering the plot. There's quite a bit of nudity but the violence is pretty tame and there's no gore to see. Solaro is a lot better than you'd expect and the supporting cast are decent, if nothing great. Not only does the plot lift from HARDCORE but you've also got a sex scene in the back of a limo that rips off the one in NO WAY OUT. If you're a fan of Mattei then you'll certainly want to check this one out but just be prepared for what you're in for.

A cheap exploitation film about a mothers search for her daughter who has been kidnapped by people who make snuff porno films. The trail leads the mother all over Europe as she searches for her child and we in the audience struggle to stay asleep.

This is one of the countless soft-core sleaze films that are made for people who want the excitement of porno with out the stigma or danger of it showing up on their credit card bill.Personally I'd rather have the stigma since those films tend to be more interesting and honest about what we're seeing. This is suppose to be a sexy thriller but its not. Mostly its people talking about things followed by lots of walking from place to place and lead to lead.Periodically through out the film various people get undressed and everything has more than a touch of S&M to the proceedings. The violence and fetish material is of the sort to provoke laughter rather than horror or even excitement, its all so incredibly fake. Worse there is not even enough nudity to keep it interesting. (Basically par for the course for many of these films)

You'll forgive my lack of details but it simply is a dull boring film that I stayed with to the end hoping for something remotely prurient to occur, but there was nothing. The most interesting thing was the blonde haired villainess with the huge over bite and nose the size of a Buick. I watched her with morbid fascination wondering what she had looked like as a young girl and wondering whether she had had plastic surgery, not the type of things you should be thinking about in a gripping thriller.

Avoid.

There's no denying there's something remarkably entertaining about watching Bruno Mattei's SNUFF TRAP, and entertaining in all the wrong reasons. Mattei essentially reworks Joel Schumacher's 8MM, though with only a few differences, mainly being its a female character who ventures into the sleazy world of the porn underground looking for her kidnapped daughter who or may not have fallen victim to a snuff film. Though with a decidedly different change in certain scenes and a shorter running time, a lot of the film consists of scenes almost similar and in one case exactly the same as 8MM. Even dialogue from 8MM is used in certain speeches, exact dialogue. Mattei's version is a lot more sleazier and explicit, and comes off as one part lurid thriller, soft porn flick and European travel monologue (I lost count the amount of scene where our heroine is just walking around European city's). It also has a happier and anti climatic ending, which I'm certain features footage lifted from another film. If you want to watch a film that provides cheesy, 'so bad its good entertainment' then Mattei is your man, and this along with his other 'masterpieces' such as RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR, THE OTHER HELL and ZOMBI 3, would make great late night beer and pizza entertainment.