Filmmakers Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber, the duo behind “Cam” and “How to Blow up a Pipeline,” have started shooting a remake of “Faces of Death.” The relaunch of this shocking franchise is being backed by Legendary Entertainment. The cast includes Dacre Montgomery (“Stranger Things”), Barbie Ferreira (“Euphoria”), and Josie Totah (“Saved by the Bell”).
The original “Faces of Death” was written and directed by John Allan Schwartz and released in 1978. Where it almost immediately became infamous for its shocking, and supposedly real, depictions of graphic violence. While movies that were essentially just clip after clip of real-life atrocities have existed since at least the 1960s with “Mondo Cane.” “Faces of Death” altered the formula just enough to give rise to the shockumentary subgenre.
Even though the movie was marketed as being 100% real. It was later revealed to be a mix between real footage, staged footage, and gory special effects to create some horrific illusions. Its slew of sequels all used a similar strategy. Now this begs the question, “How on earth can you remake a documentary?”
“Faces of Death was one of the first viral video tapes, and we are so lucky to be able to use it as a jumping off point for this exploration of cycles of violence and the way they perpetuate themselves online,” said Mazzei and Goldhaber in a recent statement.
“The new plot revolves around a female moderator of a YouTube-like website, whose job is to weed out offensive and violent content and who herself is recovering from a serious trauma, that stumbles across a group that is recreating the murders from the original film. But in the story primed for the digital age and age of online misinformation, the question faced is are the murders real or fake?”
Which certainly sounds like an interesting approach. At least this project is being upfront that it is fiction and dropping masquerading around as a documentary.
We’ll keep you posted on updates about the “Faces of Death” remake as they become available.
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