Faces of Death II (1981) on Netflix
NR19811h 19mDocumentaryHorror
Dr. Frances B. Gröss presents a second collection of footage about death. The scenes come from mortuaries, accident sites and police work, shot on television equipment and home video cameras.
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- Netflix2.0/5
- IMDb3.9/102,382 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Dr. Frances B. Gröss returns with another set of footage about death, mixing newsreel and archive material with a staged sequence. The collection includes a corpse recovered from beneath a pier, death squads in El Salvador, napalm strikes in Vietnam and self-immolations by Buddhist monks. Other segments show a monkey being drugged, dolphins slaughtered at sea, leprosy patients in Cambodia, a train wreck in India and a museum of death that keeps Joaquin Murrieta's preserved head. A driver under the influence of PCP also appears. The attempt on President Ronald Reagan's life was added shortly after it happened. A gas station robbery is the one sequence faked for the camera outside the narration.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Faces of Death II (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- About 60% of Faces of Death was real footage bought from news stations, medical researchers, Flight 182 crash witnesses, graphic war footage, autopsies, deleted documentary footage, and footage shot by the crew in morgues or on a beach.
- The PSA Flight 182 crash happened less than two months before Faces of Death's release; the largely completed film was reworked immediately after to include graphic crash-site footage, with stills and air traffic audio simulating the crash because no actual footage was known to exist.
- The electric chair execution in Faces of Death was faked by building a chair, using toothpaste as saliva, and adding electricity sounds in post-production, because no real chair was available during production.
- Several animal-death scenes in Faces of Death were inauthentic: seal clubbing was choreographed to avoid harming seals, a "violent dog fight" used two dogs in theater blood playing, and a monkey's "brains" were cauliflower and theater blood.
- The only "real, unscripted" part of Faces of Death came when filmmakers shooting B-roll of litter for the pollution sequence found a dead surfer had washed ashore, and beachgoers started a commotion.
- In the UK, Faces of Death was prosecuted and placed on the "video nasty" list under the Obscene Publications Act 1959; its 2003 DVD release still required cuts of 2 minutes and 19 seconds to remove dog-fighting and a monkey-beating scene.
- Faces of Death's snake cult footage was later reused in Michael Bolton's music video "Everybody's Crazy", minus the handler dying of a snake bite.
Stills
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