Spooktober Day 31 Faces of Death!!!!

Day 31

Faces of Death

Could it be anything else but this? No.

When I planned this months theme out it was a lot of fun. The first few weeks were a lot of fun little known or as with a lot of you VERY unknown films, and I loved that. I tried keeping this list as close to the topic as possible and I believe I’ve succeeded. But seriously the final films for this were a paaaaaaaain in the ass.

Like stated in the last review I went back and forth on all of these and this one from the beginning, up to even the night I wrote the review for I Spit on Your Grave. I always had it as number one, but it was very tough between the two.

Until you get down to brass tacks, skulls and bones. As legendary as I Spit on Your Grave is, and well earned its lovers and haters are. Faces of Death still held, and for the longest time too, reigning authority over obscure hard to find vhs films.

Especially considering it was literally banned in 43 countries

Well..that’s what it claims as the total number of banned countries. The actual number was never verified coincidentally. But it WAS actually banned in many countries. Heavily HEAVILY edited to nearly nothing, placed on the UK Video Nasties list, and due to its…well that’s the fun part about this film.

This was the Blair Witch Project of its time, before Blair Witch was a thing, this was the OG in a genre that didn’t exist yet. The movie was banned, universally disgusted and kept out of stores as well as peoples lives. Because they marketed it as real film taken from News rooms and personal videotapes of actual deaths.

In reality, the film was banned for its realistic depictions of death and acts of violence.

Every single death in the film, came from actual death stories in Newspapers, and news reports. And everything shown in the movie is a recreation of what happened in the stories. They recreated stories, used barebones effects, and made it look like news clips and home video.

However…the film does include some, real things.

The whole series it spawned actually does. Any scene involving the death of animals, is real. Why? Because two things. One a genre this falls under called Mondo. Where it was popular at one time to show for shock value, acts of violence and taboos from other countries. Most notably animal slaughter. So these films include those, But not just for MONDO reasons, but funnily enough. Vegans. At one point, those involved, or one, specifically. Had wanted to show people how chicken and other animals were prepared in slaughterhouses, to help promote cleaner eating and to move people away from meat.

Much like I spit on Your Grave, I was told about this film very early on. In fact much younger than 10. A lot younger.

I remember my cousins visiting us, one of them was living with us at the time. The two had gotten ahold of a film my mom immediately told them I could not see, and they were not to watch with me anywhere near or around. Naturally this had my attention immediately. I asked what the movie was and I was told ‘Faces of Death’, I was told It’s too scary, I’m WAY too young and it’s not something I should ever see. Specifically that was what I was told, and when my cousins meant to watch it I was ushered to my room.

Well I was admittedly a little shit as a kid, and when I had to use the bathroom after everyone had gone to sleep, I snuck out and checked the living room. Cousin1 passed out in their room, Cousin 2 asleep on the couch in the kitchen. So I checked for this forbidden tape, found it and pushed play. I watched the opening first few scenes before hearing my dad cough from him and my moms bedroom and turned it off, sneaking back to bed. I didn’t see what the big deal was. But then I never did get to watch the whole thing.

It wasn’t until I was 16 that I stepped into the very old original Hollywood Video. The one where they put the horror films in what used to be the adult video room. Once I was there it was my church. And there in my holy church was all four Faces of Death. The fact there were three sequels astonished me. The film I was told was too intense for my eyes, was finally within reach. OF COURSE I RENTED IT!! I watched them all!

Was it worth it? Damn right it was. But it also was vastly confusing for me.

Here it was, the holy grail of my forbidden childhood, in my hands, I could finally watch this piece of cinema my parents made sure to keep from me. The moment I am old enough to see it? Suddenly my mom, my dad, my uncle, my cousins, they’re all laughing about it and telling me their favorite scenes and stories from the series!

You have to understand. Going from being raised thinking this was the most vile thing to ever exist, to now having your family laugh about it. That was a lot for me man!

But it certainly worked.

So this film has won its rightful place. It has stuck with me through my childhood into adulthood. I watched the original vhs tapes. Even the rip off series Traces of Death, which was severely lame. Hell I even have on VHS the first 3 films, I recently came across them at a second hand store. I didn’t even look at the price I just picked them up without hesitation.

I did the same thing when I noticed a 30th anniversary Blu-ray of the first one.

Was this film a vomit fest failure when it came out? HELL NO!!

The total budget reportedly for the film was about 445,000. How much did it make? 35-40 million.

Much like our more modern takes. The Last Broadcast, The Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity. Market a thing just right, word of mouth gets around and a low budget filk that’s intended to look real can make a fortune.

