Made for the Japanese market, Faces Of Death totally changed the nature and tone of the Mondo Movie. Hitherto comprised of a carnival of weird and whacky native customs from around the world, Faces Of Death turned the Mondo into an unrelenting cavalcade of death and misery. The film opens with autopsy footage and it all goes downhill from there. You have a narrator in the form of Dr. Francis B Gross, a self proclaimed expert on death who guides you through the maelstrom. Much of Faces Of Death is fabricated footage such as the infamous electric chair sequence and the even more infamous monkey brains eating sequence. But there is enough disturbing, authentic footage to make you feel ill. There is road crash footage with crumpled and squished bodies lying on the road, a dead man washed up on the beach, a woman jumping to her death from the top of a building. The music is desperately insensitive as someone counts down to the moment the poor woman flings herself off the roof. Dr. Francis B Gross is an absolute joke of a narrator. It is very hard to make out what he is saying, and what you can understand is just boring nonsense. The film is deeply depressing and morbid. Death as an entertaining spectacle did not go down well with the authorities who promptly banned it. It was followed by Faces Of Death 2, 3, 4 and 5, as well as a compilation film - each one more gruesome and graphic than the other. The franchise spawned a number of copycat films such as Death Scenes and Traces Of Death. Watching the original Faces Of Death is a rite of passage for exploitation film fans and Video Nasty enthusiasts but it is doubtful that it can be stomached a second or third time, it is that nasty.
My first film watched was Carrie aged 2 on my dad's knee. Educated at The University of St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin. Fan of Arthouse, Exploitation, Horror, Euro Trash, Giallo, New French Extremism. Weaned at the bosom of a Russ Meyer starlet. The bleaker, artier or sleazier the better!
