J.T. Petty's S&MAN: Is it a "documentary" - a "non-fiction film"?
[UPDATE: Links to the official website, MySpace page, and Internet Movie Database (IMDb) entry for Erik Marcisak, the actor who stars as the fictional Eric Rost in S&man, have been added to the bottom of this article. Not surprisingly, the official website for S&man has now been removed from the wanttoseeadeadbody.com subdomain ]http://preview.wanttoseeadeadbody.com/.]
"S&MAN's not going to get any awards. A lot of what attracted me to doing a documentary was how overtly manipulative and fictional they are, and how little audiences seem to be willing to see this. S&MAN is easily the most dishonest movie I've made so far. [emphasis added]" - J.T. Petty, as quoted in an interview by Bill Zebub's The Grimoire of Exalted Deeds
"The documentary [emphasis added] features interviews with filmmakers and film scholars who specialize in horror, offering various perspectives on the genre as well as the voyeuristic nature of film itself." - from the description of Petty's S&man on the page for the movie on the website of its production company/domestic distributor/international sales agent, HDNet Films LLC
"Delving into issues of subjectivity and voyeurism through astonishing interviews with experts and extreme independent horror filmmakers, this non-fiction film [emphasis added] offers a thought-provoking investigation into the practice of sadistic spectatorship." - from the description of S&man in the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) news release "Prepare For Insomnia With The Return Of Midnight Madness"
"With images from Saw, Hostel and the real-life inhumanities of Abu Ghraib in the current collective unconscious, director JT Petty's timely documentary [emphasis added] examines voyeurs, victims, victimizers and a group of filmmakers who play in the shadowy world of underground horror cinema." - from TIFF Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes' description of S&man on the page for the movie on the TIFF website
J.T. Petty's purported documentary S&man had its world première at the South by Southwest Film Conference & Festival (SXSW Film) in March, and is scheduled to have its international première at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) next week.
Central to S&man - or, at least, to the marketing of it - is the eponymous S&man series of videos and its director, Eric Rost (a.k.a. Erik Rost). A number of reviewers of/commentators on the purported documentary have raised the question of whether the S&man series is one of pseudo-snuff videos or real snuff ones. (Some have even laughably suggested that it may be the latter.) None of them, however, have raised a more fundamental question: Is the S&man series even real? In other words, does it even exist? The answer, apparently, is no.
According to the official website for the S&man series, there are now 14 "episodes" in it. There are trailers for episodes #6 and #11 on YouTube; footage that is in those trailers is also used in the trailer for the purported documentary. On the official website for the series is a link to the MySpace page of Rost (this, of course, may well not be the individual in question's real surname). Rost claims on his MySpace page that he is "a low budget filmmaker" whose "passion pays [his] bills", and that he sells his DVDs for $20.00. (BTW, one of Rost's 45 MySpace friends is TIFF Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes, and he is one of Geddes' 111 MySpace friends.) He also claims that at the Chiller Theatre Expo in New Jersey in June, he "sold a couple of [his] DVDs to some of the usual fans. But also sold some to some new folks." Yet in spite of all of this, searching the Web and newsgroups via Google, I couldn't find so much as a single mention by a third party of any video in the S&man series, outside of the context of a discussion of the purported documentary, nor could I find so much as a single case of a third party - not even an anonymous one - claiming to have seen one of these videos, or to know someone who has. Furthermore, I couldn't find any website that supposedly is selling them. They aren't being offered for sale on the official website for the series, nor is there any information on that site regarding how to contact Rost - not even an e-mail address. (The website domain name has been privately registered.) Why doesn't Rost sell these videos on the official website for the series - especially given that he supposedly sells them openly and in person at the Chiller Theatre Expo, and that he's put trailers for two of them on YouTube?
The official website for the S&man series is at http://www.wanttoseeadeadbody.com; the official website for the purported documentary is at http://www.sandman-movie.com. (Both websites are hosted by DreamHost.) While trying - unsuccessfully - to verify the existence of the S&man series, I discovered that the official website for the purported documentary is also at http://preview.wanttoseeadeadbody.com - a subdomain of the domain for the S&man series official website! The contents of the folder http://preview.wanttoseeadeadbody.com/images/ are identical to those of the folder http://www.sandman-movie.com/images/ (including the files' creation dates), and the contents of the folder http://preview.wanttoseeadeadbody.com/music/ are identical to those of the folder http://www.sandman-movie.com/music/ (including the files' creation dates).
Rost's 14-episode S&man series of videos doesn't appear to exist - in fact, it appears to be a hoax orchestrated by Petty. If it is the latter, then presumably the footage in the purported documentary that's allegedly from the series was, in reality, shot for the purported documentary, and the ostensible director of the series is a character being played by an actor. In any case, if it is the latter, then the purported documentary is not a "documentary", nor is it a "non-fiction film".
In his review of Petty's S&man for Variety, Joe Leydon notes that in the closing credits for the purported documentary "there's an odd disclaimer that teasingly suggests viewers shouldn't believe everything they see in [it]." With regard to that disclaimer, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces wouldn't have been an autobiography - a non-fiction book - if only he had, from the original edition on, included at the end of it an odd disclaimer that teasingly suggested readers shouldn't believe everything they read in it. If the S&man series of videos is a hoax orchestrated by Petty, then even with a far less ambiguous disclaimer, the purported documentary still would neither be a "documentary" nor a "non-fiction film".
S&man (the purported documentary) trailer (on sandman-movie.com; downloadable 5.3 MB MOV file)
S&man (the purported documentary) trailer (on wanttoseeadeadbody.com; downloadable 5.3 MB MOV file)
S&man (the purported documentary) official website (http://www.sandman-movie.com)
S&man (the purported documentary) official website (preview.wanttoseeadeadbody.com)
S&man series official website (http://www.wanttoseeadeadbody.com)
S&man Episode 6 trailer (downloadable 2.1 MB FLV file)
YouTube: S&man Episode 6 trailer page
S&man Episode 11 trailer (downloadable 1.9 MB FLV file)
YouTube: S&man Episode 11 trailer page
Download.com: FLV Player 1.3.3 (licence is free)
HDNet Films: S&man (the purported documentary)
TIFF: S&man (the purported documentary)
TIFF: "Prepare For Insomnia With The Return Of Midnight Madness" news release
Variety: S&man (the purported documentary) review
The Grimoire of Exalted Deeds: J.T. Petty interview
J.T. Petty official website
MySpace: Colin Geddes
MySpace: The fictional Eric Rost (in reality, Erik Marcisak)
Erik Marcisak (a.k.a. the fictional Eric Rost) official website
MySpace: Erik Marcisak (a.k.a. the fictional Eric Rost)
IMDb: Erik Marcisak (a.k.a. the fictional Eric Rost)
Hoaxumentary.com