But the filmmakers themselves saw none of that. The companies who screened and distributed it however saw all of it.

Kind of sad honestly. Speaking of, lets begin this last walkthrough of October and finally close out this list.

Welcome, to Faces of Death.

We begin with, well a rather real heart surgery. Because why not. I still remember this playing on the tv when I started trying to watch this sneakily, and how I just didn’t see how something like this was obscene. Of course I say that having grown up with a huge satellite dish in our backyard that used to have channels showing actual operations. But its an introduction for what is to come for us in this film, as it dramatically slows the film down and finally freezes on the heart and begins playing a flat line.

Now enjoy some shots of old cadavars and mummified remains! Because this is, the face of death. Get it?

If not well, you are in for a hell of a thing. As we’re walked through scenes of an autopsy being performed on a fresh body. Introducing us to our host and narrator. Also one of our writers who created the film. Renowned pathologist Dr Frances B. Gross. Who can’t wear glasses properly to save his own life. Which is funny because when the sequel comes out, a new host takes over and it’s explained that the previous host committed suicide. Which he did not.

The film is told to us by him, to be his exploration of death from across the world, for us to bare witness into the realities of death and what awaits us all, in its many faces.

This is said of course while a coffin is lowered 6ft into the ground and a camera placed atop the coffin to really let that sink in for us. They’re burying us!! RUN!!

Our first stop? A Mexican cemetary in Gunajuato. Where if families could not pay the fees for the burial plots for their loves ones. The dead were exhumed. Due to the rich minerals in the earth those bodies had been mummified. Now those ‘mummies’ are on display for all to see. It’s a bit creepy but, well so are the catacombs in France, seeing countless skeletons and realizing its not fake. It’s interesting honestly to see, a bit morbid for some sure. But its still interesting. Now lets keep our tour moving, take photos as we do.

The film then decides to show us again what I warned was very real. That would be footage of an underground dog fight. Where two pitbulls are let loose to fight one another. Thankfully they don’t show the dog dying but, we do see the end result. Thankfully we are moving on. Again, don’t stray too far from the group. Thank you.

We also unfortunately for the animal lovers out there, get to watch as an amazon tribe known as the Jivaros hunt with a blow dart a money. Which is then cooked over a fire. Yes it is dead before that so thankfully no screaming struggling to live monkey being cooked. This also more importantly, is one of the very few remaining ‘head hunter’ tribes, Which we get to witness a bit of the making of. It’s not our real story yet. These are like…news paper clippings. Short stories as like I said, MONDO films were mostly snippets of scenes played for shock value.

Like seeing an African tribe kill a cow, collecting its blood and preparing to eat it. The tribe though mostly cares for the drinking of its blood. Which is interesting to look into actually.

But we can’t just look in shock at other countries. We have to look at our own too, this film is very fair and balanced in that regard. So we get to see a woman on a farm, With huge sunglasses on to conceal her identity. As she beheads a chicken for dinner. Which shows us the nervous reflex of a quick death in an animal and we see where the phrase “Dancing like a chicken with its head cut off” came from.

And of course the headless dance is played with music because. Well it’s a ‘dance’.

But keep your hands in the cart at all times. Because we’re about to get into the least fun American tradition on our tour of pro vegan filming.

A slaughterhouse.

Explaining to us, and showing us. The preparation of Kosher meats. Which is done with a rabbi blessed blade. Which I had not been aware of until this film. At the time these things were incredibly shocking because it wasn’t something routinely shown and you didn’t want shown because it was grotesque of course. But now we live in a time were it’s not only been seen, but worse is out there. But its still pretty gross, between the cows and sheep. More scarily at one point is seeing a skinned carcass with a still beating heart. But is it real or also fake?

I did say everything with animals is real. But that also is a bit untrue. As we are about to find out in one of the movies most well known shocking scenes. Which is completely staged.

They tell us this is a hidden away middle eastern restaurant. Which oddly is employed with mainly white people. The delicacy in this scene. Is a live monkey placed at the center of the table, where its body is placed in a cage, and two wooden slits are used to secure the monkey in place. Allowing just its head to stick out. The customers are given two stone mallets and told to crack its skull open, so they can then enjoy the monkey brain within.

It’s graphic, it looks incredibly real. But it is not. They admit much much later on after the film was release. That this scene was completely made up by the filmmakers.

But yes people do eat animal brains, just thankfully not in this case were rich snobby white people are enjoying it and laughing at their friends who can’t stomach it.

