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Faces of Death

Play trailer Poster for Faces of Death 1978 1h 45m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
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25% Tomatometer 12 Reviews 40% Popcornmeter 5,000+ Ratings
A coroner (Dr. Francis B. Gröss) shows scenes of gruesome deaths from around the world both real and re-enacted.

Critics Reviews

View All (12) Critics Reviews
Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Has no redeeming value as entertainment or any educational value. Rated: D Sep 19, 2023 Full Review Ard Vijn ScreenAnarchy Many of the segments have lost their ability to shock, or can easily be recognized as fake by today's more media-savvy audience. Interesting as a curious bit of film history, but nothing more. Jan 17, 2020 Full Review Tim Brayton Antagony & Ecstasy Without the carrot of controversy to draw in viewers, Faces of Death would have only the stick of unconvincing faux-documentary footage. Rated: 1/10 Jul 19, 2010 Full Review Scott Weinberg FEARnet Sleazy little relic of a movie. Rather fine DVD release that demystifies the whole thing. Rated: 2.5/5 Oct 8, 2008 Full Review Johnny Butane Dread Central As a curiosity piece, Faces of Death is well worth a look, especially if you've not seen it in a very long time. As for its place in horror cinema history, well, that remains to be seen. Rated: 3/5 May 13, 2008 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 2/5 Nov 9, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (307) audience reviews
Audience Member I came searching for mindless gore due to the reviews I’ve seen on this film. I found an interesting introspection into death and the reasons why people kill. It’s fascinating and really not as gory as others make it seem. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 04/24/24 Full Review Joshua H Unless you find watching a bunch of senseless horrible death and violence entertaining, faces of death brings nothing of value to the table. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 07/06/23 Full Review Mason M Clearly and intentionally not made for a wide audience, this documentary can provide a fulfilling insight on such an uncomfortable subject. That is if you can stomach the real footage. Much of the fake footage has since become outdated 40 years later, and range from somewhat convincing to laughable to clearly fake. However, 60% of the film is comprised of Very Real Death. Many were used a bit tastelessly, like the cyclist footage, but many were also handled very analytically and with some degree of severity, like the Holocaust footage or PSA Flight 182 Crash. It was exactly what I expected, but also not what I expected at all. I only recommend it to people who know exactly what they're in for, because again, this is Not for everyone. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Liam K This is the most iconic mondo, it has a hidden theme to be grateful about life while you still have it, most of it is fake and the effects are outdated. It managed to gross 35 million still in the box office and my father snuck into it Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/13/22 Full Review Audience Member I've discussed the video store of my youth often, but no movie in Prime Time Video inspired such dread as Faces of Death, its gigantic clamshell package covered with a note scrawled in sharpie: YOU MUST BE 18 TO RENT. This feels like a movie made from VHS, as where were people going to see this in 1978? Written and directed by John Alan Schwartz (using the name Alan Black for the screenplay and Conan LeCilaire for directing, as well as Johnny Getyerkokov for second unit and appearing with no screen name for his role as the leader of the cannibal cult), this film made $35 million at the box office, despite being outlawed in the UK and made a video nasty. It was not banned in forty countries, no matter what the box art may scream at you, and it really doesn't contain all that much real death either. Try telling that to the kids in my hometown in the mid-80s. They believed that pathologist Francis B. Gröss — actually portrayed by Michael Carr — was a real doctor who was using video to explore the phenomena of death itself. They spoke breathlessly of the moments in this movie and it was another torture test film, one people bragged about surviving. As this was a non-union film, there weren't many credits, so it could have seemed real. But today, so many people have come forward discussing how they were involved in the movie. Estimates are that 40% of the film is fake, but the death scene of the female cyclist is real and the alligator scene also shows up in Naked and Cruel. In today's world, we have the internet, which has non-stop access to the kind of footage that Faces of Death could only dream of having access to getting. As such, we are numb to the kind of panic and worry that one would have with this movie staring back at them from the shelves of a mom and pop video store. Is it any wonder that Legendary is rebooting this film series but making it friendlier? Here's the logline for the film: "A female moderator of a YouTube-like website whose job is to weed out offensive and violent content and who herself is recovering from a serious trauma, who stumbles across a group that is re-creating the murders from the original film. But in the story primed for the digital age of online misinformation, the question is: Are the murders real or fake?" Nobody is going to have nightmares about that movie. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review c v Wow, the cheesy music and unfair comparisons of cultural barbarism was bearable to catch some snuff, but the last ten minutes easily could have been cut and destroyed the credibility of some of the footage of death in this "documentary". The 70's sure looked like a wild time. - Audiomack.com/cvrthebard Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Faces of Death

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis A coroner (Dr. Francis B. Gröss) shows scenes of gruesome deaths from around the world both real and re-enacted.
Director
John Alan Schwartz
Producer
Rosilyn T. Scott
Screenwriter
John Alan Schwartz
Production Co
MPI, F.O.D. Productions
Genre
Horror
Original Language
English
Runtime
1h 45m
Sound Mix
Mono