Faces of Death (2026)
Directed by: Daniel Goldhaber
Premise: An online content moderator (Barbie Ferreira) comes across several videos recreating scenes from the infamous 1978 documentary Faces of Death. She suspects that the videos are real.
What Works: 1978’s Faces of Death was a documentary that assembled supposedly real footage of executions, slaughterhouses, police shootouts, and other gruesome scenes connected by a wraparound device in which a pathologist pontificated on mortality. Faces of Death became a sensation on home video and sequels and imitators followed. 2026’s Faces of Death uses the 1978 documentary as a starting point for a serial killer story while also incorporating elements from other notorious horror films of that time, mostly obviously 1980’s Maniac. The narrative is a familiar horror movie conceit in which a woman and a serial killer engage in a cat and mouse game. The thriller plot of Faces of Death is done well. The heroine and the killer are put into conflict in a convincing way. They are both smart and use technology to figure out each other’s identities. Faces of Death is scary with some tense sequences, especially in the climax. But incorporating 1978’s Faces of the Death adds another layer to the movie that transforms the meaning of the story and the violence. Margot works as a content moderator for a social media company. Her day is spent clicking through user-uploaded videos and approving or striking them based on vague criteria. Right away, the film takes a critical look at the online media economy and the way economic incentives place heinous footage alongside innocuous content. 2026’s Faces of Death uses the 1978 documentary to comment upon where our media has gone in the last half century. This is a satirical take on remakes and fan culture. The story suggests that our social media feeds looks a lot like what was once a disreputable videotape and the filmmakers want us to consider what consuming that content may be doing to us. This is a smart and incisive film comparable to the original Scream. The film’s ideas are evident in Barbie Ferreira’s performance as Margot. Like the best final girl characters, she’s tough but also vulnerable.
What Doesn’t: This film uses the original Faces of Death more for its symbolic significance than for its substance. The 1978 documentary was hosted by a pathologist (in reality the actor Michael Carr) investigating mortality and taxonomizing forms of death. 2026’s Faces of Death does not engage with the documentary’s theme. It uses the set pieces without much regard for the specific context in which they initially appeared. However, that concept was mostly nonsense. 1978’s Faces of Death was not a serious intellectual exercise. The original concept was a thin justification to string together a bunch of gruesome footage. The filmmakers successfully exploit the cultural legacy of Faces of Death and the real meaning of the original documentary.
Bottom Line: 2026’s Faces of Death uses the 1978 documentary in a way that is more than just a gimmick. This is a satisfying serial killer thriller but also a relevant work of media criticism that is smart and scary and unsettling. Faces of Death is what the most recent Scream sequels should have been.
Episode: #1095 (April 19, 2026)