Warning: Though there are no graphic details, this article does discuss the violent nature of films like Faces of Death. Faces of Death appears to be a non-fictional film containing the most violent death and destruction footage available at the time. There are assassinations, war crimes, automobile accidents, autopsies, plane crashes, executions, immolations, suicides, fatal animal attacks, animal killings, and plenty of other extremely taboo behavior on display. In a sense, this is a ‘snuff’ film.
What many people do not know is that, while it does contain some real stock footage, all the death scenes are fake. They were manufactured in such a way as to make them seem real. So although much of the imagery is fake, the point is that people thought they were watching real deaths. The creators of the film eventually came forward and claimed responsibility, explaining how they studied and imitated real footage to make Faces of Death look authentic.
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On the other hand, the sequels and imitations, like the nihilistic and grossly misanthropic Traces of Death, do contain only real footage of violence and mayhem. Faces of Death itself does contain some real images and archival footage, but the majority of the film is manufactured like any other horror film.
Faces of Death was a pre-internet phenomenon that no longer has relevance because of the ease of accessing violent material, and many more violent images and films are now available due to the fact that, in the modern world, almost everything is captured on ‘video.’ There is an overwhelmingly huge amount of real violent footage one can find on sites online, and even specialty sites that only offer real videos of death and carnage. In a way, Faces of Death walked so that this disgusting stuff could run. But why was it so popular in its time, and why are some people so interested in violence?
The Mondo Genre
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What is most surprising about Faces of Death is its extreme popularity and cult status. Made for less than half a million dollars, the film grossed tens of millions of dollars around the world upon its theatrical release in 1978. The film increased in popularity and achieved cult status after its 1983 release on VHS, leading to both numerous sequels and numerous rip-offs.
These films can trace their origins to films like Mondo Cane and Africa Addio, films from the 1960s meant to show us what a ‘strange’ and ‘diverse’ world we live in by showing various obscure and cult practices from the four corners of the globe, using xenophobic, outdated anthropological concepts as an excuse to show extreme images. As time passed, these films became more and more focused on death, violence, and suffering. Today, the terms “mondo film” and “death film” are synonymous, which shows how much the genre has changed and become more morbid.
When Faces of Death was first released, audiences had never seen anything like it. The closest equivalents were the ultra-violent safety films shown in Driver’s Ed classes across the country. These films showed the grisly and repulsive consequences of automobile accidents for the purpose of shocking kids into driving safely and soberly. Like Faces of Death, violent safety films like Mechanized Death and Red Asphalt are a pre-internet phenomenon. But what was the purpose of Faces of Death?
WHY?
People see films for a variety of reasons, and the same is true with the Faces of Death films. The most heinous reasons that someone might watch these pictures is in gaining a vicarious thrill seeing others commit acts of extreme violence, destruction, and terrorism. A depraved reason behind the popularity of these films is that the individuals watching it are sadistic and get a kick from seeing suffering. Are there really that many psychopathic sadists out there, drooling over Auschwitz footage? The popularity of the films demonstrate that either there’s an inherently violent, sadistic subset of humanity who enjoy the suffering of others, or that people are extremely curious about death — the ultimate taboo.
It’s a common fact that we are all going to die and that everyone we know or meet will die as well; that in a few hundred years or less there will not be a single person on Earth alive to remember you. Eventually, the world will end, the sun will explode, the universe will experience heat death, and all history will be obliterated.
This terrifies most people, and is part of the reason why so many people hold religious beliefs in eternal life and a heavenly paradise. It is difficult, and perhaps existentially paralyzing, to accept the reality that we are all just one step away from becoming rotting corpses. For many people, watching death scenes can be reassuring, letting them know they are not alone and that violence and death are part of the human condition. It’s almost a desensitizing process.
Censorship and Curiosity
It is a natural human impulse to want to watch controversial material that has been banned, outlawed, or censored. When Faces of Death was released, it was edited and banned outright in many film markets. Telling people that they aren’t allowed to look at something just makes them more curious about looking; that’s basic human psychology. With many people trying so hard to ban the film, it is just natural human curiosity to want to witness whatever taboo or transgressive footage has caused so much controversy.