We also see something not around really today. Thankfully, because its one of my favorite animals. We get to see the clubbing of seals and the removal of their skin. Not too much thankfully. But enough to get the message across. What you DO get a lot of however, is carcasses. Just to show the number they’d go through in collecting these and just how many they’d go through in a single day.

They even touch on poaching. Which yeah fuck poachers. We see them skinning and dumping Alligator carcases as they shoot them and remove their skins. But on the up side we see something great. Our first faked death scene! Also one my mother absolutely loved and laughed at.

It’s a news report of a giant alligator in a lake wreaking havok on local residents. So they call in animal control. We get a big billy badass in a boat who looks and sounds as confident as can be in his skills for taking care of this creature. What we get is something that does happen yes, but also I can see my moms point in laughing over it. The man is being cheered and heads out ready to take on this Alligator, secure a rope around him and  try to tug them, tie them and secure them. What happens instead is the alligator fights back! Jerking the man into the water and it’s death roll time! Which is a bit funny to watch now given we know it’s fake and seeing where the ‘news report’ chooses to jump from and what it chooses to show, for something that was supposed to have been filmed live.

I hope you took pictures and enjoyed it, because we are now onto our next segment. Assassinations!

We get to see a reinactment of an assassination being performed, which yeah, it looks rather setup. But the funnest part. Is when the film stops to talk to a ‘real world assassin’, who sits on a fine white leather couch, paid for with their assassination money. Also finely displaying many boxes of various rounds and caliber of ammunition and weapons. Talking to us about this being their livelihood and about making a career out of killing, all through a voice box while they wear a protective mask concealing their identity even further from us. Yeah its an actor, and they talk about it in the documentary that comes with their blu-ray actually. Fun stuff!

But there is another kind of killer as they tell us. It’s when a person gives in and murders others. Which some a mix of actual crime scene photos. Mixed with their recreating and fabricating scenes not shown. Which is really something honestly.

They watched these news reports and live shoot outs repeatedly. Then went out, filmed things to look like they were there right beside them, as a special unit moves in to take down the killer. Once they filmed everything, they filtered it, did as much in camera tricks as they could to match the film grade and grain of what was not shown or taken from actual news footage. That’s part of how they got away with people believing it was real.

Right down to the killer coming out of his home as teargas was launched into the house and he rushes out with his rifle. Being shot down by the police.

If you watch the scene carefully, you can spot things. Like the police team moving in to kill him all have military gear and blank navy blue shirts. No badges or official markings. The police car that rolls up to the house also has no markings of any kind. Little details if you look for you can spot what is real, what’s fake.

From here we slow the pace down a bit, showing a morgue and the readying of bodies, autopsies, preparing for burial, its again, interesting but morbid. Real or fake? Well we discussed some of that, but also if you are familiar with medical tools and such used by these people. You might be able to tell, again. Little details.

On a more interesting note. We actually get a look at early human tissue slides and how they would look at forensic evidence. Identifying cells and determining how someone died, or more so, what weapon killed them.

It’s interesting catching a small glimpse of it. But we gotta move on, why? Because we got an execution to watch that’s why!!

It’s a new York rapist and murderer, with little remorse. But he’s scared of dying!

So of course this film does what it does best. While walking us through the procedure of preparing a prisoner for electrocution.We get really REALLY not suitable music playing. Seriously its something I love, but you can absolutely laugh along with as they use hugely inappropriate and hilarious music. So I guess it makes what we’re watching easier? Imagine how that would’ve worked on I Spit on Your Grave!

Well, as we continue our tour, away from the smoking jiggling drooling not corpse of the none electrocuted man. We now enter the realm of REAL curiosity back in the 70’s. SATANISM!!! Fun for the whole family!

Yep. We get to witness a totally legit absolutely for serious ritual, where a person without freaking out gets disemboweled, leading to their leader saying “We are free, We are there, and it is beautiful” as he eats part of the bodies liver, and thus begins an orgy. Because that’s why people were interested in satanic cults! Sure there’s blood shed, but there’s also the sex and orgies! But we aren’t shown much of it as the cult leader puts a hand up to the camera to prevent us from seeing more of what we should not see.

Which brings us to another cult of pure evil dumbassness. The snake handling religious nuts! Yes!! We get to see people praying to the lord and hovering over fire, doing anything they can to create horrific possible deaths, just to show their faith. Actually seeing footage of these people wrapping themselves up in snakes, seeing one in fact ready to bite someone. It’s just…..yeah those are a special breed.

