The Infamous 'Faces of Death' to Get a R1 DVD Release
Filed under: Documentary, Horror, Home Entertainment
A while back we shared the news that filmmaker JT Petty (Soft for Digging, Mimic: Sentinel) would be mounting some sort of Faces of Death remake for Universal's Rogue division. I know that Mr. Petty is putting the final touches on a project called The Burrowers, but obviously I'm fascinated to see how a (mostly fake) exploitation documentary will be transformed into a new property. If you've seen the Faces of Death flicks, then you'll probably never forget them -- but if you've never seen the original one, it looks like you'll have your chance soon enough. (And I'm not kidding when I say that these "death docos" are NOT for the squeamish.)According to the gore-soaked lunatics of Dread Central, who got word from one of their pals at supplement house Red Shirt Pictures, Gorgon Video is planning a Faces of Death DVD for release later this year. Extras will include a trio of featurettes (one on the effects, one on the editing, and one on the "impact") and a "very in-depth" audio commentary from director Conan le Cilaire (aka John Schwartz). And since Faces of Death was one of the most controversial horror movies in my whole middle school, I can only assume that the new DVD release will cause a bit of colorful chit-chat all over the horror sites.
Frankly I remember being sickened and irritated by the Faces of Death flicks, but a new DVD package seems like a good reason to give it another shot. For more info on this much-discussed series, check out the FoD Wikipedia entry.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-12-2008 @ 11:13PM
Mr.R said...
So were they real or not, the article is kind of vague on that.
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5-12-2008 @ 11:17PM
Scott Weinberg said...
Aside from the archival footage of a few deaths (and some of the animal cruelty and medical stuff), they're fake. Often hilariously fake.
5-12-2008 @ 11:48PM
Monika said...
The boys, they got the momentary appreciation of the only girl who agreed to watch it with them. Me, I got a lifetime memory of monkey brains.
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5-13-2008 @ 12:31AM
Mr.R said...
Thanks Scott, never seen it but for years I could never be sure, sounds funny.
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5-13-2008 @ 1:04AM
dana said...
My absolute favorite part of the first FoD movie is the "LIFE!!" montage at the end. Hilarious.
Reply
5-13-2008 @ 9:20AM
Yan said...
Seeing FoD once, just out of curiousity, is understandable; but watching it twice should be considered a criminal act. Purchasing this DVD should require registering with local law enforcement. Although the current torture-porn and slasher-films are really just an excuse to display ever more demented ways of slaughtering people, at least their atrocities are stitched together with some sort of storyline and occassional humanity -- not so with FoD. What piece of sub-human crap.
BTW -- if you haven't yet had the misforune of seeing it, don't bother unless you reeeeally dig animal cruelty.
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5-13-2008 @ 1:32PM
Gilbert Davis said...
I agree with the fact that you should have to register with the police when purchasing or viewing this sort of thing. Just another sign of a future serial killer when someone enjoys watching animal torture and deaths of humans in various ways.
5-13-2008 @ 9:46AM
MosquitoControl said...
Animal cruelty isn't fun. If I liked watching that kind of thing I'd be one of those PETA freaks, as it seems to be all that they do.
However, the horribly done "human" deaths are classic. "My buddies over there... he's deeeeaaad!" So many great, awful lines. It was more fun in middle school / early high school, when you'd watch it with a big group of girls that had no clue it was faked and weren't sophisticated enough in regards to this kind of thing to figure out how fake it was (yeah, some girls got it, and some guys didn't, but by and large the guys knew instantly because we grew up watching this kind of junk.)
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