Editor’s Note: Suneel, in his stalwart defense of Keith Raniere, was challenged by me to view the snuff film used in the ‘Human Fright Experiment.’ Suneel objects to my calling it a ‘Human Fright Experiment.’ He claims that it was called a movie clips study or study of emotions. Well, let’s check out Suneel’s emotions. He was kind enough to film himself immediately before and immediately after viewing the snuff film where four women were killed before our very eyes.

Before

SUNEEL: So I’m about to watch the snuff film that was part of the so-called ‘Human Fright Experiment’ and I will uh.. report back on what it was like. I’m a little apprehensive based on what it’s been described as, but uh, yeah, will let you know as part of my investigation what I .. my.. uh.. opinion is after the fact.

After

SUNEEL: So I just watched the six-and-a-half minutes of the film, of the dismemberment and beheading and it’s definitely gruesome, savage and heartbreaking, and  gut-wrenching and odious in many ways. It’s not the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, definitely, you know, maybe it’s the de-sensitization to violence that has occurred in videogames and movies and things like that where scenes like this are often depicted in movies. It just takes a different, has a different weight because it’s real and happened.

So, in the film it begins, the first two minutes where the Zetas, the armed men, are instructing the women to answer some questions about who they are and their relationship to, maybe, I didn’t understand all the Spanish, but maybe a rival cartel or something, and that took the first 2 minutes. And I was surprised by how, you know, calm and silent and still the women were, I mean if were in that position I would, maybe much more…I mean who knows what happened to them before, but they were .. they just answered the questions, maybe they…I don’t know, anyway.. 

Then immediately men altogether began beheading, chopping off the heads and… with one of the machetes, I guess [makes hand motion of carving] carving, it wasn’t… there weren’t clean beheadings and proceeded to dismember the bodies and throw them and show them to the camera and throw the torso and start hacking away at them. And some of the men were laughing while they were doing it and talking about it, and you know I guess, extolling the strength of the Zetas or whatever. It was, you know as if the bodies were being treated like they were in a butcher shop and they weren’t human lives and it was very disturbing to watch.

I definitely didn’t enjoy watching it. I don’t feel traumatized after the fact. I feel very sad, and also grateful that I don’t have to deal with that type of violence or that sort of an environment as many people in Mexico do, and I feel very sad that they have to deal with that and have that threat ever-present in some parts so…

Epilogue

Frank Parlato

Suneel looked a little rattled after witnessing the god-awful snuff film. I watched it and, in all candor, I’d have to say it was disturbing and nothing I’d like to ever see again. I’d like to know the exact playlist and I’m in the process of putting together that list and expect to have that tonight or tomorrow. Then we can witness and be ourselves students in the either ‘Human Fright Experiment’ or as Suneel claims it was, a study of emotions. Presently, my emotion is decidedly negative, and I think that I need to investigate further the purpose of this ‘experiment.’