‘Faces of Death’ Review: Dangerous Reboot Reveals the Violence of Voyeurism

Faces of Death, a reimagining of the mondo horror cult staple of the same name, is a mean throwback to graphic late-1990s crime thrillers like 8MM, Se7en, and American Psycho. While its story and themes align nicely with its namesake, the real exploitation it evokes is that of nasty, turn-of-the-millennium titles dressed up as societally acceptable thrillers and dramas. From filmmaker Daniel Goldhaber and co-writer Isa Mazzei, the team behind the breakout thriller Cam, Faces of Death is a sick, successful, and satisfying reboot intent on exposing on the grime, stench, and stickiness surrounding the violence of voyeurism.

There’s a quality to the film’s gruesomeness that actually feels dangerous, like when our algorithms cross the proverbial line, or when morbid curiosity gets the better of us after a political slaying dominates headlines alongside its circulating footage. There’s a mundane realism to much of the nastiness here, and that’s often the most perverse and shocking kind of violence there is. Because that’s the real stuff. Not necessarily because it looks real (it often looks less real, a theme the film explores), but because real death and suffering have become so ubiquitous in media that it can be hard to flinch at the sight or report of it anymore. By no choice of our own, we’ve become desensitized to atrocity. Not until it gets too close to home, and sometimes, in that case, it’s already too late.

Part of the brilliance of the film is how it manages to find an urgent and unshakeably relevant modern access point for its story. Barbie Ferreira’s character, Margot, is a content moderator for a Meta-adjacent platform whose job is to scroll through an endless cesspool of flagged, user-shared content to determine if it’s fit for the internet. This is still a very real job, and one that has made headlines over the last decade for extreme burnout rates, traumatized workers, and inhumane expectations of staff. The videos and content are often shocking beyond imagination and can lead to long-term psychological harm. This is our pivotal new access point. And it’s how we meet our genre’s latest noteworthy final girl.