Written by: Jase Marsiglia
The original "Faces of Death" felt like a litmus test in VHS form for horror fans of the ’80s. It’s been called a rite of passage by many. How many of us can recall “that one friend” who “had a brother” who knew where to get a copy, and once the tape was in hand, you found out who in your cadre of horror buddies had the stomach to watch it? You went through that, too, eh? There was an unspoken law in that if one of your friends, if not yourself, “tapped out,” it was understandable. This was, after all, purportedly “real” footage of human atrocities. You didn’t judge your friends for not being able to “hack it,” but you might have looked differently at the pal who smiled softly during the more harrowing moments, unfazed and unaffected by the horrors on the screen.
Enter Arthur Spevak: Violence Goes Viral
"Stranger Things" bully Dacre Montgomery shines in a sterling example of that latter kid, as Arthur Spevak, a serial killer who grew up with "Faces of Death" and, already quite disturbed, has found the means in the digital era to “recreate” some of the 1978 film’s most infamous scenes. Posting them to the internet and using recognized influencers as victims, he posits them in crude recreations of certain scenes, films their gruesome demise, and then uploads them, relishing the engagement from viewers and trolling critics from various dummy social media accounts to combat negative reactions his “art” is receiving.
Margot and the Cost of Watching
When a content moderator for a TikTok-like app called Kino named Margot (Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira) watches a couple of these videos, she’s unnerved. You see, she herself has had to deal with the infamy of being in a shock video when a Kino stunt she did with her sister on a railroad track ended with her sibling being obliterated by a speeding train, earning her the unwanted moniker of “Train Girl.” So she knows a thing or two about that world and knows in her gut that these “FOD2024” videos may not be the indie, “DIY horror” that her boss brushes them off as. Kino’s non-disclosure agreement upon hiring is an iron-clad, legally binding excuse not to get involved, or even investigate these videos outside of company time.
Where the Film Falls Apart
And this is where "Faces of Death ‘26" missteps and never fully recovers. First, it’s a suspension of disbelief that someone who likely sees a dozen cartel executions or Taliban beheadings a day would suddenly be so triggered by an elaborate murder video enacted by motorized mannequins. Like her boss Josh (The Blackening’s Jermaine Fowler) tells her, it’s probably just some indie filmmaker testing some gruesome effects for reactions. Margot, frankly, should be able to discern the real deal from the hoax.
Secondly, last year an indie movie called "American Sweatshop" was released that saw (stop me if you’ve heard this one) a content moderator viewing what appears to be an elaborate snuff film and, defying company orders and even common sense, looks into the videos to the point of obsession, thus putting herself in very real danger. The same happens here, but "Faces of Death" is more meta than that. The 1978 movie exists in this world, and Margot discovers it in her roommate’s cult film VHS collection, where we get a quick and amusing rundown of the original film’s content and how it permeated pop culture. “It was like the first viral video,” he tells her, and after learning what she’s been up to, advises her not to “go all Don’t F**k with Cats on this.”
Fair enough. So why poke the bear? Why dig and probe and catch the unwanted attention of the very psychotic person who is producing this content? "American Sweatshop" didn’t have a plausible explanation, and neither does "Faces of Death", meaning, sadly, “because the script dictates that they do.” It’s the cinematic equivalent of “because I said so.”
A Killer Performance Trapped Inside the Film
To its credit, Montgomery’s performance of a red-eyed lunatic who has a seething disdain for vapid attention-whoring is so convincingly psychotic that just shots of him chattering his teeth while doomscrolling, hyping himself up for a kill, or roaring with unbridled rage when a potential victim escapes his grasp are inarguably terrifying. There’s even a suspenseful split-screen sequence showing both Margot and Montgomery kicking each other’s cyber tires in real time, only she’s taking the bait while he’s obtaining addresses.
But it’s an exceptional performance trapped in contrivance. If the film focused entirely on his kills, "Faces of Death" would be a relentless horror show, a grisly descent into a dark, broken mind. Conversely, if we simply focused on Margot’s quest for justice, it would be a predictable cat-and-mouse thriller. The former is doing all the heavy lifting to make the latter more intriguing.
Themes Left on the Cutting Room Floor
What’s most frustrating about both "American Sweatshop" and "Faces of Death" is that there are true, honest-to-God themes that start to get explored in both and are left in the dust as the cliché parade goes by. Montgomery’s online horror show is getting likes, hits, and engagement, even from people who are stopping and saying, “Wasn’t there an old movie about this...?” One particularly dark point is made when Margot confronts her coworker Gabby (pop star Charli XCX) about watching and laughing at one of the murder videos, stating that “those were real people with family and friends,” and being met with a careless shrug and a quip about “we’re all going to hell anyway.” Even Margot’s ill-gotten infamy as “Train Girl” recalls the horrible true story of Nikki Catsouras, whose death went viral when an on-scene officer leaked photos of her car crash, forever labeling her as “Porsche Girl.” We’ve reached a place where we minimize someone’s entire life and unimaginable tragedy to a couple of keywords in a search engine, and that is something to be explored and talked about.
There’s a culture of desensitization, and worse, mockery that the internet and 24-hour news have calloused our souls with, and "Faces of Death" flirts with pulling that thread, but shies away repeatedly. That’s what "Faces of Death" and shockumentaries like it have evolved into. People today, in a post-9/11 world, have a steady diet of human suffering at their fingertips now, when you used to have to bring a tape to the counter (on the off chance it was available) and steel yourself for the horrors it promised. Now, someone’s quick or agonizing final moments are captured by millions of cameras daily, in 4K clarity, with whole websites dedicated to hosting the grisly details. There’s something about that that using this infamous IP could talk about and still use the tropes of the genre to scare us while a point is being made. Romero and Carpenter’s entire filmographies were rife with this type of storytelling.
Final Thoughts: All Guts, No Voice
Sadly, even with some truly effective moments and a frightening new villain in Dacre’s Arthur Spevak, "Faces of Death" just isn’t interested in exploring that evolution of what started in 1978. And that’s a shame, because the original film’s director, John Schwartz, had made a film so polarizing, so confrontational, that talking and debating about it was the secret sauce that kept it in the zeitgeist for so long. "Faces of Death" has remarkably never left the chat, and this new film had a rare opportunity to comment on that. Ironic that it has enough guts to spill, and not enough to speak.
Faces of Death (2026)
⭐️⭐️½
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