Gory ‘Faces of Death’ doesn’t cut quite deep enough
If horror films had a blood type, “Faces of Death” would be O-positive, the most common strain. Everything about it is generic, from its final-girl protagonist to its crazed, masked psycho-killer. Yet there’s something intriguing about its attempts to lay social media on a slab for a full-body autopsy. Or, as director Daniel Goldhaver puts it, to exploit the exploitative by out-sensationalizing the sensationalized.
In that respect, mission accomplished. He and his resident co-writer, Isa Mazzei, empty the budget on gallons of theatrical blood, smearing it over the nubile bodies of a half-dozen no-name actors who’ve been stabbed, shot and mutilated beyond recognition. Some are even tortured beforehand to enhance the grotesqueness of these monstrous displays. All with the intent to mock the schlock that seems to draw eyeballs on TikTok and its brethren, while also paying a homage to the original “Faces of Death,” one of the founding fathers of Mondo cinema.
But what sounds promising on paper loses a lot in executing the executions. Yes, the beheadings and the sight of ghouls dining on fresh cerebrum are shocking, but they’re also mindless, thus undercutting Goldhaber’s core mission to admonish the doomschrollers who, excuse the expression, eat this stuff up. Although I must admit there’s a bit of preverse satisfaction in observing influencers having their egotistical brains literally exposed.
That can carry “Faces of Death” only so far. It isn’t long before you find yourself mumbling to the screen, “OK, what else have you got for me?” Sadly, the answer is not much. Chief among its inefficiencies is the casting of Barbie Ferreira as the crusading content moderator at the fictional video-sharing website, Kino. As the film opens, we watch over her shoulder as she races through submissions, needing only a split second to determine if they are fit, unfit, or in need of further study.
What each entry has in common is a ravenous need to garner thousands, if not millions, of clicks. “It’s the attention economy,” declares a faithful poster. “And business is booming!” You might even say it’s slaying.
It’s during the process of playing censor to these would-be Internet stars that she happens upon an unusual amount of snuff-film material that she later learns are re-enactments of scenes from the 1978 Mondo daddy “Faces of Death.” In it, “pathologist” Frances B. Gross “treated” viewers to graphic footage of gruesome murders shot live on film. Some of them were obviously fake, but a few looked unsettlingly real, which is why it was deemed too up to “snuff” to be seen by “decent” people. But when bootlegged VHS versions of it found their way into the hands of macabre fans, it became a cult smash during the Blockbuster Video era.
One of those fanatics was no doubt Arthur, the pathetic loser who’s been performing the re-enactments in the basement of his recently departed mommy’s home. But are his victims mannequins? Or are they real people, all of whom resemble low-level celebrities from the Jacksonville area who’ve suddenly gone missing? Two guesses on that one, and the first doesn’t count.
Turns out Margot fits that description, albeit notoriously, after one of her viral videos goes horribly wrong. Which is why she was trying to maintain a low profile at Kino before sussing Arthur out as a mass murderer. The problem is that no one will heed her suspicions. Not her boss (Jermaine Fowler), nor the police. So, natch, she’s going to need to apprehend Arthur herself. And that cat-and-mouse endeavor occupies the bulk of the movie.
To the film’s credit, Dacre Montgomery (excellent in the criminally underseen “Dead Man’s Wire”) is superb as Arthur, the resident sicko, who calmly and deliberately goes about snatching his victims and placing them in cages until he’s ready for their fatal close-up. He’s so charismatic that he pretty much renders Ferreira irrelevant. So much so, you’re tempted to root for Arthur and his somewhat worthy goal of ridding the world of D-list celebs.
Goldhaber (“How to Blow Up a Pipeline”), unfortunately, has other ideas that mitigate much of the potential fun in satirizing a genre and an online phenomenon ripe for ridicule. He instead opts for the tried-and-true, rendering “Faces of Death” a predictable latterday “Scream-ish” offering bent on chastising society’s need for ever more salacious viewing material. “Give the people what they want,” says Margot’s boss.
Montgomery, at least, keeps it watchable. But in the end, there’s no escaping the fact that this “Death” ultimately loses face.
Movie review
Faces of Death
Rated: R for strong bloody violence, nudity, drug use, language, gore, sexual content
Cast: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Jermaine Fowler, Aaron Holliday, Josie Totah and Charli XCX
Director: Daniel Goldhaber
Writers: Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei
Runtime: 97 minutes
Where: In theaters April 10
Grade: C+
