THE STORY – A woman, employed as a website content moderator, comes across a series of violent videos reproducing death scenes from a film.
THE CAST – Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler & Charli XCX
THE TEAM – Daniel Goldhaber (Director/Writer) & Isa Mazzei (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 98 Minutes
“They’re remaking that?!” Real horror freaks likely reacted with admirable shock upon learning that “Faces of Death,” the beyond-infamous 1978 “documentary,” was being remade. The original film and subsequent knock-off sequels purported to contain real footage of deaths, although the vast majority of the sequences were faked, accompanied in the original film by narration from Francis B. Gröss, a pathologist fascinated by death (and played by an actor). Despite the film’s obviously fabricated quality (besides some slaughterhouse and war footage, which is all very much real), audiences were morbidly drawn to it, turning it into an object of curiosity that caught on at the box office. In the years that followed, its legacy shifted to that of a novelty act, garnering attention on lists and in articles about history’s most shocking films. It hasn’t been helped by the advent of the Internet, where anyone with a Wi-Fi connection can pull up videos of real deaths with just a few clicks and keystrokes. And that’s exactly what the latest “Faces of Death” delves into. Less a remake or reboot than a realigning of the energy surrounding the original film, director Daniel Goldhaber’s new film (made in collaboration with co-writer Isa Mazzei) takes place in a world where the 1978 original exists and is known to the characters. It’s a fascinating premise that raises ever-timely questions about the effect of the open-source, free-for-all nature of the Internet on society. But as a scary, or even entertaining, movie, it’s decidedly less successful.
This very fictional new film centers on Margot (Barbie Ferreira), a young woman who works as a content moderator at a TikTok-style social video app called Kino. Her job is to review questionable videos uploaded by users and determine whether they violate the rules on what can and cannot be posted. As in real life, the specifications of what’s deemed acceptable versus inappropriate are arbitrary and odd (fights and other forms of non-lethal violence are permitted, but an explainer on how to administer Narcan gets flagged as promoting drug use). One day, she happens upon a well-made but grisly video that ostensibly depicts someone actually being murdered in a uniquely creative fashion. After consulting her manager (Jermaine Fowler), Margot is told to let the video stay up, under the assumption (or hope) that it’s a fake. But after she lets that first one slide, she encounters more and more potential snuff videos. Margot has to decide whether to follow her instructions or her instincts as she gets increasingly worried that these nasty videos may show actual deaths.
Early in the film, it’s made clear that these videos are, in fact, legit. “Faces of Death” is not a mystery; it’s not at all concerned with hiding the identity of its killer, Arthur (Dacre Montgomery). This means that the audience has much more information about the situation than our lead character, and in fact, the movie spends almost as much time following Arthur as it does Margot. Arthur is shown stalking his victims and staging his kills, which are modeled on supposed death scenes from the original “Faces of Death.” Smartly, this film treats the killings in the 1978 film as real, never questioning their authenticity. It’s a fun angle that ensures a new generation of horror lovers will feel as darkly intrigued about the original mockumentary as audiences were when it was released.
However, the lack of mystery saps the movie of tension. It’s one thing to take a “Silence of the Lambs“-style approach, where the murderer and the heroine seeking him out are both given solo time on screen before their narratives eventually collide. But the Jodie Foster-starring original, which clearly influenced this film, still manages to wring suspense from the uncertainty of its villain’s motives and the fate of his prisoner, who is an unquestionably pitiable figure. Here, Arthur’s reasons for doing what he does are of little interest to the film, and his victims aren’t spotlighted enough to elicit sympathy (one of them, a vapid influencer played by Josie Totah, is mockingly framed by the film). Instead, we simply watch Arthur do what he does, constructing somewhat interesting “Saw“-style kill rigs that are eventually executed in shockingly un-gnarly ways.
Complementing Arthur’s scenes, Margot’s storyline is repetitive and predictable. As is seemingly required of contemporary horror film protagonists, she’s struggling in real time to overcome a shocking, traumatic moment from her past. When she’s not experiencing flashbacks to this incident, she spends her time playing amateur detective, trying to uncover the truth behind the snuff videos while encountering frustrating roadblocks. Barbie Ferreira has an inherent screen presence, embodying her characters’ stress particularly well. Still, there’s simply not much for her to do until the film’s visceral finale, which is by far the most effectively nasty part of the film.
On the total opposite end of the spectrum, Dacre Montgomery is deliciously over-the-top as our villain Arthur. He revels in every moment of almost cartoonish wickedness, leaning hard into the glee Arthur feels at bringing shock and guaranteed nightmares to those who view his videos. It’s campy at times, as most villains should be, but never without a sense of malice. He’s a very real threat, and Montgomery doesn’t let us forget that. His character’s design also helps with this; the disguise he adopts for his plots is simple but effective, not dissimilar to the original image of Michael Myers in “Halloween.“
But despite this memorable performance, Arthur’s grand plan, as depicted by the film, lacks a compelling drive. “Faces of Death” raises interesting points about the numbing effect of the Internet and how the ease with which anyone can quickly access real images of utter horror dampens the ability to be truly disturbed. It’s a necessary conversation and a brilliant approach to take when revisiting the original film for contemporary times. It can easily be extrapolated that the fact that the Internet has made it hard for the general population to feel true shock has only made it easier for atrocious acts of political violence, up to and including genocide, to become totally normalized. One can also fold into that thesis additional ideas about the ways that AI has quickly trained us to be skeptical of everything we see, making it possible to dismiss anything that doesn’t align with one’s worldview or beliefs as simply not real (and of course, politicians have already pounced upon this and used it to their advantage with a cynically doubtful society). It constructs an accurate mirror of our Internet-driven world, but “Faces of Death” is an unfortunate example of the kind of movie that’s more exciting to talk about than actually to watch. Goldhaber’s previous film, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” didn’t have this problem. It explores daring political ideas and actionable strategies that feel truly bold, and does so in a cinematically thrilling way. That admittedly difficult achievement isn’t replicated with his latest film. Despite being well shot and slickly constructed, “Faces of Death” doesn’t successfully bring the decidedly not-good but undeniably captivating spirit of the original film into the 21st century.
