Simply A Masterpiece

How sad is this?

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The Great Ameican Snuff Film starts as two sick freaks named Roy (Ryan Hutman) & William Allen Grone (Mike Marsh) kidnap two young girls named Sarah & Maddy (Melinda Lorenz & Holi Tavernier), they take them to the junkyard deep in the desert which Roy owns miles from anywhere of note. There Roy & William intend to make a snuff film on super 8 film with Sarah & Maddy as the unlucky stars...Going straight-to-video after sitting on a shelf unreleased for a number of years where it should have stayed, written, produced & directed by Sean Tretta The Great American Snuff Film is crap, I'd call it pathetic filth but it's not even that good. The script was apparently based on the real life case of William Grone & the 2 and a half minutes of footage that was found when police raided his house, this footage is supposedly presented at the end with a warning that 'veiwer discretion is advised' but this so-called real footage is probably the most fake & unbelievable scene in the whole film. Plot wise it is as bare-bones as they come, you can basically work out the entire film just from the title. There'sonly about seven people in the entire film none of which are particularly likable. The Great American Snuff Film seems to be a ultra serious attempt to get into the mind of a sick f*ck like Grone as it almost relies totally on his constant tedious & clichéd monologues for it's narrative even though not much happens anyway. The whole film goes to plan exactly as one would expect & when there's a clichéd flashback that suggests Grone's current state is down to childhood abused you realise there really is nothing here that you haven't seen before & that The Great American Snuff Film really isn't going anywhere new or revolutionary.Director Tretta manages to evoke a certain sadistic & nasty tone throughout the film simply because of the subject matter rather than what actually ended up on screen. Now I don't mind torture, gore & violence in the films that I watch, in fact I actively encourage it, I cannot & will not enjoy the constant sadistic torture, both psychical & mental, of women by retarded men for entertainment. While I know it's just a film I really cannot understand anyone who genuinely enjoys watching this crap as the torture & degradation of these two girls is the only thing this film seems interested in. I wouldn't call it scary or creepy & surprisingly there's very little gore considering the subject matter, in fact I can't think of any apart from some blood splatter.Technially The Great American Snuff Film is pretty poor, the colour seems very bright during daytime shots which give it a distracting & unrealistic look & then there's the awful music which plays constantly during the first half of the film & to make things worse sometimes it's louder than the dialogue spoken by the actors which is not a good combination. There's also the baffling instances of being able to hear the wind blow against the mike & since certain scenes were probably shot over a certain period of time the wind from one shot to the next in the same scene has different levels of this noisy blowing wind. The acting isn't too bad especially by the girls.The Great American Snuff Film is the sort of film I hate, it provided zero entertainment & I found it abhorrent from start to finish. Total crap as far as I'm concerned & it's as simple & straight forward as that.

This film is not your sleek, glossy Hollywood production, revolving around an intricate plot and developing characters.This film is, to use well known examples, the bastard child of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original version) and Natural Born Killers.From the chaotic "amateur" camera work to the constant presence of the narrator this film does an excellent job of telling exactly the story it wants to tell, a direct interpretation of the mind of William Grone.People complain of it lacking special effects, but they should bear in mind this was a low budget indie film, and for what they had to work with they did a good job. Fantastic work on choice of actors, set design, music and all the small things that draw together to create a consistently believable and compelling atmosphere.As for plot, presuming they are following Grone's journal to the letter, if you don't like it, it's hardly the fault of the film maker if they follow a true story.As for the bit of supposed snuff at the end, of course I'm extremely skeptical about it's origin, but bear in films exist to tell us entertaining lies. Bickering over it's plausibility is as bad as people who read The Da Vinci code and believe every last word.As a film in it's own right, I'm happy to call it a 7 out of 10, a satisfying way to waste an hour and a half at 1am on an uneventful Friday night. Not exactly exciting or entertaining, but compelling and expertly crafted.Looking at it from it's creator, Sean Tretta's point of view, I'd call it a perfect 10. It does everything I believe he set out to do. I can't fault it as a translation of his idea onto the screen.To use a fairly tenuous simile, this film is like a good stamp collection. It's creator has done a wonderful piece of work, compared to other stamp collections it's top notch. Stamp enthusiasts will all recognize this utter beauty. The ordinary man however will look at it and say "But it's just stamps", they may find it interesting that someone might go to so much effort and look through it in morbid fascination, but they just won't quite get the point.

OK, this is NOT a film with superb acting, clever direction or high quality sound or production values...but hey, it doesn't claim to be. It clearly states at the beginning that this is a dramatisation of entries from William Allen Grone's journals, with the two-and-a-half minutes of Super 8 film recovered by police, thrown-in at the end.The fact that the 84 minutes preceding the "real footage" is b-grade quality, adds to the realism. Its gritty, dirty, rough and raw - and because of this you are more easily affected by the events that transpire. I agree that the added Super 8 footage at the end is it's biggest selling point, but if you love films that challenge the concept of what film should be, than you will appreciate this film.Overall, not the most shocking of films, but a worthy entry into exploitation cinema.

Horrible acting.. rigid and without a single strand of imagination or panache. But more horrible than the acting is the sound. I played this thru my surround sound and it sounded like the Dx was recorder thru a bullhorn at the airport. The cinematography is creative for what it is..which basically is video. But that is where it ends on any sort of creative level…. The story is non-existent and the so-called gruesome violence is horrendously dull which makes this film experience extremely tedious... OK, these so-called killers are set up to be so psycho and inbred.. yet the girls keep their clothes on thru out the whole damn thing.. come on, were the two psychos gay?? Was this an attempt at a horror version of Brokeback Mountain? All the scenes draaaaaaag on and on and on and on.. the blame for that is that the so-called director is also a wanna-be editor.. an awful idea all together. The film has no pace and no plot that engages you to any sorta level even boredom. The violence is at a kindergarten level.. chicks in cages being burned with fake cigarettes don't cut it. It's phony and feels PG-13 which is too bad cause with the right execution it could have been done disturbing as all hell. When you have untalented amateurs doing the job then this is what you will end up with - a pointless dreary mess that will make you YAWN while your ears are bleeding. Please someone out there hear our pleading cries and take away this filmmakers camera before he attempts another merciless waste of time.