Faces Of Death V (1995)

If you are familiar with the Faces Of Death series and have seen FOD 1 through 4 there is absolutely no reason to watch this one. FOD V is no more then a badly put together compilation of the four films. The narration is constantly changing and it doesn't match or flow properly.

The Faces Of Death crew have done this before when they released The Worst Of Faces Of Death which was a composit of 1-3. Its as if someone said Hey, I know. Why don't we just keep making shitty tapes of previous footage so we never have to shoot anything again and we can still get a check.

FOD 5 has the infamous monkey brains scene and the electric chair execution from the original FOD. It takes a lot of the slaughter house footage from Faces Of Death II. We get to see the deadly rattle snake bite again from FOD 3 but most of the footage is taken from Faces Of Death IV. The mental hospital murder, the giant radioactive leech, the Satanic decapitations and the mutilated puppy will pop up again. This makes me never want to see part 6 which I believe is just another mix and match pile of shit.

Stick with 1-4 and avoid this turd.

Faces Of Death IV (1990)

I been watching a lot of these Faces Of Death movies and pretty much shitting on them with the exception of the original in all of my reviews but I have to admit I kind of liked F.O.D. 4. It is just the same old rehash from previous F.O.D. movies and the reenactments is just as bad if not worse then Faces Of Death III but there were certain elements which give the 4th movie some replay value.

The first redeeming value that is noticed is probably the slick narration from the way over the top and as bad as they come actor James B. Schwartz who plays Dr. Louis Flellis who is supposed to be continuing the studies of death from Dr. Francis B. Gross who we all know and love from the first film. Well even if James B. Schwartz holds the record for worlds worst actor he is at least given good lines to read. Underground hip hop character Necro must have felt the genius of the narration within F.O.D. 4 because he uses a large amount of it on his Gory Days record for the song World Gone Mad. "We are living in a world gone mad. A crazy world. A world where death is a way of life. Every day we read of atrocities that numb our brain, but I believe to deny the insanity or flee from it is to submit to it and be at the mercy of it. One must study death in order to appreciate life. Come with me as we descend into a world gone mad." Pretty nifty huh? Necro would take more from the narration through out the film. Aside from the witty narration the reenactments are very unbalanced. While obviously fake due to camera angles and such some of the scenes are disturbingly graphic in a some what realistic manner while others are so ridiculous that you have to laugh. For instance the giant, radioactive leech which attaches itself to a swimming woman seems like it should have been in a 50's monster movie or something. What is this Attack Of The Giant Leeches or Faces Of Death? Then we get an incredibly fake scene where a Vietnamese family cuts up a puppy and cooks it up for some chow. A group of dumb drunken 80's morons run a girl over with a speedboat and take a little bit to much off the top of that mullet. Then there is a failed bungee rope stunt.  F.O.D. 4 sports an awesome scene near the very end. It doesn't look real by any sense of the world but I can see it being used in a Jim Van Bebber (Deadbeat At Dawn) movie or something. A group of Satanists are arrested and during the bust the FBI... and we know its the FBI because they are wearing blue jackets that say "FBI" on the back, find a mans severed head in a box which is supposed to be sent out to fellow Satanists. The FBI agents also find a snuff flick that the cultists made. They stick a knife in a mans face and the gore effects look like something out of a Lucio Fulci flick. Pretty bad-ass! The satanic climax makes F.O.D. 4 well worth the watch. I just wish they could have used some of these special effects in a real movie instead of a bad excuse for a mondo flick. Some of the other treats that F.O.D. 4 has to offer is a magician who has his achy-breaky skull smashed open in a magic trick gone wrong, a muscle-head who allows his friends to drive a pick-up truck over his mid torso, political war crimes and plenty more.

F.O.D. 4 also offers up some anti vegetarian nonsense as if the viewers are really concerned with the social politics of a Faces Of Death writer. Totally ridiculous! I knew sooner or later I would start laughing at these movies.

