A parachutist falls from the sky, descending rapidly towards the ground. His chute has clearly malfunctioned. We watch from a distance as he hits the ground at high speed and is killed instantly. A somber voiceover tells us this tragedy has occurred at an airshow in the west of the United States. Then the footage is played again. This time in slow motion that let's us see the skydiver struggling in his final moments. The footage is overlaid with wacky music. It's stunningly tasteless. This is Faces Of Death in a nutshell.
Number 19 on the video nasties list is one of the more notorious films of the famous 39. One that proudly (and wrongfully) claims to have been banned in 46 countries. It's a documentary about the various ways people face death all over the world. Faces Of Death asks important questions about death but answers them in such a vile and exploitative manner that it's impossible to take anything it says seriously. It reaches for profundity and ends up putrid. I hate that I wasted 100 minutes watching this. It's trash.
Narrated by Doctor Francis B. Gross, an investigator intrigued by the sheer number of ways people can meet their maker, it purports to be a real documentary but it's one that makes This Is Spinal Tap feels authentic. Throughout it's padded out running time it's laced with scenes of carnage and mayhem that claim to be real but which are dreadfully staged. A tame bear attacks a tourist, a staged police shootout leads to to discovery of a death family covered in fake blood, a dead criminal visibly gulps after his electric chair execution, diners after the latest in haute cuisine bash a monkey and eats it's brains as a delicacy, a man is eaten by a crocodile. Out of context this list of scenes sounds hilarious when you know they are fake. But it's the footage inbetween that gives Faces Of Death it's infamy.
That scene mentioned in the first paragraph. Real footage of death presented as entertainment. Distressed people jumping from buildings, road accident victims, slaughterhouse footage with screaming animals spurting arterial blood from severed jugulars, dogfights filmed in close up with gleeful relish, cameras lingering on bodies waiting to be embalmed, robbing them of any bit of dignity in death. It's warped stuff. The first film on the list i watched in fast forward. The only throughline is pain and suffering. It's a collection of horror but nothing ties it together. It's designed to shock and 43 years later it still does. But that's all it does. Behind the shock value there's no substance but there's a surprising amount of pretension as it uses gore and pain to try to tie together the whole idea of life and death. We get insights into cults and seances that add nothing but cringe, filmed autopsies that feel horrifyingly voyeuristic and then the aftermaths of plane crashes. And it's supposed to make you feel what? Think about what? Anyone claiming to be moved by all this is either lying or psychotic.
As for it's place on the nasties list, there's no denying this must have caused ructions at the BBFC when it hit VHS in the 80's. It's litany of animal cruelty alone is enough to still cause it censorship troubles these days. It's legal to own this these days but the legal version is shorn of nearly 3 minutes of troubling footage.
Don't watch this. It's awful. You'll feel terrible about yourself after it. I certainly do. Christ.
Fight For Your Life is next on the list. This one is better. Sort of. A little bit.
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