{"id":14276,"date":"2026-04-09T11:23:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14276"},"modified":"2026-05-09T21:17:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T01:17:15","slug":"faces-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/04\/09\/faces-of-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Faces of Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Faces of Death<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IFC\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Daniel Goldhaber\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Gavin Brivik\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Isaac Bauman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 10, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler, Charli XCX.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0The infamous video nasty Faces of Death was something of a rite of passage for teens in the 80s. The 1978 documentary supposedly showed actual footage of people dying in gruesome ways. It was a popular rental at neighborhood video stores. Teens would dare each other to watch it. I refused to accept that dare even though I was (and still am) an avowed gorehound. It\u2019s not that I was afraid to watch it. I just didn\u2019t want to see the scenes of animals being killed. You all know how I feel about that. I successfully avoided FOD for more than 40 years until finally viewing it on YouTube this past week. Why did I finally give in? Read on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The new Faces of Death<\/strong> is not a remake or a legacy sequel. It could arguably be considered a reboot. It builds on the mythology of the OG with a serial killer who dispatches his victims by recreating scenes from the original FOD. I have to admit, it\u2019s a clever idea. I watched the doc in order to familiarize myself with the content, skipping through all the animal stuff (roughly the first 20-30 minutes) to get to the \u201cgood stuff\u201d. NEWS FLASH! It\u2019s not all that good. It\u2019s pretty bad in fact. Curiosity quickly gave way to boredom as I endured it. The most shocking thing (A-HEM!) about it is that most of it is NOT real. Some of the footage (e.g. the dead body washing up on the beach) is, but the more notorious scenes (e.g. the electric chair execution, the police shooting, the beheading) are staged. It\u2019s as big a put-on as The Blair Witch Project. It proves what P.T. Barnum said about a sucker being born every minute.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That brings us to the new Faces of Death<\/strong>. Directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline), it follows a more traditional trajectory. It has a plot. The heroine of the piece Margot (Ferriera, Euphoria) is a content moderator for a YouTube-like platform called Kino. She comes across disturbing videos depicting horrific acts of violence. They look too real to be simulations. She decides to go against company policy and look into the person posting them What she finds is really f***ed up.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Margot\u2019s investigation pulls her into the orbit of Arthur (Montgomery, Stranger Things), a creep obsessed with Faces of Death. He kidnaps his victims and keeps them in cages in his basement until he\u2019s ready to finish them off. The killings are modeled after scenes in FOD. Margot\u2019s good intentions do not go unpunished. She becomes increasingly unhinged until her own life is in danger from this depraved individual.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It goes without saying that Faces of Death<\/strong> is markedly better than last week\u2019s Scream Unseen feature, the abysmal found footage piece Hunting Matthew Nichols. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not without its flaws. It tells a good story albeit one with plot holes big enough to drive a fleet of 18-wheelers through. The one that irks me the most is this. At one point, the police take Margot to the hospital for a psych evaluation after Arthur denies her accusations. Following a quick examination, she\u2019s released the same night. If you know anything about PEs, then you know it\u2019s a mandatory 72-hour hold before the patient is released. Then there\u2019s the scene where Arthur fires a rifle at Margot multiple times as she attempts to flee from his house. He has neighbors. Why didn\u2019t any of them call the police to report gunshots in a residential neighborhood? That makes absolutely no sense. Faces of Death <\/strong>starts off well enough, but gets ludicrous as it nears its end. It doesn\u2019t really spoil the movie, but it leaves the viewer with serious questions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The film\u2019s other flaw is the lack of gore. It has some, but not nearly what you\u2019d imagine in a movie entitled Faces of Death<\/strong>. Why, the OG\u2019s reputation alone offers the promise of a total bloodbath. It never happens.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What\u2019s most interesting about this Faces of Death<\/strong> is how it\u2019s been retooled for the 21st<\/sup> century. It\u2019s no longer a geek show masquerading as a documentary about how death affects life. Goldhaber updates it, making it about how our society has become desensitized to violence thanks to social media. Certain platforms monetize death and trauma. We now live in an \u201cattention economy\u201d where one\u2019s worth is measured by clicks and likes. He also addresses the ethical concerns relating to passive viewership. Is it really okay to derive enjoyment from real-life carnage?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Faces of Death <\/strong>also examines the psychological effects on content moderators who view such videos on a daily basis. What is it doing to them? Margot already has issues stemming from her sister\u2019s death by train while they were filming a video on railroad tracks. It went viral and people recognize Margot. Because of this, she\u2019s on a one-woman campaign to stop such videos from being posted. In the role, Ferriera does a fine job conveying her character\u2019s fragile mental state. She makes us believe Margot is losing her mind.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Montgomery is good as the killer. As an actor, he continues to show he has range. He was very good as a desperate criminal in this past winter\u2019s crime thriller Dead Man\u2019s Wire. He crushes it in Faces of Death<\/strong> playing a demented serial killer. He\u2019s creepy as hell. Totah (Back in the Game) is convincing as a shallow influencer who falls victim to Arthur. Singer Charli XCX shows up briefly as Margot\u2019s co-worker.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s not a perfect film by any means, but I like Faces of Death<\/strong>. It\u2019s interesting, it\u2019s suspenseful and it\u2019s fun. It\u2019s smart in how it handles the original FOD, directly referencing it instead of throwing around Easter eggs. This is how you make a decent horror reboot. It\u2019s obviously not for all tastes, but if you love the macabre, it\u2019s definitely for you.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faces of Death (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IFC\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Daniel Goldhaber\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Gavin Brivik\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Isaac Bauman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 10, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler, Charli XCX. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Faces-of-Death-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14279,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14276\/revisions\/14279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}