4. Faces Of Death (1978)
Made primarily for the Japanese market, who apparently cannot get enough ghoulishness in their films, Faces of Death changed the Mondo Movie genre forever. It became less of a gawking into other culture's 'amusing' customs, and it took on a morbid mantle for the viewer to gawk instead at dead people, dying people, and much more unwholesome death All sorts of horrific and harrowing things are presented to us for entertainment. Okay much of it is staged footage (the death by electric chair and the monkey brains scenes), but it doesn't mitigate the film's inherent nasty streak. We see headless chickens wondering around to the music of 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm' and a women jumping off a roof to her death while the soundtrack goes 'one, two, a one, two, three, four' - splat. Talking of splat, there are egregious scenes of paramedics and policemen scooping up body matter off a road following a severe accident. Watching images like that is not just morbid, it is bad for the soul. And Faces of Death 2 was even more distressing, let alone all of the franchises dealing with death that this film inspired. Faces of Death paved the way for the most morbid films of cinema to bloom and cheer us all up. Thank you Death Scenes 4.