Faces of Death – Official Trailer | IGN Fan Fest 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nPOSITIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of all of the unexpected surprises of the cinematic calendar, a re-imagining of the 70’s grotesque exploitation documentary seemed the least unlikely to see a theatrical release, in terms of the gruesomely gnarly imagery that has scarred a generation of horror fans who experienced it in one way or another, however there’s some refreshing avenues of exploration for this film’s creative execution that not only justifies the cause of adding another addition to this franchise, more than forty years after its previous installment, but also proves that Goldhaber was against making the same movie for a new generation of audiences to chew on. For starters, the film’s meta approach of deconstructing a film within a film is a fascinating concept, particularly against the social media spectrum of the current day landscape, where an abundance of available entertainment value at our fingertips leaves us vulnerable to videos that sift by our feed randomly, as a result of a premeditated algorithm, and considering the horror in the film is utilized to show the harms of desensitization of a blood-hungry culture, there’s a refreshing stance that the movie takes against its ruthlessly appalling shock horror origins, in turn unearthing an ample amount of digestible questions for the audience to constantly chew on, with regards to the ironies of things that media apps consider taboo over others. As to where horror is typically given the benefit of the doubt in a culture raised by serial killer slashers, hilariously all imagery pertaining to sex and nudity, as well as drug use are attached a red flag of intrusive obscuring against those curiosity seekers, enriching the film with an underlining irony that in one way or another gives birth to the maniacally unrestrained serial killer that is Dacre Montgomery’s Arthur, cementing what is easily the single best performance of the entire film. As to where Montgomery’s previous work has conjured admirable protagonists with an edgy underlining, here he wholeheartedly embraces a sinister dark side that indulges in the nightly ritual catering to his unrelenting bloodlust, while emotionally ratcheting intensity as a means of effectively articulating the mental instability from within that sees fame and notoriety as the only means to live life, and though his deliveries might feel riveting to some in the audience, while feeling hilariously campy to others, I found his character’s commitment to disturbing beliefs to be the most endearing aspect of Arthur’s psychology, in turn appraising an abundance of depraved opportunity for Dacre to truly revel in the disturbing depths of the role, the likes of which he never flinches while emulating antagonizingly. I also appreciate that it’s a movie that values its origins, despite essentially advocating against them in their subconscious influence, particularly in recreating certain memorable deaths from the previous movies, albeit with a significantly less gory depiction, all the while bringing back Michael Carr’s iconic narration to contextualize so much of what we’re seeing philosophically. On top of this, Goldhaber and his corresponding production artistically enamor with an uncanny presentation that feeds into the isolated and ominous atmosphere of the movie’s presentation, while also enacting some stylistically stimulating shots and editing techniques that help to take away some of the stinging sensibilities of the movie’s evidentially limited budget. Cinematographer Isaac Bauman really comes through in the clutch by taking these drably lifeless settings and visually fleshing them out with the hypnotic lighting and unorthodox camera placements to authentically breed discomfort and agitation to the interpretation, especially involving these wide angle frames centering around Margot, which feel entirely catered for Arthur to slither his way onto screen, and considering the original Faces of Death movies were made on a shoestring budget where the grainer the better for the authenticity and believability of the gimmick, here the transition to big screen comes with a coldly chilling seductiveness that when married with Gavin Brivik’s electronic score, really appraises a moral heaviness to corresponding imagery of social media that feel toxically compromising to impressionable minds, giving the movie a mid-90’s straight-to-video texture that plays especially well for midnight horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEGATIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Considering Faces of Death is directed from the very same man who helmed How To Bomb a Pipeline, one of my favorite movies of 2022, its downright shocking how sloppily constructed and ineffectively executed his finished product is here, particularly in the glaring transparency of some disappointing choices to structure and sequencing that unintentionally elicited more laughter than I care to admit for a storyteller whom I admire dearly. For starters, Goldhaber’s direction is void of any palpable semblance of tension or suspense in the extent of his 93-minute runtime, almost entirely as a result of the clumsiness of a dual narrative between Margot and Arthur, whose balance grows to be compromising to the mystique of the latter’s periodic appearances. While I’m not someone entirely against focusing on the killer, the correspondence alongside him here doesn’t utilize anything meaningful to the exploration of the character, with shallow writing that keeps him at a grave distance from ever finding originality or complexity within the confines of the character, but even worse than that, a situational staging of scenes rooted in physical conflict that aren’t