Faces of Death (Reimagining)

[claws]

Faces of Death, a faux documentary that became a grizzly cult hit in the VHS era, is getting a 21st century makeover.

Legendary Entertainment, currently basking in the box office glow of hit Godzilla vs. Kong, has picked up the rights to the title with the goal of launching a new horror franchise. Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber, the team behind the 2018 psychological thriller Cam, will write and direct, respectively.

The original movie, released in 1978 and meant to act like a documentary, had the conceit of a pathologist exploring gruesome ways to die via footage purportedly culled from around the world. In reality, most of the death scenes were staged and faked, but no matter, the movie had its producers’ desired effect: outrage, revulsion, banning (although not in 52 countries as hyped by the film’s makers), and, of course, a money-making hit that spawned sequels and imitators. It was written and directed by John Allan Schwartz, who used multiple pseudonyms for several crew jobs on the flick.

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?

Producing will be Susan Montford and Don Murphy of Angry Films, who are behind Legendary’s fast-tracked multi-platform Buck Rogers reboot, are producing. Cory Kaplan will co-produce while Rick Benattar of BT Productions will exec produce. John Burrud, the producer of the original movies, will also work on the new iteration.

source: hollywoodreporter.com

Faces of Death was a gritty yet cheesy but still effective product of its time. I wonder how this will translate in the digital age.

[jimpickens]

Looks like the people behind this have never watched the original series and have no concept as to what they were about.

[JPickettIII]

I watched it, not bad but not the greatest.

Not sure why they need to reboot it.  Hollywood needs to get better ideas.

[claws]

Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language and drug use.

No release date yet. Distributor listed as Legendary Entertainment.

[RCMerchant]

The original was a waste of film, IMHO, and I have no desire to see the new one either.

[claws]

It spawned like ten sequels and countless imitations, grossing over $35 million worldwide, according to wiki. That would be $173m in 2024. That is a crazy amount of money they made back then.

I wonder if the makers of the remake are eyeing a similar success.

[Alex]

Now that everyone is going to know it isn't real deaths I can't imagine that it will have the same success. And if people don't know it isn't real, well the truth would hopefully get out there quite quickly.

[chainsaw midget]

This sounds like they're actually trying to make a movie out of this thing.  They even said it has a plot.

That hardly seems to be in the spirit of the original.

[claws]

That hardly seems to be in the spirit of the original.

'Mondo' movies went extinct in the early 1990s. I assume the reimagining will be adjusted to today's viewing habits and morals, which have changed drastically over the last few decades.

[M.10rda]

The original was a waste of film, IMHO, and I have no desire to see the new one either.

I'm w/ you. Furthermore, CAM was interesting (occasionally even unsettling) but deeply flawed and unsatisfying. I can't imagine the filmmakers of CAM are the visionary team equipped to transform the FACES OF DEATH i.p. into something worth watching.