Cinema is capable of many amazing things, capturing emotions and connecting viewers with images that transcend the medium to reach deep into the subconscious and change how we view things. It can also cater to baser interests providing cheap thrills and vicarious release to ease ninety minutes of your gruelling day. However if you're the cinematic calamity that is Faces of Death you are neither, you are a punch in the stomach, a drillbit in the eyeball, a reminder of all that is rotten about the human condition and the lie that lives behind it's art.
Under the guise of a documentary researching the different "Faces Of Death" across the world director John Alan Schwartz throws whatever he finds at the audience, news footage of accidents, mondo footage of tribal rites, scenes of animals being slaughtered and when that runs out he fabricates scenes of death in such a hamfisted way it makes your Uncle Colin's home movies of his holiday to the house across the road seem like a Scorcese flick. All of this compendium of crap is overseen by the improbably named Dr. Frances B. Gross a man with an intense interest in death and a face that looks like a joke shop disguise.
Stuff like this is shown everywhere these days, but back in 1978 this was a huge video hit (especially in Japan), this blogger certainly isn't squeamish nor offended by it's content, but Faces Of Death has no real message behind it's witless collection of vaguely connected clips, it exists purely to show cheaply acquired footage taking the money you have paid for the thrill and running to the public domain video library to find more. In this way the film is surely a forerunner to all the equally cheaply made funniest viewer home movie shows, and you know what; that's its worst crime, so fuck you Dr Frances B. Gross you and you fake head.
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