11. Faces Of Death
Faces of Death is a Mondo movie bastard child that panders to the lowest common denominator - the desire to show people in various shades of deadness. It was the first of these shockumentaries to specifically target death (there are often simulated death scenes as well as more graphic material in Mondo movie progenitors of Faces of Death) and it is, on the whole, a sarcastic and disrespectful film. We have the pleasure of Dr Francis Gross as our host. This man looks like a dead cert for the Sex Offenders Register, but we are made to believe that his inane mumblings are those of an expert. Among the treats we are given to view is an uneasy combination of genuine death footage and silly simulated act of torture and death. There is footage of Adolf Hitler, footage of a napalm bombing in Vietnam, a monkey brain eating sequence (simulated), a man getting electrocuted (simulated), chickens getting their heads chopped off, people jumping to death from high buildings and the gruesome car pile up with police scraping up body matter from the street. I cannot believe that when the makers of Faces of Death were holding auditions, they had to pick the actor who Dr Francis Gross - possibly the least charismatic man in any film ever. This is seriously all they can come up with?? And the choice of music is inappropriately jolly considering the subject manner of the film. As one of the 39 prosecuted films, I can see how it was banned as being pruriently morbid and cruel towards animals. It spawned countless imitations and clones - all vying with each other to out gross the other and all of them seemingly with crappy death metal soundtracks. Controversial because: Death is presented in 'funny ha ha' ways.