drawn out with influences of urgency and vulnerability that should maximize enticement to how they’re orchestrated. On the subject of that physicality, the kills and thrills that adorn the movie feel so tame by the inevitable comparison of the immense shadow of previous movies that this installment leaves in its wake, with nothing even remotely gruesome or envelope-pushing to feel like it stands on the same field as contemporary films like the Terrifier franchise, which enthusiastically revels in the desire to deep cook carnage candy to expecting audiences. While the gore is admirably produced with practical effects that articulate the heft of lacerated limbs, the kills are performed with the kind of editing that takes a lot of the impact away from depiction, and considering Arthur is a copycat killer depending on the memories of video tapes that he grew up idolizing, there’s nothing captured from his fits of devastation that feel remotely surprising or gratuitously shocking to those familiar with the franchise’s previous installments, proving that this movie can’t hold the jock of a fifty year predecessor that feels just as tough to watch in 2026 as it did in 1978. Deviating back to the script, there’s also some sloppy writing between the dialogue and plot mechanics of this long-form narrative, the latter of which inspires so many hilariously unrealistic actions of characters that make it difficult to empathize in the direness of their situation. While I understand that stupid decisions have always been an unfortunate aspect of the slasher subgenre, the kind orchestrated here are basically the metaphorical equal of somebody attempting to evade a captor while carrying around a loudly obnoxious boombox, with the actions growing all the more strangely bewildering once the law and medical workers are brought into the fray, feeling as conveniently stupid as you would expect them to be in a movie where the signs feel painstakingly obvious to a five-year-old. Some of the conversations elicited by the very worst supporting actors that I have seen this year, particularly Charli XCX’s excruciating work as Gabby, which will undoubtedly set her film career back twenty years, are insufferable enough, especially once they’re forced to chew up these commentary sentiments for the effortless digestibility of audience interpretation, but it’s so much more frustrating when logistics of varying body mass between Arthur and Margot require so much suspension of disbelief during the third act that you’re forced to believe that the former could lift the latter’s dead weight into a car, after drugging her, but it’s just one of the many examples where the editing is forced to work overtime in keeping up with the unrealistic expectations of the storytelling, and between it and Margot’s actions emulating one of dumb and irresponsible influence, it starts to grow tedious to faithfully invest in her, especially considering Barbie Ferreira’s performance is the single most glaring detraction from this movie’s prominence. To be fair, I’m not saying that Ferreira is a bad actress, as I’ve loved her turns on TV’s Euphoria, as well as last year’s Bob Trevino Likes It, it’s just that she’s so terribly miscast here that it becomes obvious as quickly as she’s forced to deliver increasing emotionality to her character’s responses, where she seemingly takes everything that Montgomery is doing and triples down on it, in ways that make her feel destructively distracting to every scene where she’s the primary focus, especially those where Ferreira is forced to react to what’s transpiring on a computer screen in front of her, which lack the subtlety and nuance to deviate throughout different times during the video. Ferreira is given very little of a character outline to act out, so it’s not entirely her fault, but she always feels like a ten-year-old in an adult’s body once Arthur shows up, and considering it’s a role that lives and dies on fear, Ferreira’s frequent overzealous deliveries leave more to be desired in appeasing the vulnerability of her character, leaving me wishing for another casting choice, especially considering Montgomery’s build and stature already requires so much suspension of disbelief in grappling with bodies twice his size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OVERALL
Faces of Death does make for a refreshingly creative metatextual deviation towards audience expectations that attains influential layers to the cultural impact of the desensitizing of horror that stands at the forefront of the movie’s many fascinating talking points, but it’s ultimately one defined by an absence of shock and awe with its violence, and conventionalism to its execution that has it feeling like just another derivative slasher, without so little tension and suspense to keep audiences faithfully vested to familiarity. While Dacre Montgomery dances a devilishly deranged turn that impulsively understands the assignment, Barbie Ferreira’s erratic emotionality is dead on arrival, failing the film’s desire to be just as shocking and memorable as a predecessor with a fifty year head start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Grade: 5.5 or D+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed By Daniel Goldhaber Starring – Dacre Montgomery, Barbie Ferreira, Josie Totah The Plot – The exploration of the original film’s infamous “is it real or not?” conceit continues as Margot (Ferreira), a woman working as a content moderator for a major video platform discovers what appears to be re-enactments of murders from the original […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9580"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9582,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9580\/revisions\/9582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}