Artwork for podcast Subversive Cinema
Faces of Death (1978)
Episode 1713th May 2022 • Subversive Cinema • Art Hall
00:00:00 00:48:05

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A story about animals dying, people dying, meditations on dying, and really weird music choices.

Listen in as me and my guest Devon discuss the film whose legend is nearly without equal.

Written and directed by John Alan Schwartz (Faces of Death 1-6), Screen Anarchy called the film "a curious bit of film history, but nothing more," while Mondo Bizarro said "this movie sucks." Well, seems like folks aren't as bowled over by this film as they were when it blew up in the 80s via the VHS market.

It tells the story... Okay, well, it's not really a story. It's a documentary about death. That's pretty much it. We are introduced to a "pathologist" named Dr. Gross (played by Michael Carr) who tells us he decided to study death and the film is the summation of his findings. Albeit, the lore around this film shines brighter and rings louder than the work itself, one cannot deny its infamy. To truly appreciate what was done here you need to think about the world in which it was made, then you will see that this really was rather subversive.

The film is currently available on Blu-Ray and DVD.

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