Faces of Death (1978) Poster

Parents Guide

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Certification

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Certification

Sex & Nudity

  • There is one sequence where a cult cuts open a dead body and then eats the internal organs (fake). They then engage in an orgy while covering themselves with the cadaver's blood. Women are shown topless.
  • Some naked cadavers are seen.

Violence & Gore

  • A man is strapped into an electric chair and zapped twice after the first attempt fails to effectively kill him. Blood oozes from his eyes and foam spews from his mouth. This scene is possibly the most iconic, very grotesque but is fake.
  • Real footage from the Holocaust is shown. It's meant to be analytical rather than exploitative, but it's disturbing nonetheless.
  • Real footage of surgical procedures, autopsies, and corpses in various states, including mummified.
  • There is a lot of REAL footage of animal violence. The film shows footage from a slaughterhouse that contains methods of killing animals entirely outdated today, very bloody and gory. Also shown is footage of seal hunters clubbing seals, however there is not very much actual gore shown. A rooster's head is cut off by a farmer and we see the body bouncing around on the ground afterwards. A cow is punctured with a sharp object and people gather and drink the blood.
  • There is also very fake animal footage. Most famously is the monkey sequence. This sequence shows diners in a strange restaurant where they put a monkey in a cage and the diners beat in its head with mallets. Then the head is cut open and the diners eat the monkey's brains. Very gory. However, the commentary on the dvd version of the film admits that this sequence is fake.
  • An animal control man is snatched from a boat by a large crocodile. We see his mutilated remains as they are pulled out from the water. This is all shown as a newscast, but this sequence is also fake.
  • A man videotaping a bear while his wife feeds it bread is attacked and mauled by the bear. This is also fake.
  • A man goes crazy and is shooting a gun from his house. When the man runs out on the front porch the police shoot him. This is seen in good detail, and the man is shot many times. Then the camera follows policemen as they go into the house and find the bloody bodies of the man's wife and children. This sequence, although looking extremely realistic, is fake.
  • A cult of people cut open a dead body and eat the internal organs. This footage is faked, and the director himself plays the cult leader.
  • A man catches on fire. It is uncertain if this footage was real or not.
  • A man is graphically executed in an electric chair. We see his face close up as he foams at the mouth. Blood than pours from under his eye bandages.
  • A man's head is cut off as a terrorist execution. This is also fake.
  • Many bloody train wreck and car accident victims are shown. All but one involving a movie stunt gone wrong is real footage.
  • A woman jumps from a building, we see her hit the ground, make a loud thud, screaming from traumatized onlookers and the cameraman runs up to her bleeding body. This is real video tape footage.

Profanity

  • 1 use of "Bitch" and one use of "God damn"

Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking

  • A man is seen smoking before being executed

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • Footage of a complete organ harvesting is used for the film's introduction. You see an unnamed cadaver being eviscerated, doctors take the organs out piece by piece. The cadavers head is sawed open, then in half. You see the brains jiggle out of the skull, and the persons face from inside-out. The scene is real footage, very graphic, but meant to display the professionalism of doctors and how they operate.
  • Photographs and breif footage of Samuel Berkowitz's cryogenic freezing process is shown. He is already dead, but you see tubes inserted into his back, and blood is replaced with a fluid with a low freezing point. This is real footage.
  • Real footage of a woman found dead in the water is shown. She's pale white, but face down the entire time.
  • This film would easily be rated R if not NC-17 due to incredibly graphic gore scenes and images of actual death.
  • A Morgue is shown, numerous bodies are shown being embalmed, gutted and examined. One body is of a decapitated murder victim whose had their skin peeled off their skull by constables for examination. The mortician casually folds the skin back unto the skull to reattach the body for the cadaver's funeral in 2 days.
  • The entire film is EXTREMELY disturbing, real death is often displayed but one can tell they were handled with care and severity. The thing that makes the film the most frightening is the "Blair Witch Project" feel in all the cases. Most of the film is made up of what is supposedly real news reports, home video tapes, ect. with onlookers reacting strongly. This makes the film seem very real, which is disturbing.

Spoilers

The Parents Guide items below may give away important plot points.

Violence & Gore

  • Audio recordings, photographs and very graphic footage of the PSA Flight 182 crash in a San Diego neighborhood is included. Featuring scattered mutilated body parts of 132 victims, destroyed houses and disgusted ongoers, police officers and first responders are displayed in full detail. The crash itself isn't shown, but the footage is real and was used from rejected news footage or home video of survivors in the neighborhood.
  • We see the graphic aftermath of a person that was run over by a semi truck, we see their head and brains splattered on the road and wheels, very disturbing and edited from Real Medical Examiner Footage.

See also

Taglines | Plot Summary | Synopsis | Plot Keywords


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