Now as our kart continues on this death track our next topic comes to what the good doctor calls the most perplexing. Suicide. They show us what looks like actual scenes of someone jumping from a building. Its pretty convincing but again, little details.

Something far more interesting of a topic, and we see somewhat. Is the procedure people used to go through, in attempting immortality. The art of freezing a body in hopes that the bodies will be preserved, and brought back once either a cure is found for what they had, or simply reanimation. I never knew what they went through for being cryogenically frozen, it sounds rather horrifying. Having your blood drained completely, then body wrapped, secured and placed in nitro for freezing. It’s odd.

Now, for something actually real. One of the rare. Very rare instances of an actual body appearing in the film. They were shooting on Long Beach, and while there, they noticed a crowd not far from them. Apparently a body of a drowned surfer washed up on shore. So…they rushed over to film it! Yep, it actually made it into the film and with consent. Again, morbid. But somewhat interesting. More so because it just shows the truth of death, which is, it’s not exciting, it just happens, and that makes it for people, well. Boring. But oddly enough that somehow makes it more real. Weird right?

Okay we’ll stop at the gift shop soon. But for now, it’s more spook ya out time as we go into a story about a group of boys who went exploring a cave in the wilderness and. Well yeah. They ended up descending into it, falling and dying. Things like that remind me of stuff growing up where we did things that by todays standards, absolutely we’d be knocking on heavens door. But people did because eh why not. But today, yeah people still would. Just not as much because we value our lives. Find a cave? Cool lets take a look. No light? Shucks okay lets go. Where before it was more “no light? Okay cool lets keep going, oh nooooooo”

It was called livin life baby! And we did it!

Speaking of, lets talk about bears, and why you are told specifically do NOT feed them. But who cares! The family is on vacation. Yes this is hilarious to me. A woman throwing bread out her window at a bear larger than their car as her husband takes pictures from the door, then goes outside as she says “Be careful bob….bob you be careful now” is Bob careful? Of course he is! He’s bearly there HAAH. NO OF COURSE HE’S NOT OKAY! The bear rips his ass in half. But again, its staged so we see a well trained bear stand up, roar. A woman screams, camera falls and then next thing we’re looking at is a well hidden ‘bob’ and a bloody mouthed bear.

I love it, don’t hate me.

Sadly we move from that, into natural disasters. Which are scary enough on their own. Mudslides, volcanos, wildfire, floodings. Nature is scary as hell, and the weather isn’t any better! I grew up in California when the big earthquake hit that took most of the pier, freeways went by by and buildings got fucked. I thought it was cool as hell, but now. Well it’s still cool as hell, but it’s also scary.

And this time we get a folk song to sing us through…well not natural disasters but protest of nuclear material dumping, the man made threat of chemicals harming us. As well as a fun recreation of a protester setting themselves on fire. Because why not? I mean. It’s definitely a choice, but one you did not think out bro. Seriously don’t set yourselves on fire for a protest. Or ever. You’d be surprised how much that hurts.

What could possibly be the greatest crime mankind has ever committed though in the game of death? WAR! Of course! So we get to discuss that a little bit, and show actual old news reels of fighting in the pacific. So we actually get a little history lesson here, Mostly about mans cruelty during the war, and how we found more deadly ways to kill each other.  They do touch on the concentration camps. Showing us footage of bodies being moved from mass graves, survivors being freed.

From there we go into, of all things to follow it up with, plagues. Disease and well as relevant as it can be at this time yes. How diseases can end up taking out mass waves of human beings. How cures and vaccines aren’t available to the poor and wat it does to their bodies, their villages. 

But it takes us from there, logically to the disease we’re still fighting and I pray everyday I don’t have as new fun things pop up on my body, cancer. Demonstrating to us testing, removal, finding causes. Treatments. They even discuss the possibility of, or question, is cancer a man made disease, and if so, will it change the way we live and eat. How far we’ve come.

Hey we haven’t had a death in a long while! So lets watch some sky parachuters jump and a mans parachute malfunction! Thankfully there was no awkward music this time. But he does ponder when he was ‘told’ by paramedics that the man did not suffer and died quietly. But according to him and the ‘footage’ he watched. The man was struggling up until he landed and died so. Who knows!

But death, also happens in the land of make believe. Who would’ve thought people died while making movies. Not like professional actors handle firearms without checking them like you are supposed to and accidentally shoot people.

Well they show us a car crash from a ‘film’ and the stunt man driving died during a crash. Showing us the horrible truth that yes. People die for our later entertainment. Who would’ve thought.

