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Title:
The Original Faces Of Death: 30TH Anniversary Edition
Media:
Blu-ray Disc
Region:
A
Genre:
Shock-U-mentary
Director:
Conan LeCilaire
Feature
length: 105 minutes
Extras:
Feature Length Audio Commentary With Director Conan LeCilaire, Choice Cuts
Featurette With Editor Glenn Turner, The Death Makers Featurette With FX
Creators Allan A. Apone and Douglas J. White, Deleted Scene, Trailer, Outtakes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound 2.0
Subtitles:
English Subtitles
Packaging:
Amaray Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 21
Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound 2.0
Year
of Blu-ray Disc Release: 2008
Home
Video Distributor: Gorgon Video
MPAA
Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
When
I was in high school, my friends and I rented Faces Of Death and watched
it in my friend’s basement, which was sort of like the home base for us to go
to when there was no place else to go or after we returned from somewhere. Back
then a 27-inch color TV with a VCR hooked up to a stereo was equivalent to
having a home theater even though no one ever thought about it that way back
then. The images were vivid and disturbing for me and although the occasional
uncomfortable moment was alleviated by a moment of unintentional dark comedy, we
were all pretty much glued to the TV screen and I personally believed every
moment depicted was real because there was really nothing else like it back then
and I was too naïve to even think that what we were watching was actually a
carefully orchestrated manipulation filled with stock footage and completely
fabricated scenes where nearly everyone present was merely an actor. It just
seemed real in the kind of way that a lot of people sometimes walk around
viewing their lives almost as if they were the stars of their very own TV show.
Some things in Faces Of Death are real though and disturbing enough even
by today’s standards to stick in your mind long after you’ve seen the movie,
but like anything else in the twenty-first century, we are easily desensitized
to violence and it is not too hard to go online and find video that may or may
not be legitimate scenes of death. Ironically enough I think most of us are
desensitized to many things, but it is still all too easy to become confused as
to what is real and what is not.
Gorgon
Video released Faces Of Death on Blu-ray earlier this month and it is
without a doubt a film that though dated, is still truly quite effective at what
it does. The film opens with what I think is real footage of heart surgery and
then quickly introduces the viewer to renowned pathologist Dr. Frances B. Gross,
a man who has been fascinated with death since he was a boy. He is a tall man
with a distinguished mustache and beard and he speaks with a deep and serious
voice. So serious that when matched sometimes with stock music and a scene
involving an accident or execution, one can’t help but laugh because it is at
these times that Faces Of Death becomes truly surreal. Of course there is
no real Dr. Gross. The man was an actor and his role is merely to guide the
viewer through a theater of the macabre in the most traditional theatric sense
and thus create a kind of gallows humor for the masses that view the film.
Faces
Of Death
contains real footage of animals being slaughtered on the farm in practices that
for some may make them stop eating red meat altogether ever after. There is
actual footage of a plane crash with body parts all about, some that seem
completely unrecognizable and there is evidence of places where people from the
crash were hurled out and into the trees or it seems in one case, the window of
a house at the crash site. The autopsy footage and morgue footage is real though
the filmmakers are quick to point out how easy it is to see this kind of stuff
online and on television. In fact the gem of this Blu-ray Disc release are the
extra value features because for the first time Director Conan LeCilaire reveals
in many cases exactly how the editing of footage was manipulated to make it
appear real and of course to point out what is real and was is not as well as
some of the stories behind some of the film’s memorable moments, like the
electric chair scene, the monkey brain scene, which predates the scene from Indiana
Jones And The Temple Of Doom by nearly ten years even though the film was
not widely seen until the first half of the 1980s when it made it’s
controversial debut on VHS.
Faces
Of Death
was actually not even made for American audiences. It was made for foreign
markets, particularly the Japanese and only gained notoriety in the States when
it debuted on video. The film even caught the attention of famous filmmakers who
personally or through a representative contact the Director to learn how certain
sequences were staged or if they were staged? Originally shot mostly on 16mm
film and blown up to 35mm, Faces Of Death is grainy and dated in it’s
appearance, but somehow it only serves to enhance the macabre quality of the
film and reinforce the imagery. Described as a “Shock-U-mentary” by Director
Conan LeCilaire, who prior to the release of this edition had rarely spoke about
the film at all; the version used for this release is the Japanese theatrical
version, which is mildly different from the American VHS release. One scene not
shown in the Japan but was included in the American VHS release is a sequence
where a person was executed in the gas chamber. That scene is included as a
deleted scene (4:12) remastered digitally from the best available video source
since the actual film is lost. Surprisingly for a deleted scene taken from video
that had to be digitally remastered, the picture quality is pretty good, but
there is no commentary to discuss the scene on the disc. A processed English
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix and an English Dolby Surround Soundtrack
are included along with English Language Subtitles as options. The extra value
materials are all presented in standard definition 480i and include featurettes
on the effects (21:54) and editing of the film (16:13) as well as a reel of
outtakes (11:22) and the theatrical trailer (2:41).
I
have purposely left most of the details regarding the film and particularly the
audio commentary out of this review because Faces Of Death is more
effective when you see it fresh. The
Original Faces Of Death: 30TH Anniversary Edition
is available on Blu-ray Disc now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Gorgon
Video.
©
Copyright 2008 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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