Posted on 04/24/2004 10:17:45 PM PDT by weegee
WHITEMARSH, Pa. -- A Canadian porn actress found stabbed to death last month may have been killed while shooting a film that was to have simulated the murder of a woman during sex, prosecutors said.
DNA clues and a scrawled note referring to a "snuff" video connect photographer Anthony J. Frederick to the death of 23-year-old Natel King, whose body was found in a trash-filled ravine in March, District Attorney Bruce Castor said at a preliminary hearing Friday.
Frederick's attorney, Daniel-Paul Alva, said his client had nothing to do with snuff videos.
"We don't know who killed her," he said. "What we do know is that my client is in the unsavory business of photographing women in very compromising positions. But that kind of business was entered into voluntarily by the victim."
Frederick, 46, was being held for trial on first- and third-degree murder charges. His assistant, Jennifer Mitkus, 29, was held on charges of lying to authorities and hindering apprehension.
King, who was from the Toronto area, disappeared Feb. 29 after posing for Fredericks in a hard-core bondage shoot that had been arranged over the Internet, authorities said. Her body was found nearly a month later, naked and slashed and still wearing bondage devices.
Castor said police found a note in a camera bag in Frederick's home that served as a contract between a photographer and an actor. It listed various types of video and photo shoots and used the phrase "snuff vid."
A snuff video is a pornographic film depicting someone being murdered, but prosecutors believe King was supposed to only simulate death in the video.
Detectives obtained several bloodstained items from Frederick's car and from his apartment in the Philadelphia suburb of Conshohocken, and the DNA matched that of Frederick and King, authorities said.
Authorities said still photos Frederick provided to police after his arrest show King displaying bondage paraphernalia similar to a leather device found with her body.
CH has actual scenes of animal cruelty. That major chains showed what was at one time an extreme example of independent skid row exploitation cinema shows how much the culture has declined (in part due to jaded postmoderns). Postmodernism DIED on 9.11.2001 when people saw genuine horror and evil yet within a week they wanted to go back to the way things were and by 2 weeks were watching Letterman again and starting to claim "Bush Knew" as well as telling tales of Timothy McVeigh types hijacking the planes.
Killing an animal on camera isn't "abuse". SLOWLY killing an animal on film is. Eating the animal afterwards does nothing to minimize the torture the animal endures before death.
John Waters killed 13 chickens in Pink Flamingos (chickens that were shoved between a couple having sex). The chickens' heads were cut off with a knife. This was much more exploitive than the decapitations that lead off Waters' Mondo Trasho but even those could have been performed more humanely by putting the chickens on a choping block before the cutting began.
You're right about one thing...Americans seem all too desperate to "return to normalcy" after some horrible event. The Democrats often have played on this in the last few years. Remember how badly in 2002 they were trying to shift the debate from the Terror War back to their old standbys, the economy and health care?
Part of it, I am convinced, is because of what America IS...one of the most prosperous nations ever. We have a standard of living beyond most in the world; even those we call "poor" have luxuries far beyond those of many nations. Because of this, we tend to forget about deep, difficult problems and focus on trivial, frivolous things like entertainers and sports, or retreat into our own lives. We think of the "big stuff", like terrorism, as something we pay someone else to handle, and keep far from us.
In many ways, it's an outgrowth of how great we really are as a nation, but it's one with no easy solutions.
Our grandfathers were able to weather WWII with good morale and spirit, in part because they had been toughened by the great Depression. However, the America of the 1960s, having lived through the unmatched prosperity and new luxuries of the 1950s, had somewhat less stomach for sacrifice and tough choices, which led to the opposition for the Vietnam war. Many young people of the time, having never known truly hard times, were unwilling to give up their easy lives for the hardship of service to their country. Even today, but a small fraction of America's youth consider the military for a career choice out of high school or college.
I confess that I do not know how this problem of focus can be solved. As long as people have the attitude that they have a RIGHT to be free of the worries of the world ("Okay, there's a war on...now what about my prescription drugs?"), such things as you mention will continue.
I did not mean to give the impression that I support such brutal acts; I was only reporting the events as I understood them.
Ruggero Deodato will have much to answer for in the next life, of that I am certain. I observe these things only out of a keen interest in film history, and this is a part...a sad, vicious one, but still a part.
Special interest (especially a social safety net, dole, or teat) always takes priority in the minds of the self-centered.
In the 1960s they bitched and moaned about spending good money to send a man to the moon.
Reportedly at the founding of this country 1/3 were for England, 1/3 were for the Revolutionaries, and 1/3 didn't care. That "don't care" block seems to be at least as large today.
Emanuelle In America has its own snuff film subplot as well as footage of a woman actually masturbating a horse. This film can be found commonly at Borders Books.
Best Buy and Fry's also stock some surprizing titles (genuine X).
The ratings then were much less enforced, and a movie which recieved an "X" could nevertheless be released unrated to theaters. Also, the ages at which the "PG" and "R" rating came into play were seldom enforced strongly. I recall getting into many an "R" rated movie way before my 17th birthday.
It was only after big theater chains supplanted smaller venues in places like malls that those ratings began being enforced in the late '80s. The first time I ever saw anyone "carded" at a theater was in 1990. She was my date, and was 19 but couldn't prove it, so she was denied entry. All of us were shocked at that.
Exploitation movies are still made, but now they are of the "direct to video" variety, and outlets such as Blockbuster not only check ages of renters (at least, they do in my area), but they also refuse to stock any that are "over the line".
Not sure about the mall stores or Best Buy. I get most of mine off the 'net, anyway.
Blockbuster plays up a "Family Friendly" notion but they are now owned by Viacom and some things (like Tetsuo:The Iron Man and John Woo's The Killer) are commonly found there. The items offered at the big chains for sale are more extreme than those examples I cited at Blockbuster.
Under 17 can go to an R-rated movie, they just must be accompanied by someone over 18. The theater was wrong to refuse your date under any grounds.
The only time I saw theaters carding was for "unrated" (self-imposed X) films during explicit horror's last gasp in American theaters (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Day Of The Dead...).
The Ramrodder was X rated (even if some may think it more belongs in softcore) as were Russ Meyer's films (Up! and Beneath The Valley Of The Ultravixens being his most explicit). These films can be found at the big chains for sale (Borders has Russ' films and it surprised me because he distributes them himself).
In all islamic nations it is.
On another note I find the attorneys use of the imperial "we" as rather odd.
Once again, it shows just how confusing the whole ratings process really is...and that it loses all effect when it comes to the VIDEO releases.
I believe that the whole system may need to be scrapped, and a new, universal one for both theatrical releases and video should be adopted, with exactly what will result in a particular rating being clearly spelled out.
For example, should a violent, gory movie get a lighter or stronger rating than a sexual movie? Why? What constitutes "gratuitous" sex and violence, specifically?
We just left with our friends and went to dinner. Afterwards, we went home with some rented classics, and had a good time nonetheless.
"Friendly" looking stores carry some extreme material. Someone somewhere along the way is green lighting these titles. I'm not even saying "ban" them but it is another element of the culture war (this along with Lord & Taylor selling FCUK t-shirts for teens).
It will never work because some "X" items will never be submitted for rating. If there is no store policy against stocking unrated films, they will still find their way there.
I am a drive in critic. I know some of these films even if I prefer to watch other ones. My point is that what used to be confined to the grungiest theater in town can now be bought at the corner electronics store (and I doubt there is much ID checking; ever see Best Buy stop a CD sale to a minor because of a lyrical content warning sticker?).
True perhaps. I for one accept as fact that "what man CAN do, man WILL do".
regards,
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