The original Faces of Death is one of the most notorious films ever made. Released in 1978 to much hubbub and no small amount of pearl-clutching, the film presents itself as a catalogue of footage featuring actual, onscreen death, a ruse (aided by special FX and elaborate editing) that has fooled plenty of people over the years. Still does! Ask your parents if they know what Faces of Death is and whether or not it’s real, see what happens.
Anyway, a while back it was announced that Cam directors Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber had written and would soon direct a new version of Faces of Death. Less a remake than an entirely new film which uses the original as a jumping-off point, the new Faces of Death was said to tell the following tale:
“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?”
Listen, if you’re gonna do a new Faces of Death (and, honestly, the notoriety of the title alone is probably reason enough to sink money into a new film with that title, especially one written and directed by the folks who made the excellent Cam), that’s about the best approach we can imagine. There’d be no sense in putting together a direct remake, even if you brought modern FX technology to bear on the kills; these days, if people want to watch snuff videos, they just wait for them to pop up unbidden in their social media feeds.
Anyway, the news today (which comes to us courtesy our pals over at Bloody Disgusting) is that the new Faces of Death has been rated R. If you are surprised to learn that a new Faces of Death has been rated R, there is very likely little that we can do for you beyond breaking that news gently (and if you must know, the new Faces of Death has been rated R for “strong bloody violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language and drug use”).
With the MPA having handed out this entirely-expected rating, we’re guessing that means that Legendary Pictures will have a Faces of Death trailer along in somewhat short order. Perhaps ahead of a release date somewhere within this year’s spooky season? We’ll have to wait and see, but that’s probably the smart bet at the moment.
Stay tuned for further updates on the new Faces of Death as they roll in, folks. And, hey, go watch Cam if you haven’t seen that already! It’s great!
