FACES OF SNUFF Shane Ryan (2016); DVD Shockumentary/Underground/Gore DVD, New The title serves it up without the need for dressing. "Faces of Snuff" couples elements of the death documentary/mondo film (with an obvious nod to the notorious "Faces of Death" series) with the faux snuff/found footage genre that has grown into an epidemic over the last couple of decades (epitomised by the "August Underground" series). No fewer than twenty directors from around the globe contributed to this 136-minute anthology film - and in an attempt to lend credence to the tagline 'Dozens of "snuff" films. Which ones are real?', nobody is credited onscreen.  This sense of unknown origins - amplified by the almost complete lack of production credits - is embellished by the lo-fi, spontaneous, homemade quality of the footage, shot on various formats and incorporating onscreen dates that go as far back as the early 80s. Grainy film stock, screen static, sound design reduced to nothing but the whirring of a projector - these elements echo representations of snuff in earlier grindhouse and mainstream films like the controversial "Snuff" (1975) and Paul Schrader's "Hardcore" (1979). This is perhaps most effective at the climax of the film, which features the bulk of a faux snuff film called "Captains Pride Volume 33" - an American short which has been in circulation for years but whose origins remain anonymous.

MYSTICS IN BALI (1981); DVD Asian/Cult/Supernatural/Underground DVD, New "Mystics in Bali" is a wonderfully bizarre, off-the-beaten path Indonesian horror/supernatural flick about an American writer researching black magic. She's experienced the voodoo of the Caribbean, but she runs into some real trouble as a student of the Leak in Bali.  A woman researches a book that takes her to the black magic cult of Leák in Bali. She meets an evil witch who promises to train her dark arts. But she is tricked and turned into a flying vampire with internal organs hanging from her neck.

COHASSET SNUFF FILM (2014); DVD Found Footage/Gore/Underground/Cult DVD, New In 2009, the small town of Cohasset, Massachusetts was rocked with tragedy. A 17-year-old high school senior named Collin Mason murdered three classmates. All the murders were videotaped and uploaded to the Internet via bit torrent sites and for three days, the world viewed the murders of these three innocent teens. Through legal action, the parents of the victims were able to remove all footage from the Internet and the town tried to save face by pretending it never happened. Bootleg copies of this footage are still passed around and downloaded through illegal means. The impact of this video is still being felt in Cohasset today. The video has become infamous, and is now referred to as The Cohasset Snuff Film.

BLOOD AND SEX NIGHTMARE (2008); DVD B-Grade/Horror/Gore/Porn DVD, New This film contains such wonderful scenes as 1) a man getting castrated and his girlfriend being choked to death on his severed penis; 2) a women getting raped to death with a hunting knife; and 3) the films hheroine  getting sexually assaulted by a zombie, complete with a close-up of his rotting johnson (which shoots blood instead of semen, by the way). If this sounds likes something you want to see, then 'Blood and Sex Nightmare' might just be the film for you.  Be warned, the budget for this film was only $3,000.....comprende?