Customer Reviews

Faces of Death Collection (Vols. 1-4)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Heres some old news for those who do not know: many of the death scenes in the FOD series were faked.
The original director, John Schwartz, admits to faking much of the footage (search google for "Lifting the mask from faces of death").
Also, a discerning eye and some quality video editing software is enough to disprove much of the footage as being fake.
So what is real? According to the director, the animals being slaughtered, the autopsy footage and around 20% of the death footage from Faces of Death is actually real.
My advice? If your interested in this kind of thing than take a pass on Faces of Death and go to Ogrish-dot-com or find the recent fan-made "Real Faces of Death" compilation which contains almost every clip Ogrish has published (92-minutes, look on P2P, about 730MB).

Despite all of the negative reviews, these films are among my favorites, and are absoloutely necessary for horror and gore fans to see. Yes, it is fake for the most part, but that is not the point. The films are quite entertaining and despite what other reviews claim, the effects are superb given the time it was made. I promise that if you are a fan of gore, you should be fairly pleased with this collection, each film with the exception of "faces of death 2" has some quite shocking scenes.

The basic point of the films is a doctors personal study into the subject of death. The film is presented in a documentary style, piecing together many clips of people meeting there demise in horrible sorts of ways, and stock footage of accident aftermaths and morgues etc. As I stated earlier, the scenes where people are shown being killed are entirely fake. The fact that everyone thinks the fim is 100% real demonstrates the marketing genius that the director and gorgon video truly are.

Horror and gore fans , buy the collection, buy a case of beer, invite your friends over and have your first annual F.O.D. fest this weekend.

I saw the first two movies in '92 and was quite astounded by how graphic they were at the time. I have raved on about them ever since to my friends etc and have tried to find them again but never could until now with the help of the internet. So I bought the box set but was quite disappointed with the content. A lot of scenes that I remember to be real are obviously fake. If you didn't know any better, you could be easily fooled but some scenes are that badly portrayed that you would have to be from another planet not to know you are being duped. The 'Fact or Fiction' part enlightens the viewer about what scenes are staged from the man who directed these films. I understand his comments that certain things have happened to people throughout time but for whatever reason, he was not able to film or obtain footage of the event so they re-enacted it (quite badly for the most part). There are some interesting parts to these movies though and you would need a strong stomach to watch some of it. I would give the presentation of the box set and the service from Amazon.com 5 stars but the content only pulls a 2 from me.

I watched this collection in the barracks while I was in the Army while eating honey nut cheerios. Its hard to believe that as a hard core horror/gore fanatic that I did it now. I thought it was fascinating and gross at the same time. I love biographies and documentaries and liked the way it was presented. Not for people with weak stomachs.

Faces of Death is a very unique horror/Documentary series that is not for everyone. This series is recommended for veteran horror or shock fans, I wouldn't advise that just anyone pick it up and pop it in. Let me warn you: These films are very disturbing even to hardcore horror fan, Mostly when watching one for the first time. I went into these films thinking they would be worse than they were. I was actually surprised of how good they can be, Don't get me wrong these aren't the best horror films of all time. A select few will enjoy this. If you are reading this review and have not seen these films or never really heard about them, Or if you're a regular horror fan that wants to go to the next level, let me warn you. Most likely you will end up turning it off or sending it back. I myself thought the price was a little steep but i wasn't disapointed. These films comprise themselves of actual and staged footage of violence and mayhem, Executions, Animal Death, Car Crashes and many other footage of violence. I enjoyed these movies oddly enough, But it's probably because i have a stomach of iron and am used to this kind of stuff (Hey That's Just Me).

If you are looking for a visual challenge or are just interested in true crime or are just curious i would recommend that you buy this.

But be warned. You may not enjoy them.

The only reason why these videos ever made cult status is because people are incredibly gullible... even in the face of terrible "special" FX. Rent it if you must see it, but don't waste your money... unless you want to add it to your collection of useless crap.

