Faces of Death (1978) on Netflix
NR19781h 45mDocumentaryHorror
Dr. Francis B. Gröss, a pathologist, presents footage of the many ways people die. Some scenes were staged, while other material comes from real recordings of deaths.
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- Netflix1.7/5
- IMDb4.3/109,728 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes25%
Trailer
Plot summary
A recurring dream turned Dr. Francis B. Gröss toward the passage between life and death, and his years of pathology work have left him unmoved by grotesque sights. He has gathered footage to study death in its many forms. The footage opens with a man who dies in an alligator attack and with recordings of assassinations; the hired killer François Jordan tells Gröss that he kills only for money. A gunfight follows between an armed murderer and a SWAT team. Gröss then watches the criminal Larry DeSilva executed in an electric chair. At the Los Angeles County coroner's office, Dr. Thomas Noguchi embalms corpses after their autopsies.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Faces of Death (1978)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 1986, 14-year-old Rod Matthews of Canton, Massachusetts beat his Canton High School classmate Shaun Ouillette to death with a baseball bat, saying the idea came to him after watching Faces of Death because he was curious what killing someone would be like. He was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 15 years.
- The cryonics patient shown in the film, Samuel Berkowitz, was frozen in July 1978 and stored in Northern California; after the relatives funding his suspension lost interest and turned down a free head-only option, he was thawed in October 1983, submerged in formaldehyde, given a funeral and buried, and no attempt was made to preserve his brain.
- Several animal scenes were faked: the seal clubbing was choreographed to avoid harming the seals, the "violent dog fight" was two dogs covered in theater blood playing, and the monkey shown being killed and having its brains eaten used cauliflower and theater blood for the brains.
- The electric-chair execution was faked with a built chair, toothpaste standing in for saliva, and electricity sounds added in post-production; Schwartz had wanted to film a real chair execution but none was available during production.
- The film's only "real, unscripted" moment came when the body of a dead surfer washed up on shore while the crew was filming B-roll of litter for the pollution sequence nearby, and beachgoers started a commotion.
- In Britain the film was prosecuted and added to the "video nasty" list under the Obscene Publications Act 1959; when it was finally allowed out on DVD there in 2003, the BBFC required cuts of 2 minutes and 19 seconds.
- The PSA Flight 182 crash happened less than two months before Faces of Death's release, and graphic footage of the aftermath, destroyed houses and scattered body parts was placed near the climax, with still images and air traffic audio simulating the crash because no actual footage is known to exist. According to Schwartz, the film was largely completed but reworked immediately after the crash.
- After teacher Bart Schwarz showed the film to his class at Escondido High School in 1985, two students said it left them with an unnatural fear of dying and emotional distress; their families won a combined $100,000 settlement from the school district, and Schwarz was suspended for 15 days without pay.
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