Warning: This book is X-rated, and so is this review.

In a large room below a small movie set, six hundred horny naked men anxiously wait for their turn to take part in a world record gang bang movie with the world’s most famous adult movie actress named Cassie Wright. Little did any of them know, it would turn out to be a Snuff film.

I wonder if author Chuck Palahniuk deliberately set out to write a story that absolutely never would get made into a movie. He’s the guy who wrote Fight Club, which was made into a great movie, and also the upcoming film Choke, which wasn’t what I thought to be one of his better novels. Palahniuk’s last novel, Rant, was awesome, but this book was way under par for his usual material. As a fan who has read all of his work, I thought this book was definitely the worst thing he’s ever written.

This book is really a very short novella that probably would have worked better as a short story. To drag the whole thing out like he did was not necessary, and the endless barrage of pornographic imagery gets to be mind-numbing after a while. I listened to this six-hour audiobook (only $12.95 on iTunes) and not two minutes go by without the mention of at least one sex organ or sex act. After listening to this audiobook, I overwhelmed my own tolerance for mentions of shaved balls and creative penetration techniques.

Despite being about a porn movie set, this story is not at all stimulating. It’s rather humorous at times, especially when it starts naming off porn movies with titles that sound cleverly similar to mainstream films. It’s also very funny when Palahniuk describes the plots, like when he talked about the actress in one movie ‘distracting’ some guards with a double penetration anal something or other. While all the guys are waiting downstairs for their chance to go on camera and into adult movie history, a bunch of television monitors are displaying the previous movies featuring the actress with whom they are about to ‘work’.

The story here just isn’t any good. There are a couple of mild surprises, but they are tacked on at the very last minute, so they have very little impact. Of all the characters, only a handful are the main focus, but the novel gets so bogged down in descriptions of body parts and functions that there isn’t much time to discern personalities. Palahniuk has conjured up some wild and fascinating characters in his previous works, but everyone in this was just plain empty.

If you go to the listing for this book on Amazon.com, there is a five-minute exclusive video where Chuck Palahniuk interviews the fictional Cassie Wright. The video is just like this book – dumb, disgusting, and only somewhat funny. As a fan of Palahniuk’s previous work, I just can’t recommend Snuff. It’s a big waste of time.


Recommended: No