Title: Faces of Death
Describe This Movie In One Scream Quote:
RANDY: And number three: never, ever, ever under any circumstances say, “I’ll be right back.” Because you won’t be back.
STU: I’m gettin’ another beer, you want one?
RANDY: Yeah, sure.
STU: I’ll be right back!
Brief Plot Synopsis: Social media is bad, apparently.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 1.5 Super Dave Osbornes out of 5.
Tagline: “We dare you.”
Better Tagline: “Please like and subscribe.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Margot (Barbie Ferreira) moderates content for a social media site called Kino. She spends her workdays deciding what content is too objectionable to air, but several new videos trouble are quite troubling. They depict grisly murders and appear to be inspired by the infamous movie Faces of Death. As she digs deeper, Arthur (Dacre Montgomery) — the killer behind the videos — realizes she poses a threat. Unfortunately for Margot, her own past inspires the killer to bring her into his evil project.
“Critical” Analysis: Back before there the internet, or viral videos, or — hell — America’s Funniest Home Videos, there was Faces of Death. Released in 1978, it gained notoriety among adolescent dipshits (*cough*) convinced of the authenticity of the gruesome deaths depicted therein.
Predictably, most of them were fake. Filmmaker John Alan Schwartz did incorporate some legitimate documentary footage, but most of what took place was staged. That didn’t stop the original from getting banned in several countries (though not the “dozens” boasted by the distributors), or going on to gross $35 million on a $67,000 budget and spawning six sequels.
Writer/director Daniel Goldhaber has used online sources for material before (Cam), and apparently got the idea for a new Faces of Death when he was working as a content moderator. But then, Margot isn’t only a content moderator, she’s also “the girl from that train video.” She entered into her current job after a video shoot went horribly wrong and her sister died, leading to internet infamy. One assumes they were livestreaming, because otherwise it doesn’t make sense how it ended up online in the first place.
Like it’s predecessor/inspiration, Faces of Death is mostly exhausting. Goldhaber demonstrates some skill at building tension, and his approach starts out in intriguing fashion. But focusing on the online aspect of Arthur’s actions and not, you know, actual action makes for a slog.
Similarly, characters doing the dumbest thing imaginable in times of duress gets old quickly. So does spending a good chunk of a movie’s running time watching the protagonist scrolling through Reddit or reacting to stuff on their computer or phone. Even better(?) is when you combine the two. Like when Margot elects not to run away when she has the chance, but rather hunt for video evidence of the killer’s crimes.
It’s all pretty inept. One assumes cops would show up if somebody fired a high-powered rifle in a residential neighborhood — not once but several times — to say nothing of Arthur screaming like a maniac in the middle of the street. They do eventually appear, but not for those reasons, and not in a way that makes sense to anyone who’s been on the receiving end of police attention in the last 25 years.
Arthur also combines the worst of humanity: a serial killer who’s simultaneously an attention whore, and one who monologues about pop culture like Jamie Kennedy’s character in Scream. Admittedly, you’d have to be obsessed with horror to fixate on a debunked curiosity like the original Faces of Death.
Which also explains why Margot’s horrorphile roommate conveniently happens to own the VHS.
Does Faces of Death say anything new about humanity’s base proclivities? Not really. The scary pitfalls of online existence have been examined in everything from Black Mirror to Hard Candy (or Goldhaber’s own Cam). However, Faces of Death actually drops the ball in pivoting from monotonous scenes of Margot at her computer to uninspired giallo rehashes.
Which means we can probably look forward to the VR version of this in five years or so.
Faces of Death is in theaters today.
