So I pushed the book back and went and watched that video. 'My brother'll kill me if he finds out anyone's been looking at his stuff. 'What's wrong?' I asked, though I knew I shouldn't have been in the bedroom. It was my friend, returning from the kitchen with a couple of beers. I had started to slide the book from the shelf when a cry from behind me spun in my tracks. It wasn't till two years later, as I was idly (and illicitly) looking through the bookshelves in the bedroom of a new friend's older brother, that a title caught my eye. It might as well have been published on the moon, to be honest. So that initial manifestation passed me by. I was more interested in football, girls, acne-remedies and alcohol than in understanding the darkness beneath the everyday. I was thirteen when a certain underground, ah, text first saw the light of day.

I guess the conclusion is that 'snuff' does not exist, but is an urban myth of sorts, concocted by shoddy film producers to make a quick buck and perpetuated by sensationalist journalism in order to sell fake news to a credulous public. The book also throws a wide net and comes off as unfocused and arbitrary in its attempt to be all-encompassing, the portrayal of live news coverage and tv-shows like cops are contrived and quickly becomes tedious to say the least. What surprised me the most was the unsympathetic handling of the Mondo genre, the supposed raison d'etre for the book in the first place. For example they mention Cheen contacting the FBI about Guinea Pig and leave it at that etc. They do tell some anecdotes but it is all one sentence statements without elaboration. There is not much in the way of background information on the movies either, apart from short comments lifted from magazine interviews and the analysis given is thin at best.

Its just two guys telling the world what they think about everything from weird movies to serial killers, just in case anyone is interested. There is no presentation of the authors, who they are or what credentials they have.

Much of the book is the authors retelling movies in text and giving their opinions on them.

Killing for Culture by David Kerekes