He was the first in a series of maverick directors making underground movies who began a sustained revival of German horror cinema post World War II.

Since many of the local theaters in his city did not care about how young their patrons were, he was exposed to violent martial arts, zombie films, and splatter very early on in his life.

Shot with his friends over four "extremely long" weekends, Schnaas' gory tale of "Karl the Butcher", entitled Violent Shit, went on to become Germany's first direct-to-video horror film.

Still spiraling off Violent Shit's unexpected success, Schnaas created his homage to the undead with Zombie 90 – Extreme Pestilence (1990), the English version of which is regarded by some genre fans to have the most hilarious dubbing ever put to celluloid.

Due to an intense fan interest through his official website, Schnaas decided to continue the Violent Shit series, filming the third chapter of the trilogy the next year.