The VHS itself screams in huge letters, “Banned in 46 countries!” Although this is not even close to the truth, it went a long way toward selling the film and turning it into an urban legend, even a rite of passage for many people who have heard whispered talk of the film. Any true fan of the macabre and the transgressive is going to want to see something banned all over the planet. Censorship, and exploitation of the fact that the film was censored, was a huge factor in the success of Faces of Death and its status as a cult film.
The Birth of the VHS Revolution
Another factor in the film’s phenomenal success was its release date. This coincided with the birth of VHS films and the modern slasher and gore genre. The early 1980s was a vintage time for horror films. Many more horror films were released directly to video as the VCR increased in popularity, allowing people to watch films in the privacy of their homes. During this period, countless exploitation and slasher films like Mother’s Day, Basket Case, The Toxic Avenger, Friday the 13th, Cannibal Holocaust, The Evil Dead, Dead-Alive, The New York Ripper, Maniac, and others gained incredible popularity as more and more VHS rental stores opened up, their shelves lined with the latest and nastiest horror movies released.
Faces of Death was released in 1978, just as this revolution in film was beginning, and the Faces of Death films were looked at the same way as the early slasher films — full of gratuitous violence, gore, and brutality. To a great many people, Faces of Death was just one of numerous gruesome horror films from that unique period when slashers cornered the market in the horror field.
In addition to being lumped in with all the new slasher films, Faces of Death also had appeal as a “cult” film, one with devoted fans all across the world, united by the need to see real-life bloodshed. Watching death and violence is one thing, but what the interest in ‘real’ displays of those things?
Morbid Interests and Found Footage
Stephen King’s story The Body, adapted into the film Stand By Me, deals with the same morbid impulses that made people interested in Faces of Death. A group of regular small-town kids find out about the existence of a murdered young man, and they go on a quest to find the dead body.
The film makes sense because it is totally rational to want to see something as taboo and secretive as a dead body. The characters in the film were not particularly psychotic or evil. Rather, they were just curious. They wanted to confront death, this mysterious thing that nobody spoke with them about, and see it up close and gain some type of wisdom or experience from the tragedy they are investigating.
Faces of Death arguably paved the way for the found footage genre of films such as Cannibal Holocaust, The Blair Witch Project, the V/H/S series of films, and even the infamous Roswell Alien Autopsy documentary. These are movies that are manipulated to give them the appearance of a documentary, appealing to that aforementioned morbid interest people have toward a verisimilitude of violence.
The goal is to terrify the audience by presenting images that were seemingly captured by amateur filmmakers. The Blair Witch Project, perhaps the most famous of the found footage films, created a genius advertising scheme that included the release of a fake documentary on the Blair Witch which aired on television, confusing audiences who were unsure if the film was documentary or fiction.
We’ve Become Too Desensitized for Faces of Death
The success of Faces of Death is very much related to the specific time and market in which it was released. In this age of YouTube and snuff websites, Faces of Death no longer seems relevant. It is much easier to access much more extreme footage today. With the popularity of cell phones that double as cameras, as well as closed circuit video surveillance, so much of what happens today is captured on tape. Police wear body cams, ensuring that shoot-outs are filmed, and the amount of violent real-life footage that exists today is absolutely overwhelming. It sounds sick to say, but Faces of Death is almost quaint today.
Faces of Death does not hold up, and cynical modern audiences are more aware of the camera trickery used to make the footage seem real. The blatant fakery and the presence of a mammoth amount of violent and crime footage that exists today prevent the film from having much relevance today. Nevertheless, it is the stuff of urban legends and will remain infamous in film history for the uproar it caused and its ability to fool most people, just as Orson Welles’ infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast did, convincing people that a fiction is in fact real. Now, we are too jaded as a society to get worked up over some manufactured death footage.
Interested viewers should check out the Blu-ray release, which contains interviews with the people who created the film. They have finally revealed what many suspected, that the footage was created just like any other gory horror film, and that Faces of Death is not in fact a snuff film. Although it is outdated, Faces of Death still raises some basic questions on human nature and our curiosity for the morbid.
