We've most of us heard the rumours about 'snuff' movies: pornographic films in which the sex culminates in footage of a woman being murdered. Supposedly, such films actually exist ... and supposedly the 'snuff' sequences are genuine footage of actual murders. Certainly, there are faked snuff films in which the sex is genuine but the violence is staged.
The underground filmmaker Richard Kern dealt obsessively with sex and violence, often combining the two. 'The Evil Cameraman' is the closest Kern ever came to making a snuff movie ... or at least, the closest he ever did so for public viewing. The title of this film is (by Kern's standards) bland and unimaginative, but it turns out to be a good title: by being blandly descriptive, it lends a documentary flavour to the action which is about to follow.
Director/scriptwriter Kern plays the central role on-camera as an obsessed young man, rather like the protagonist in 'Peeping Tom', who needs to film his sexual homicides in order to be aroused by them. Here, he ties up and tortures four different women, allowing his camera to linger over the images of the women as they struggle, bound and frightened.
What keeps this movie from being offensive is the fact that all of the violence and imprisonment is so clearly (and badly) faked. I imagined the bound and gagged 'victims' stopping midway through the shooting schedule to have a tea-break, then getting back into their bondage to finish the movie.
I suppose that no filmmaker dares to make a faked snuff movie that looks genuinely convincing, as there might be some unpleasant legal questions. Movies like 'The Evil Cameraman' serve a useful purpose, as they provide an outlet for sexually-marginalised people who might otherwise seek out genuine snuff movies (or something worse). Still, I personally disliked this film. I'll rate it one point out of 10.
The underground filmmaker Richard Kern dealt obsessively with sex and violence, often combining the two. 'The Evil Cameraman' is the closest Kern ever came to making a snuff movie ... or at least, the closest he ever did so for public viewing. The title of this film is (by Kern's standards) bland and unimaginative, but it turns out to be a good title: by being blandly descriptive, it lends a documentary flavour to the action which is about to follow.
Director/scriptwriter Kern plays the central role on-camera as an obsessed young man, rather like the protagonist in 'Peeping Tom', who needs to film his sexual homicides in order to be aroused by them. Here, he ties up and tortures four different women, allowing his camera to linger over the images of the women as they struggle, bound and frightened.
What keeps this movie from being offensive is the fact that all of the violence and imprisonment is so clearly (and badly) faked. I imagined the bound and gagged 'victims' stopping midway through the shooting schedule to have a tea-break, then getting back into their bondage to finish the movie.
I suppose that no filmmaker dares to make a faked snuff movie that looks genuinely convincing, as there might be some unpleasant legal questions. Movies like 'The Evil Cameraman' serve a useful purpose, as they provide an outlet for sexually-marginalised people who might otherwise seek out genuine snuff movies (or something worse). Still, I personally disliked this film. I'll rate it one point out of 10.