[FrightFest 2026] FILM REVIEW: Faces of Death

Faces of Death - FrightFest English Premiere Review

Director: Daniel Goldhaber

Starring: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Charlie XCX, Aaron Holliday

Written by: Isa Mazzei, Daniel Goldhaber

Produced by: Greg Gilreath, Adam Hendricks, Susan Montford, Don Murphy

Cinematography by: Isaac Bauman

Original Score by: Gavin Brivik

Synopsis:

A content moderator haunted by a viral tragedy must track down a sadistic filmmaker who recreates legendary snuff cinema to silence the internet's obsession with her own past trauma.

Thoughts:

When it was released in 1978, 'Faces of Death' gained instant notoriety. It was met with derision from critics and was banned in 46 countries, making the infamous video nasties list in the United Kingdom. Of course this helped it gain a cult following and in the pre internet age it was known as a gem for the morbidly curious through its depiction of the gruesome ways in which people are killed. It was followed up by five sequels which were released directly to VHS/DVD but now we have a reimagining of the series from director, Daniel Goldhaber. 

This entry in the series follows Margot (Barbie Ferreira) who works as a content moderator for Kino, a platform similar to Tik Tok. Her role within the company is to weed out any videos deemed too offensive or violent. Gradually she comes across a series of videos that seem to be reenacting scenes from the 1978 film and is placed in a position of whether or not she can deem the videos to be real or fake. Her obsession leads her down a dark path and a confrontation with the seemingly deadly content creator. 

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The move away from being a faux exploitation documentary to a meta narrative is a masterstroke with this film as it takes a relic from the video nasty era and propels it forward to the age of the internet, where all manner of extreme content can be accessed instantly on your phone. The concerns around the original film revolved around the effect this kind of footage could have on the human mind and Goldhaber meets this question head on by focussing on media consumption as a whole. In the film Margot’s job sees her watching endless hours of footage that can only be described as brain rot featuring varying degrees of violence and sexual extremity amongst other bog standard slop. 

She is a guardian of what is and is not acceptable content for the masses while working in a sterile office environment adding to the idea that we as an audience as well as Margot can be easily desensitised to what we consume through the sheer amount of it that we view. This world Goldhaber creates for the film is a reflection of this form of desensitisation and is a very cold one. Most contact for people comes in the form of what they consume through their screens as their empathy is chipped away one viral video at a time. The perfect summation of this comes from a comment on Reddit to some of the disturbing videos posted on Kino by saying, “Looks legit. So awful. Nice find!” 

The effects of this type of content are handled two fold through the two main characters of the film. Firstly, through Margot whose life has been deeply affected by this kind of content and its link to her sister’s death. Ferreira plays this quite well throughout the film as she presents herself as being somewhat of an introvert yet you can see that she was once a more outgoing person who used to get more out of life. It's handled subtly by her and she is able to garner a great deal of sympathy even when the dark secret behind her sister’s death is revealed. 

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The other side of this is through the character of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery) who is the psychopath (in the mould of Francis Dolarhyde) whose life is dedicated to recreating scenes from the original 'Faces of Death' in his quest for online fame. Montgomery plays this in a chilling manner that retains a physical imposition throughout and draws you directly to him anytime he is on screen. He can switch from being unassuming to terrifying at the drop of a hat which makes him all the more dangerous. In short he is the worst poster child for how far people are willing to go for a stake in the “attention economy” as his own character puts it. 

Throughout the film Goldhaber adopts an old school style of filmmaking akin to the era the original film was released in, whilst firmly keeping its feet planted in the current digital age, highlighting how our relationship to the forbidden curiosities of the world has not really changed. The excellent synth based score from Gavin Brivik takes this further but also adds a layer of intrusion to the general atmosphere of the film in how watching this kind of content is not a normal thing and its distortion to reality. He is also clever to extend the idea beyond online media by exploring how other outlets (past and present) have sought our attention by resorting to extremes. Margot’s roommate Ryan (Aaron Holliday) watches an old gory Herschell Gordon Lewis movie to relax as he paints and later in the film a character is watching a news report that jumps from a suicide attempt to a feel good story, creating a bleak and singular world where we continually grapple between our own realities and the ones that are presented to us. 

As far as reimagining a horror franchises goes, 'Faces of Death' is an example of how it should be done. Daniel Goldhaber takes a sharp look at our media consumption and the morbid curiosities that dwell within it asking us to look at who is on the other side of these videos and how their suffering impacts our lives. With a fantastic score and two terrific leading performances, it is one the year’s best horror films. 

Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-Joseph McElroy

'Faces of Death' received its English Premiere at FrightFest '26 on August 28th