This Website Makes Custom Death Videos for Murder Fetishists

Best Deaths is a website run by death scene appreciators, for death scene appreciators. It’s dedicated to making what they call “death performance videos”, but you might also call them fringe horror, faux snuff or horror porn. Unlike the split second death scenes you’ll find in Hollywood movies, the killing in these films is drawn out and features ever more inventive (and sometimes preposterous) scenarios, with a distinctly homoerotic leaning.

The site was originally started as a hobby by a couple of friends making DIY horror shorts, which often involved them killing one another. Around 2005, they teamed up with another group who were making their own, more fetish-focused films, dialled up the intensity and began making shorts together as Best Deaths. The site now gets updated daily and you can even bring your own murder fantasies to life by commissioning the collective to make custom films. For as little as $500 (£352), you can pick from their roster of actors and have them (fake) killed in a manner of your choosing, whether that’s stabbing, drowning or suffocating.

I spoke to Victor from the collective about how and why they do what they do.

VICE: Is the site popular?
Victor: Well, yeah. I think because there aren’t that many sites with this theme, and there are people who look at, maybe not the actual deaths, but more the fetish. Maybe they like to see some feet focused videos, belly button, or even method-wise they like to see some guys getting strangled, hanged and whatnot.

Right, so even though it’s primarily about the murdering, it also caters to these more nuanced fetish combinations. People can commission you to make custom films of their fantasy death scenarios, too. Is there anything anyone’s asked you to make that you’ve said no to?
I think there have been a couple of scripts that we declined in the past because we knew that the actors wouldn’t go for it. I know there are people who like these kind of scenes with kids – that would be something that we would absolutely say no to. All of our productions involve guys who are at least 18 years old, and we never force them to do anything. We explain the scenes, and if they refuse, or they disagree with something, we make the proper changes to make them feel comfortable. But fans already know that, and no one really asks for kids to be involved.

What about safety and making sure you don’t actually kill anyone?
The safety of our actors is primary – that’s the main thing. We try to shoot everything as real-looking as possible, but we always take measures, like if we’re going to use a knife, or knives, they are not sharp at all – but we always tell the actors to be careful with a knife or any kind of prop. Like, in drowning [scenes], we take a lot of breaks, because we submerge the actor underwater for, I don’t know, five, ten seconds – as long as the actor can hold their breath. The actors aren’t at any risk at all throughout the whole production.

Do the actors have to sign liability waivers?
They sign an agreement, but an image agreement. We never put anyone at risk, so they don’t really have to worry about getting hurt, because that doesn’t really happen

If something did go wrong, though, and you had to explain to someone that there had been an accident, that would look quite incriminating: “Hi, we’ve had an accident – we were shooting a fake murder film for a website that hosts fake murder videos and someone’s actually accidentally died.”
Luckily we have never come across such a scenario. I shall think on that.

The special effects look pretty convincing – has that been a process of trial and error?
Lots of self-learning. Like, “This blood doesn’t look that right, it looks too liquid, so we need another kind of blood that looks thicker.” With strangling, maybe the grip looks very loose, so we can cheat it if we shoot from this angle – like, it looks really tight but the actor is not going to be getting strangled at all.

What’s the best thing to use as fake blood?
We found a stage blood that we actually buy, which is great because it’s thick, it has great colour and it tastes good as well. It’s mint flavour.

Do you have any female users?
Yes, there are female users. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what percentage of the users, but yeah, we have a female fanbase – which is not very large, but they exist.

Would you say murder is a misunderstood fetish?
Definitely. Not many of the users have [only] this death fetish – they also link it with another kind of more specific fetish that they have, like stabbing, so stabbing someone to death or strangling someone to death. Maybe people understand the “standard” fetishes, like feet fetish or muscle worship, but [not] something more aggressive, or something that you wouldn’t actually be able to do without hurting anyone if you wanted to do it for real. When you involve death, some people might misunderstand that because they might think that they really want to kill someone.

I guess it’s difficult to understand where the line is drawn between fantasy and wanting to act things out IRL. That’s where people are going to struggle with it and be concerned.
It’s a very underground thing, and people are afraid of what they don’t know or understand.

You seem to deliberately avoid the word snuff – is there a reason for that?
We never use the word “snuff”, because what we do is not snuff videos, but death performance videos. Many fans have even expressed that they like to watch guys being killed, but not for real, and that’s what they like about our productions. We try to portray realistic deaths, which the fans enjoy, knowing that it’s all staged, but also getting the rush of watching such action, with even more detail and length than what they would get from a video with a real death.

If you were going to be murdered, how would you prefer to be murdered?
I think strangled. Yeah, I’m a strangling fan.

@rdeanstone