written by: Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber
produced by: Don Murphy, Susan Montford, Greg Gilreath & Adam Hendricks
directed by: Daniel Goldhaber
rated: R (for strong bloody violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language and drug use)
runtime: 98 min.
U.S. release date: April 10, 2026

Back in the day of brick-and-mortar video stores, the “Faces of Death” movies were renowned for being the most intense horror flicks, primarily because the conceit was that what viewers were watching was true. The gory and macabre situations featuring real-life murders and disasters were captured on film, and the real kicker was that they supposedly actually happened. Added to the mystery and urban legend of it all was the fact that you couldn’t just rent these VHS copies, which felt like copies of copies of copies, at a franchise like Blockbuster. No, it was more like the ma-and-pop video stores you’d find in a strip mall, where the “Faces of Death” cult films would be behind-the-counter only rentals or located in a back room, behind a beaded curtain, where the porn was, aka The Forbidden Place, where you were too embarrassed to venture despite your itching curiosity.

Yes, I’m speaking from experience, but I’ve also never seen John Alan Schwartz’s “Faces of Death”, which debuted in 1978 and ended its six-movie run in 1999, or any of its subsequent sequel videos in their entirety. The most I recall is a scene in one of them where dinner guests are served a live monkey, whose head is positioned as a table centerpiece (while the rest of the body is trapped beneath the table) for them to bash in with a hammer. Once the monkey is dead, the server would peel back its skull to reveal cranial delicacies. That must be one of the more memorable scenes from the original faux documentary, since it’s one of many deaths featured and recreated (like all evolution, a human replaces a monkey) in this new “Faces of Death” movie.

Director Daniel Goldhaber (“How to Blow Up a Pipeline”) has created a “Faces of Death” that isn’t a sequel or a remake, but rather a modern update set in a world aware of the original videos. Goldhaber reunites with his writing partner, Isa Mazzei (“CAM”), offering a screenplay that leans into how our current social media world has made it so we have what’s akin to snuff films 24/7 at our fingertips. There’s a disturbing and demented serial killer in this “Faces of Death”, but he’s actually a content creator with the same goal as so many other posters: getting views and gaining followers, or put simply, “attention”. It’s kind of surprising that we don’t see him monetize his posts.

The movie’s protagonist is Margot Romero (Barbie Ferriera), a young woman who works as a content moderator for a fictional company, Kino Moderation, based in Louisiana. Their main product is a TikTok-style app, and Margot’s job is to review and categorize all uploaded videos, flagging those that are too violent or sexually explicit. It’s equally fascinating and alarming that such parameters are seemingly left to her discretion. What immediately becomes curious is how Margot works in a cubicle environment, where she sits in an office alongside coworkers, who presumably do the same thing, like the surly stoner, Gabby (Charli XCX), and interacts with her boss, Josh (Jermaine Fowler, from last month’s “Night Patrol”), who’s looking to offer her more responsibilities. For a job that can easily be remote, it feels like this workplace atmosphere was specifically made for this movie, and at the same time, there’s a curious pretentious importance to a company like Kino that would justify it even having a physical location.

Just imagine your job is to leave your home and sit at a cubicle and be subjected to a never-ending stream of superfluous posts (that kind that you and I doom scroll), to determine what should or should not be flagged for removal. That sounds like you’re living out a horror movie. Kino’s terms of service or their policies and procedures aren’t necessarily spelled out for us, but like so much of American media, its tolerance for violent content is greater than any sexual content. We’re prudes when it comes to girls dancing in their underwear, but lax about a human getting fatally run over by a truck.

What’s sort of endearing about Margot is how she actually feels like her job makes a difference, or at least has the potential to. I get that. But the sheer amount of content is daunting. I’d rather there be less out there to evaluate than have someone feel like they’re “making a difference” amidst an insurmountable amount of content. The thing is, Kino is aware of algorithms, what goes viral, and how dismemberment clips that get the most views are considered hits. So, it’s not like Margot is working for a morality-policing company; they just want to avoid lawsuits. Clearly, it’s not a company concerned with the psychological ramifications of the content.

One day, Margot stumbles upon strange videos that seem too real. They depict murders committed by an unseen content creator, and the images greatly affect her, which shows that she’s obviously not as desensitized as the millions of content creators and viewers. What she’s exposed to poses a risk to her already fragile mental health. This is primarily because when Margot is out and about, many of her peers recognize her as “Train Girl”, which brings to mind the recent tragic death of her sister. We gradually learn that Margot was involved in her sister’s death and understandably feels responsible. It was an accident stemming from a reckless social media stunt, which is why Margot has dedicated her time and energy to drawing a clearer line between real life and clickbait content.

Considering what she’s endured in real life and what she’s recently come across at her job, Margot is now struggling to determine what the responsible thing to do is. Considering what she is known for, who will listen or believe her enough to look into these murders?

Meanwhile, a mobile phone store manager in Florida, Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), has become adept at masking his insanity, not just because he wears an expressionless white mask when entrapping his victims. His job provides him with the data to stalk and abduct influencers he targets, whether they appear on social media or television, and upon doing so, he involves them in recreating murders from the “Faces of Death” videos, using them as victims. He’s a serial killer averse to blood, but careful with his recreations, which often involve motion-controlled mannequins that dispense violence, with the goal of online approval for his meticulously produced viciousness.

Due to her artist roommate, Ryan’s (Aaron Holiday) love for grotesque horror flicks, Margot is gradually able to connect the dots that this guy is recreating the “Faces of Death” murders online. They look so real because they are, and Goldhaber and Mazzei go out of their way to show us that Arthur’s victims are people very familiar to us. We spend time with Samantha (Josie Totah), a young online influencer who posts her entire life for all to follow, and with a local television news anchor, Neal (Kurt Yue), both of whom will become unwilling actors in Arthur’s staged recreations. Because we know who Arthur is and what he’s up to, our focus during his apprehensions is on his soon-to-be victims and exactly when they realize what is about to happen. There are no jump scares in these moments because we’re well aware of who the killer is; instead, the looming abductions become something we’re spectators of, much like the content we stumble upon while doom-scrolling. Thankfully, cinematographer Isaac Bauman steers clear of shaky-cam antics that have become all too familiar with the horror genre, and instead utilizes space and lighting in an appropriately crescendoed manner.

The third act of “Faces of Death” features an intense cat-and-mouse game between Margot and Arthur, which begins online and culminates in an encounter in Louisiana. It’s both impressive and alarming how Goldhaber captures Arthur’s online discovery of Margot’s identity, because we know this kind of thing can happen, and we’re hoping someone would take Margot’s concerns, as hysterical as they may be, seriously. Ferriera and Montgomery really hold the movie together and deliver some fine work here, especially in the frenzied third act, when they’re confronting each other. So captivating are their performances that they feel like they are turning their roles into something more than is on the page. It’s not that the writing lacks anything, because it actually doesn’t, which is not quite what one would expect in a “Faces of Death” movie, but the two actors are definitely reasons enough to take note of this being not just another horror flick.

The movie and its two main characters have something to say about online life, its isolation and desensitization, and most prominently the dopamine rush of content creation. Whoever thought a “Faces of Death” movie for the social media age would make sense, let alone be this spot-on when it comes to the deadening of humanity and the search for online recognition? At no point does the movie try to trick viewers; it captures the unease of the original movie (and its sequels), but mostly it feels scarily real in a world where we’re subjected to hundreds of reels each day that we most likely think are fake.

RATING: ***1/2