Faces Of Death III (1985)

Well these Faces Of Death movies just get worse and worse don't they? The first film is good mondo fun. Faces Of Death part 2 was even more disturbing with nastier and more gruesome death on display. This one is just a straight up piece of shit with almost every single scene in the movie being a badly done reenactment of real scenarios involving death.

Dr. Francis B. Gross takes us through yet another look at death but the stylish elements from the first film are completely absent this time around. Director John Alan Schwartz has a cameo in F.O.D. 3. He plays a serial rapist and murderer on trial for video taping the sexual abuse and killing of a young Asian woman. By this time the series has become redundant and even the narration is totally repetitive. If I keep "exploring the many Faces Of Death" it is going to be the death of me.

With nothing new to offer F.O.D. 3 gives reenactments of suicide, deadly rattle snake bites, a skid row serial killer who dumps the lifeless bums bodies in dumpsters and some violent p.c.p. addicts. It seems the only real footage here is animal murder and if that is your thing you might as well join some dumb animals rights group and watch Kentucky Fried Chicken videos all day.

I'm pretty sure F.O.D. stands for fuck off and die..

The Worst Of Faces Of Death (1987)

I recently picked up Faces Of Death 1-5 plus a documentary called Faces Of Death Fact Or Fiction and this title. I some what reluctantly have been forcing myself to watch em all in chronological order. This one might be the most pathetic of the lot.

The title claims it to be "The Worst" Of Faces Of Death and I just might agree for the fact that is nothing more then a composit of Faces Of Death 1, 2 and 3. They cut together what they felt is the most gruesome moments from the three films and offer up this compilation of blood, guts and gore.

As the viewer there is nothing like taking the easy way out of things. We should all have to endure the equal amount of torture by sitting through the full films. As a film maker this video is nothing more then another marketing and money making scheme. There is nothing more to say about this so called movie with the exception of the opening where we are told that Dr. Gross is now dead himself and that his experiments and studies are still being examined for future Faces Of Death movies.

For a better time check out Mondo Cane or Africa Addio. Or just stick with the original Faces Of Death. That one at least got a theatrical run, unlike this deserved straight to video shit.

Faces Of Death 2 (1981)

Faces Of Death part 2 is just further proof that true Mondo Films are dead. Three years after the release of the first film this sequel follows up in a pretty stong way.

This time around there is much less fake stuff. The truth is that its a pretty rough sit. I personally sink into a bit of depression when ever I watch these movies and I really can't say why I do it to myself. I guess a part of me almost feels obligated to see how they went about it and how true it can stay to the traditional style of mondo cinema.

I suppose the first couple of Faces Of Death movies have slight more class then the average straight to video shenanigans. They at least try to be a documentary and can even be some what informative at times. Still when it is all said and done it is a pretty grim look at humanity and the evil that man is capable of. We are haunted by images of a live execution which would be used in many other straight to video pseudo mondo flicks including World Of Death but for me the more grisly stuff is the atrocities of war. Victims of bombs, napalm and radiation is quite revolting and they don't exclude children from the wrath of the cameras eye. In fact it seems they dwell more on the innocent children who lost their lives during war.

Some other moments that stand out is a woman who was hit in the head with an axe when she got a bit lippy with her husband. A violent shoot out with the police the results in one dead hostage, a man bleeding in the street with a bullet in his guts and another man shot and killed on site. We get a boxing match that ended fatally and a bunch of stunt men who lost their lives to their own brand of art.

This time they spare us the monkey brains but they do show us what happens when monkeys are injected with hard drugs. They also show a dolphin massacre in Japan, Whale hunters, Seal clubbers and plenty of other dead animals. It takes a special kind of person to sit through these movies. It takes another kind of person to enjoy them. Those might be the kind of people I do not want to meet. Still movies like Faces Of Death serves a place in society and I personally believe they shouldn't be ignored. I might not go as far as to agree with writer/director when he says "They should be embraced" but still they are here and are depictions of factual mayhem. For that reason alone they serve some importance. So get a barf bag and squirm your way through this nasty follow up to the cult classic Faces Of Death.