Those who love death will love these movies. I seen them when i was like 9 years old and they helped make me the person iam today if you like visions of things that make you feel uneasy buy these films.

OK First of all I would like to begin by saying anyone who trashes the movie is missing the point! This movie depicts scenes of death. It brings the reality of death right into our living room. We live in a society where everyone fears death and evil. And if we close our eyes it goes away. Well news flash, it is everywhere! People die every few seconds, and many of them die horrably. It is a fact of life. I dont think people were really wathcing this film eating popcorn on family night. It is designed to make you think, plain and simple. I enjoyed the movie, and many scenes were quite hilarius in an ironic sort of way. Yes death can be very sad for people, and no one likes to talk about pain. By blinding ourselves to the counterbalance of life and good, we can never truely appriciate the beauty of this world. There can be no life without death, no good without evil. So watch and be reminded of what the world is. Beautiful and sick at the same time. It is called being human. Anyone who says people who like this film are sick or need therapy, obviously were sheltered and are so warped themselves that THEY are in fact the ones with the problems. LIGHTEN UP ITS A MOVIE. Watch it for a laugh, it is no different than Freddy Kreuger or Friday the 13th, you watch those movies for the gore and carnage and you know it!!! This movie excites every last one of us, and those who freak out are just scared of the side of themself that they were raised to fear from birth. This movie is a must see for everyone at one point in there lives to get a taste of reality, and maybe the movie will inspire us to be better people. sometimes a good scare is what it takes to mold a good human being.

(...)
Ever since Faces of Death was first showed to the world it has become one of those few cinematic experiences that everybody has an opinion against; you either love or hate it. To the people who hate Faces of Death and then slag it off I believe you have some growing up to do. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you were about to watch it. Maybe you should consider to show some responsibility for your actions and then you might wonder what made you want to watch Faces of Death. What I don't like is when people critisise Faces of Death for being "inhuman" "Immoral" "vulgar" "this should be banned" "it represents a violent sickening society". One guy here puts it "life's example of moral decay". It's this last opinion which I have put which makes me believe people with opinions like this is life's example of moral decay, not Faces of Death. The reason why this is is because death fascinates all of us. And if you watch this documentary and then feel the need to make excuses that this would harm children and create murderers and rapists then can you at least question why you watched Faces of Death in the first place. It's people like you, one-star reviewers, that once said pornography would turn people into rapists, masturbation would turn people blind, horror films would turn people into psychopaths; despite that all these accusations have been proved the exact opposite. And please don't use children as an excuse to impose your own style of censorship upon us. You should be thankful, one-star viewers, that you have the right to view this. I think using children as an excuse against a film is just as bad as paedophilia and considering I was a victim by a paedohile when I was young I know what I'm talking about.
The Faces of Death boxset consists of real footage of mostly animals being killed and fake footage of humans being killed. You can easily tell which scenes are fake because the camera constantly jumps to another camera angle and so on to escape the effects. It reminds me of modern MTV style films with it's constant camera angle swapping. When you buy this boxset then it would be best if you watched "Faces of Death: Fact or Fiction" last. This way you can decide what scenes looked fake when you watch the Faces of Death series and then check if you're right when watching "Fact or Fiction". The most disturbing scene in the first Faces of Death, in my opinion, is the footage of air crashes. I thought people died in an air crash instantly and that no bodies were found intact! This scene got to me because I have a fear of flying. The other footage that I found disturbing was the footage of the electric chair. This was faked (I think!) and it is quite shocking. You can feel the pain the guy is going through just watching it. Faces of Death 2 is much more shocking and has less fake footage, but all the films in this boxset are done as a documentary and some parts are quite educational. I won't include scenes from these films in my review incase you'd like to see all the Faces of Death. But be warned, these films in parts will shock even the hardened gore fan and I consider myself to be a very hardcore gore fan with my collection of horror films.

Happy nightmares!

I really like this product. The shipment came on time and as expected. I have no complaints whatsoever and to speak of.