Faces of Death
Faces of Death is a 1978 film from the USA, directed by John Alan Schwartz, running 105 minutes. reelscum files it under mondo.
- Year
- 1978 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 105 min
- Director
- John Alan Schwartz
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (28/100)
- Also known as
- The Original Faces of Death
- Banned in
- UK · Australia · New Zealand · Norway · Finland
Defined in the glossary: Mondo
A prosecuted DPP video nasty, also banned in Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Finland.
Mostly fake, entirely cynical, and a rental-shop legend regardless.
A supposed documentary tour of death in all its forms, narrated by a fictional pathologist, and mostly fake, which almost nobody watching in a 1980s rental knew or wanted to know. Its reputation as the ultimate forbidden tape did all the work its content could not.
It is cynical, largely staged and historically important only as a phenomenon: proof that the promise of the real, however hollow, would empty video shelves. The animal footage, unlike the human, is genuine and is the hardest part.
More interesting as an artifact than as a film.
Trailer
The numbers
Nobody has rated this yet. Be the first to make a claim you'll have to defend.
Your call
Where to watch
Legal options in USA
Links open in a new tab (↗). Availability data via TMDB and changes constantly, so confirm on the service. Legal options only. Checked 8 Nov 2026. All options ↗
Discuss with AI
Open a chatbot with a question about this film already typed out. Useful for a second opinion, plot detail, or where to find a copy.
Written about
- Mondo: the shockumentary, 1962 to 1978
An Oscar-nominated love ballad, a beach of dying sea turtles, a murder charge beaten before the film even opened, and a monkey brain made of cauliflower.
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
On these lists
- Notorious by reputation
Films whose legend outran them: banned, prosecuted, or argued about for forty years by people who mostly have not seen them.
Filed alongside
Africa Addio
Not staged, which makes it far worse. A repellent document.
Mondo Cane
The original. Oscar-nominated song, colonial gaze, half of it staged.
Goodbye Uncle Tom
Jacopetti and Prosperi's slavery reconstruction, and the most indefensible thing the mondo pair ever shot.
Cannibal Holocaust
A serious film about media atrocity that committed real atrocity.