The original Faces of Death existed as a cursed tape. People talked about it in hushed whispers in class, or snuck out their secret copy during a Saturday night sleepover. Banned in 46 countries, the film and its marketing made it seem as though the snuff footage actually contained real surgeries, beheadings, electrocutions, and scalpings. For many, seeing the 1978 cult classic as young kids or teens changed them forever and sent them careening down a path to all things macabre and nasty.
It was only a matter of time before a filmmaking team would return to that grave and exhume a new vision of terror. Director/co-writer Daniel Goldhaber and co-writer/producer Isa Mazzei hadn’t seen the original film when they were approached about conceiving a new story. Well, that’s not entirely true. “When we went back and watched the original, it was a crazy experience. We started to realize that we recognized a lot of it,” corrects Mazzei. “We had just consumed it on the internet in little pieces over the years growing up. Even though the original was before our time, we realized that it had actually influenced us, as well, and that was a really exciting starting point to dig into the material.”
Mazzei and Goldhaber birth a horrifyingly grotesque story that lives somewhere between a remake and a sequel. It’s neither and both at the same time. With Barbie Ferreira (Euphoria, Nope) and Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things, Power Rangers) leading the cast, Faces of Death brings new meaning to the concept of the “faces of death” that surround us every single day.
Faces of Death hits theaters this Friday (April 10).
In a recent Zoom call, Goldhaber and Mazzei discussed the details of honoring the original, forging something fresh and exciting, and disturbing viral trends.
The two most obvious things that set your film apart from the original are: an actual plot and characters. Were those two things pretty high on your checklist?
Goldhaber: We always conceptualized this as being a movie about ‘Faces of Death.’ It’s not really a remake or even a reimagining. It’s about where ‘Faces of Death’ lives in the contemporary world. What we found scariest is that the faces of death are everywhere now. That felt like a very fruitful place to set a story with fictional characters and also a very scary idea to mine for a horror film.
The film tackles social media trends head-on when one of the killings goes viral online. Did you have any reference points for that, or have you experienced any pretty disturbing trends?
Mazzei: I remember growing up, sometimes a violent video would come out, and it was kind of a thing we talked about. I remember there was a beheading video that came out in high school, and everyone was like, ‘Oh, my God, did you see that?’ It was a thing that felt kind of taboo and risky. Now, I think what’s so interesting is that you don’t even have to seek this stuff out to get it served to you on social media by the algorithm. In that way, it’s become so commonplace that it’s almost stripped our ability to view it in the right context.
Weaving in footage and voiceover from the original film connects it to the past. Why was that important?
Goldhaber: This movie is meta-textual. We talked a lot about wanting the movie to feel like it almost was the original ‘Faces of Death’ tape had kind of burst out of our movie on some level. Dr. Francis Gross is somehow haunting our film. As we started thinking about integrating the original, it became clear just how iconic his voice and presence are
Dacre Montgomery’s performance as Arthur is akin to Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or Elijah Wood in the Maniac remake. Did the character change from paper to screen? And what did Dacre bring to the role?
Goldhaber: There was a lot of collaboration with Dacre. One of the things that I loved working with him on was just the fact that he felt a strong sense of personal identification with Arthur–not from the standpoint of being a serial killer but from the standpoint of being somebody who deals with OCD and who is very alienated and looking for ways to connect to other people. There were a lot of places where we departed from the script. We wanted to find ways to continue making the character an externalization of these things that Dacre himself felt.
An example of that is that Dacre has an obsession with textures. He told me in our first meeting that he had not been able to sleep under the bed sheets for 10 years when he was a teenager, because if there was a crease in the bed sheets, he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. We started layering in these things into his character–like the spandex lycra material that we could rub on his body. That also made Arthur feel safe. It’s one of the things that’s exciting about the movie–there are these very human and relatable aspects to the character.
Did you draw upon any other serial killer movies or performances to inform the killer?
Mazzei: We looked a lot at internet culture, like 4chan and message board-type communities, where we see a lot of alienation and isolation, a lot of reaching out for attention. We watched ‘Don’t Fuck with Cats.’ That was another big inspiration. Just kind of looking at how the Internet has kind of isolated people and driven them apart, and how people desperately reach out for connection online.
Arthur recreates several kill scenes from the original film. How did you pick which kills you wanted to reference?
Goldhaber: When it came to all of Arthur’s remakes, we always tried to approach it from his standpoint. He’s also choosing which kills to remake. On some level, he’s choosing the most achievable ones. Which are the ones that you can translate? So, he starts with a very simple one. The first one is just the beheading, and it’s a single shot. It’s not very complicated. That one works. Then, he gets a little more complicated. He goes with the electrocution.
Then, he gets a little more complicated and goes with the hammerhead. He’s challenging himself. It was very similar to how we thought about it in the film. The only one that we kept trying to find a way to use that we couldn’t quite fit in was the guy on fire at the protest. We really wanted that one, and we couldn’t. We’ll have to save that kill for the sequel, I think.
We’re getting a sequel?!?
Goldhaber: Let’s hope, fingers crossed!
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