World Of Death (1994)

World of death is your basic Mondo Film but not from the good ole days of Mondo movies like Mondo Cane or Africa Adio instead this thing is an obvious offspring of more modern shockumentary type stuff like Faces Of Death etc.

World Of Death is typically depressing but not quite as gruesome as these videos usually are. Its focus is on war and all the lovely things that come along with it. It is broken down into three segments. The first being the Serbians mass genocide against Bosnia. Then we take a trip over to Rowanda and witness mass starvation. Last but not least we end up in Liberia and watch the execution of government officials.

World Of Death may be disguised as a documentary but it is very uninformative to say the least. However it does exploit the atrocities of war which I'm sure would not make the average, healthy person feel very good. It also has all these religious undertones that run throughout the film which is fired at us through narration. Funny how a movie has the sack to show the evils of man and the politics that drive these men to kill but can stand up for something as evil as religion. I think somebody should check the history books next time before they make a movie about murder and then defend Christianity, Muslims and Jews. A dumb movie made by dumb people. Only worth looking at if you want to be really depressed. Unless of course you're one of those sick corpse-fuckers!

Blood Of The Beasts (1949)

Animal lovers might want to skip this one because its a pretty nasty flick. Blood Of The Beasts is a 20 minute documentary about a slaughter house in France from director Georges Franju who would later go on to do the great Eyes Without A Face. This is a odd one because it is a down right shocking look at animals being slaughtered and mangled and it is all shown in great detail. The camera holds nothing back as the narrator speaks over the ghastly footage. However aside from being a shocking gross out flick there is a sense of art to it. It's almost like a early Mondo flick in the sense that the narration is suggestive in a sort of sarcastic way.
Durring the 2o min. of hell we have a horse who gets a sort of pick axe to the head and then is drained of its blood and skinned alive. The horse is then sawed in half by a man who looks like he might be a serial killer. We then have some cows being ripped apart and a bunch of sheep are decapitated with one hell of a sharp knife. The butchers cut the heads off and throw them across the room and the heads land in a big pile. Blood Of The Beasts has thick steam that comes from the blood soaked ground. It must have been cold during the filming and the steam is from the rivers of blood that these men work in all day. I am not exaggerating either, These men stand ankle deep in blood.
This early shockumentary almost smells of death and it isn't the easiest of sit through but its a great little flick to gross your friends out with., especially if there are any vegetarians in the room.
"I strike you without hate because man needs to eat every day."

Mondo Cane (1962)

Mondo Cane the grand daddy of Mondo films. This is the one that set em all off! After this film a whole slew of Mondo Shockumentaries will come. Its no wonder why Cane influenced the world. The film is beautiful! Every shot is framed perfect and the music from the amazing Riz Ortolani makes the madness on the screen that much more powerful. Mondo Cane's narrator slyly comments on the actions of so called humanity as the film makers take us around the globe. We get to see all kinds of crazy shit. Some of the most memorable scenes are, A woman breast feeding a pig, New Yorkers indulging in a nice feast of insects at a high end NY restaurant, Dogs being cooked and eaten, A mass wild boar slaughter and feast, crazy religious nuts cutting up their legs with shards of glass in Rome, a under water cemetery bone yard for human remains, radiation and its affect on turtles and birds, German alcoholic's (just being themselves), Nude artists smearing blue paint on their bodies and humping a canvas, Sailors chasing babes in 60's bikini's, Bare breasted native/jungle babes chasing men, children cleaning human skulls, etc. etc. So yeah Mondo Cane is filled with animal violence, human perversion and just human stupidity. If you're not afraid to see the world for how bizarre it really is then Mondo Cane should be a treat for you.