Faces Of Death (1978)

My rating - 4/10

(click on images below for larger versions)

An unflinching look at death including shootings, suicides, the aftermath of accidents, operations, slaughthouse footage, strange cults and rituals from around the world and much more.

Introduced by Dr. Frances B. Gross this infamous documentary is one of the most well known titles in the Mondo movie genre. Back in the late 1970s this was the title that kids would boast to their friends about seeing and thinking they were so cool for being able to sit through it all without vomiting or having to turn it off. These days we now know that around half the footage was faked, but it still contains a lot of very harrowing footage, especially for animal lovers as we're treated to dog fights, slaughter house footage, etc. There's the infamous scene of a monkey being tied under a table in a restaurant and diners bashing it's head in and eating the brains, this was one of those scenes that was eventually proven to be fake. On the other hand scenes of body parts scattered around after accidents, operation footage, dead bodies, sucides and beheadings are all very real.

These days it almost seems quaint in light of the many mondo movies that followed like Traces Of Death that only featured real footage. It looks very dated in places too and some of the faked footage looks poorly done with the electric chair sequence being pretty silly now. Be warned though, this is definitely not for casual horror fans and if you're even the slightest bit squeamish then give this one a wide birth. I'm not really into this type of thing and only really included this one on here due to the nostalgia it brings back from my youth.

SCREEN SHOTS

BACK TO INDEX