The new Faces of Death, a clever, creepy riff on the notorious 1978 shock doc video nasty, is a “meta” consideration of exploitation and clicks, from the mondo VHS legend to the lurid labyrinths of the dark web. But it’s also a smart serial-killer thriller on its own terms and, unlike its grisly inspiration, has bona fide scares. While horror films in American cinema today are almost as prolific (and profitable) as during the golden age of early 80s slashers, concepts are typically high and thrills mostly absent. Faces of Death, a grisly good time, has both.
Directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) from a screenplay co-written with Isa Mazzei, Barbie Ferreira (Bob Trevino Likes It) stars as Margot Romeo, a young Floridian who works for an internet watchdog and spends her shifts glued to a barrage of violent, sexualized web videos; her job is to review explicit “reported” content and determine if too offensive for the web. We might expect she’d be desensitized to extreme content for clicks, but she finds herself shocked after stumbling upon a series of ultra-realistic snuff videos. But are their ritualistic executions real or fake-for-followers put-ons?
While her boss (Jermaine Fowler) warns that it’s a policy violation for her to take her work home, her personal life is equally tormented. Margot, an internet legend known as “Train Girl,” is haunted by the recent accidental death of her sister in a daredevil live stream gone wrong. Her artist roommate (Aaron Holliday) laments her melancholy, and has a stash of vintage VHS horror tapes that include the original Faces of Death—and it isn’t long before Margot realizes that a real-life killer is recreating the cult classic’s death orgies for the modern age, uploading his fiendish handiwork for follower engagement.
Any good serial killer thriller knows that its creep must be as creepy as its hero heroic, and Goldhaber and Mazzei craft a movie maniac in “content creator” Arthur, played to macabre heights by Stranger Things’ Dacre Montgomery as a Ted Bundy-handsome techie stalker decked out in red sclera-covering contacts and an expressionless executioner’s mask. When we meet Arthur early in the movie, he’s a loner tech bro sales guy with a habit of scrolling at work—forever zeroing in on his next victim. And the movie gives him terrifying set-pieces as he stalks a young influencer (Josie Tatah) and a TV news anchor (Kurt Yue); such cat-and-mouse play is unequivocally scary. So is the byplay once Arthur discovers that Margot—in a game recognizes game move—is on his trail and decides to turn the tables.
But Goldhaber isn’t exactly after a latter-day Clarice Starling-Buffalo Bill match-up, both of whom plumbed psychosis and deep wounds, where the psychology in Faces of Death is fairly rudimentary; and unlike The Silence of the Lambs, symbiosis isn’t the name of this game. Instead, we get a guilt-ridden protagonist and a monster whose primary motivation to kill is followers and clicks, pushing the blame on us—if we didn’t have such morbid curiosity for such “NSFL” content…would the sensationalism stop?
The movie’s final third is a classic house of horrors showdown that is brutal, drenched in blood and intense, and reminds us how gripping a good serial killer tale can be in a death struggle between (and it sounds corny) good and evil. In the film’s diabolical climax, as Margot and Arthur battle (a clever lipstick-knife gadget comes in handy) in buckets of blood and mayhem, both actors turn it up to eleven to remind us that empathy in horror pictures only comes when we like, or at least are fascinated by, the people locked in the mano-a-mano.
The immensely watchable Ferreira, whose work Bob Trevino Likes It was perhaps the best overlooked performance by an actress last year, has an electric screen presence and undeniable star quality. Every frame feels charged with her intensity, and she again impresses like a major star in the making, working at a high level of commitment.
Credit to composer Gavin Brivik for his unsettling, atmospheric score, which pulses and throbs and keeps us on edge; ditto the sound design by Michael Odmak, combining dark, rich textures into an experimental, unnerving soundscape, effectively using the disturbing monotone narration of the 1978 at key junctures. And Isaac Bauman floods the picture’s controlled, 2.35 widescreen frame with increasingly extreme imagery—don’t look away!
It should be said that while Faces of Death is about our craving for exploitation, it serves up its own share of distressing footage, meaning Goldhaber isn’t above shocking us with scenes of barbarism lifted from its inspiration, including its most famous gross-out: a monkey being bludgeoned as a dining ritual. That the footage was later purported as a set-up doesn’t diminish its power, regardless of its presentation as simply educational. Faces of Death, in 1978 or 2026, is not for the squeamish. But since when—or ever—should horror films play by the rules of good taste? Goldhaber has made an effective shocker with a socially relevant modus operandi—and box office will likely bear out its stated thesis: “give the people what they want.”
3 stars
