Faces of Death!

I neglected to post this review here yesterday... Sunday night I saw that "classic" then last night was no film as time was spent on other things instead, including the Olympics. Thus, I'm catching up and here's my take on Faces of Death: 

Even sillier than the last time I saw this many, many years ago. If you’re a certain age, a number of us have the shared experience of seeing at least the first Faces of Death VHS box cover (if not also its sequels) with its proclamation that “It’s banned in 46 countries!”-likely an exaggeration-and wondering what its contents were. Then I finally saw the “documentary” and realized that too much of what was purportedly real was blatantly phony. What a surprise to see this pop up on Shudder several days ago after not

Mondo-style documentaries are not my bag anyhow and one which has “death scenes” that smack you w/ inauthenticity is not terribly appealing. Nevermind seeing the actual death scenes that include a woman committing suicide by jumping out of a high-rise, scenes in a slaughterhouse, and the aftermath of an airliner crash—it alternates between an endurance test, laughing at the faux scenes and becoming bored as it droned on. The most infamous moments were faked, from the clubbing of seals to “a restaurant in the Middle East” having its patrons club a monkey to death then eat its brains (?!), a bear “mauling” a dumb tourist and an alligator killing a member of animal control.

Then again, the opening credits alone reveal the phoniness—our host/narrator is a “doctor” named FRANCIS B. GROSS; whether that or Gross at one point using the phrase “the COUNTRY of Africa” is worse to you is up to you. In the 20th century, seeing such material-faux or otherwise-would have seemed scandalous and salacious. Now, when you can easily view an onslaught of atrocities with nary an effort… Faces of Death seems rather quaint by comparison, a time capsule of what attitudes were at the time.

Apparently, both its sequels and competing series like Traces of Death presented more authentic footage—but count me out on ever giving those a shot.