How we view death is about to get a facelift–as a grisly cult classic is reborn.
The infamous pseudo-documentary Faces of Death–released back in 1978 to horrified audiences–will be rebooted and retooled for a new generation by Legendary Entertainment, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. No release date or casting choices have been announced at this time, but the studio–no doubt–is counting on horror fans to line up out of sheer curiosity.
Isa Mazzei is writing the screenplay, and Daniel Goldhaber will sit in the director’s chair. These filmmakers recently teamed up on the 2018 psychological thriller Cam. Susan Montford, Don Murphy and Cory Kaplan are producing, with Rick Benattar on board as executive producer.
The new storyline, as explained, follows a female moderator of a YouTube-like website whose job is to “weed out offensive and violent content” and who “stumbles across a group that is recreating the murders from the original film.”
But, in this modern world of online misinformation, “the question faced is: Are the murders real or fake?”
The original Faces of Death–written and directed by John Alan Schwartz–featured pathologist Francis B. Gross (Michael Carr) as a host who presented gruesome deaths caught on tape. The gritty nature of the film made it seem so realistic that many viewers really believed Faces of Death was a true “snuff film”.
In truth, most of the footage was shot specifically for the movie–complete with actors and production crew members–but the horrific presentation was enough to get the film banned in many countries. But despite that reaction–or maybe because of it–several sequels and copycat movies followed in the original’s bloody wake.
The original film–distributed by Aquarius Releasing–was panned by critics, but turned out to be a cash cow at the box office, grossing $35 million worldwide on a budget of just $450,000.
Keep reading Horror News Network for further updates on the reboot of Faces of Death.
