In 1978 the world was introduced to the gruesome film Faces of Death that looked to blur the lines between reality and fiction. I remember seeing this film as a kid and for years believed in the hype and that it was all real footage like most people that saw it back then. Through the years it spawned 7 sequels with more mixed real footage with the staged. Now they are stepping back into the world of the first film aptly titled Faces of Death starring Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler, and Charli XCX.

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Faces of the Death follows the exploration of the original film’s infamous “is it real or not?” conceit continues as a woman working as a content moderator for a major video platform discovers what appears to be re-enactments of murders from the original film. In an online world where nothing can be trusted, she must determine whether the violence is fiction or unfolding in real time.

 

With the legendary status of the original film this new direction had to take some big swings to live up to it. I was concerned that they were going to veer too far from the source material ideal and lost what made it so iconic. This film does a brilliant job in how it ties it together with the original, complete with showing footage within the story from the classic film. This ended up being a great direction to honor the original while doing something completely different.

 

This could have easily gone off the rails, but they lean into the world of social media and people’s obsession with viral videos and ignoring the real world of those involved in them. Twist the idea and bring a slasher/serial killer element and you have the perfect recipe to deliver a film that takes you on an interesting journey of violence and commentary. Sure, there are some cliched horror elements, and it doesn’t push those boundaries as far as I had hoped, but in the end, it still works to make something worth checking out for both the fans of the original or just horror fans in general.

 

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