Want to talk about accidents? No one really does, but that’s where we’re headed next. Showcasing speeding accidents, collisions with buildings, other cars. Reckless drivers, drunk drivers. Even going into Airplane crashes. Which superman assures us is still the safest mode of transportation. Until it’s not. Of course.

But alas, our film journey is coming to its epic end. As we will be moving on to our last.  Which is mostly the focus of the results, when an airplane, flown by a newly licensed pilot crashes into a neighborhood, unfortunately taking many lives with it. Destroying an entire neighborhood of homes and peoples lives. It’s pretty tragic and graphic. Again entering the, is it real or is what they showed setup but still based on a true story? That’s what google is for. But also, more importantly. Your watching the film for yourself and deciding.

And as it comes ot an end. We get into me and my sisters favorite fun time hobby. Communicating with the dead! Yep. That’s where this journey ends for us. Talking about recording the sounds of the dead, contacting spirits through mediums and psychics. The existence of life after death, talking to loved ones. The extent we will go just to talk to those who have moved on, and our hope that they not only linger to talk to us. But that there is an after life.

We close with the doctor sharing with us his thoughts on death as he’s studied it over the past 20 years. How death for him, is not the end, but a beginning. That for every death, a new life is brought into this world, and it is up to us to decide, if that truly is life after death. So we end with a woman screaming shitting herself as she gives birth to a baby and beautiful music as we are transported to a forest, watching deer feed, leafs fall and mothers with huge mommy milkies bathing with their children.

No we don’t see a woman shitting herself, but it is a fact of birth. If you weren’t aware. It is rather common to shit yourself while doing so.

The End!!

Yes I smirked writing that, but I don’t care. You people don’t know the month I’ve had! What a month it’s been too. Oof. Between editing for the podcast, and my sisters, I’ve been spending all my free time writing these reviews and my secret project, which is released today finally. After 3 weeks of work. But that’s for another post. This is all about celebrating 31 films that lead us to this one. The top oddity and video store obscure film. It definitely is that, and still one of the kings at the top. It’s not a story so much as a narrative, it’s rather random and quick in how it works and what it shows. But that’s sort of how MONDO films worked back then too. It was about shock and keeping the shock coming. But they did their best to expand on it and what we got. Was a very low budget film, that made 30-40 million dollars. Became universally loved and banned at the same time. Was shown at midnight and grindhouse theaters. Heavily edited into barely nothing resembling a film, labeled too violent for anyone to see, and now. It’s available not only on VHS brand new still, but DVD. In boxed sets and with more documentaries than you would’ve imagined existing on the thing. Stories of how they pulled it off, the work they put into each reinactment and filming. The effects. Everything.

Having this now is amazing because back then yeah. You had a serious case of the Blair Witch. People believing it was real. People knowing it wasn’t but still believing it, and that expert touch of showing real WITH fake, making it that much harder for people to tell the difference and keep questioning it.

I’d say it can’t be done again, but here we are. Films still manage to grasp onto that trend and it works for them. I hate Paranormal Activities with an unhinged rage. But the thing made a crap ton of money, and now we have so many sequels we need to just destroy it all. For the good of mankind.

But none of them can ever touch on this film and its success and infamy. It was a time and place and it held that for a long, long time.

When I saw the vhs cover I’ll never forget it. I had never seen the original, what I saw was the rerelease from the 90’s. All I knew was its name because it stuck with me since I was a kid. But the moment I roamed that video store and I saw in red bloody text “Faces of Death, and a groovy skull on the cover. I knew I found my holy grail. I found it, I bought it, I watched the hell out of it.

Is it still entertaining? It’s a hard one to answer. Because it comes off as a semi documentary and mockumentary. It jumps around a lot, and I mean a LOT. You just sort of go for the ride so. It might be interesting, entertaining for the ‘so this is what people hyped and were hating’ factor. But I’m not going to lie and say oh you’ll be riveted to the screen and on the edge of your seat.

It just isn’t that. It’s an experience and something you witness, more than enjoy or walk away with something ‘meaningful’

But I still believe people should see it, absolutely. Rent it, buy it, check it out, give it a look. It may not hold up to today, but I promise there will be at least a few things shown. Where you will legitimately question what you are watching, and looking at it as a piece on special effects will keep you happy for days on end. They really did do a lot with very little. It’s pretty spectacular.

But that is Faces of Death. Love it or hate it. You owe it to yourself to watch it, just to say you did. Maybe.

Until next year people. Be safe out there, and Happy Halloween!