User:CrowzRSA/Sandbox/Snuff

Origins

Primarily written by lead vocalist Corey Taylor, "Snuff" is a sonically and visually step forward in Slipknot's career.

Shawn Crahan explained: "the idea is that it's a love story, and then he can't have her, so more or less he kills the idea of her in his thought process. There's this enjoyment in killing her in this reality and living as her, in this for the pleasure."

0:00-2:00

Musical structure

We've never done a song like "Snuff" before. If you listen to it, it's still a SLIPKNOT song all the way. It's got that SLIPKNOT feeling to it. I can't think of any songs on the new record that I don't like.

"The viewer needed to connect to a core emotional level to fully appreciate the intensity of the track"

Short film

It was announced on October 14, 2009 by Roadrunner Records that a music video fit within enough production quality to be considered a short film was to be released for "Snuff", which premiered on December 18, 2009 at 9:09 PM PST. It was co-directed by Shawn "Clown" Crahan and P. R. Brown, and features Malcolm McDowell and Ashley Laurence of Hellraiser fame. Corey Taylor is seen for the second time in a Slipknot video without his mask and is cross-dressed at the end of the short film.

The concept for the "Snuff" short film came from conversations between director Shawn Crahan and vocalist Corey Taylor. When Crahan and Taylor had a basic concept down Crahan and co-director P. R. Brown met to discuss where they could take it and where to go in terms of details. Brown wrote the treatment based on Taylor and Crahan's ideas and edited the story to have more impact. The film was shot with super 35mm anamorphic. It was chosen to create a short film for the song instead of a music video because of the songs origins, as said by Brown, having "very deep roots". Since there is connection from personal to lyrics that they "felt that the only way to truly capture that on film was to reveal it through a story."

The short film for "Snuff" is over six minutes long, considerably longer than the song, which is about four and a half minutes long. The video begins with a woman asking "What am I going to do with you?" Taylor then responds "everything." After a short credit introduction, the film proceeds to a black car pulling into a parking space, and Taylor overlooking this from across the street. The car driver lets a woman out and the woman enters a building. Taylor follow, and both are shown going into the same apartment. The woman begins to undress, and Taylor's presence is ignored by the woman. The song fades out at around 4:40 and shows Taylor clinching a glass until it breaks. When the song fades back in, Taylor's hand is shown bleeding and eventually raps it in white fabric. Taylor is then shown cross-dressing. The video ends with the building's security guard whistling the tune of "Snuff".