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Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Nerds explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Faces of Death
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Our conversation takes a twist as we nostalgically wander through the chaotic yet endearing Hollywood escapades of the Lawrence brothers, especially our favorite, Joey Lawrence. We then transport you back to the golden era of video rentals and late-night TV, reminiscing about Kansas City's own quirky used car dealer and horror movie connoisseur, Ray Stevens, who added his unique charm to our spooky-themed adventure.
As we stroll through the aisles of memory, we dive into the fascinating world of iconic VHS covers that once sparked our imaginations. Remember the striking imagery of "Road Games" or the chilling allure of "Fright Night"? We do too, and we've got stories to share about how these visuals led us into a realm of curiosity and intrigue. Of course, we couldn't resist exploring the allure of infamous titles like "Pink Flamingos" and the controversial "Faces of Death," whose provocative covers blurred the lines between fact and fiction, leaving a lasting impact on the horror genre and our youthful minds.
Wrapping up this whimsical journey, we reflect on the broader cultural impact of controversial films and their role in shaping the horror landscape. Despite their taboo nature, these films paved the way for genres like found footage horror, with "The Blair Witch Project" drawing inspiration from their daring audacity. As we muse about embracing individual tastes and the etiquette of supporting local businesses, we invite you to chuckle, reminisce, and perhaps even learn a thing or two about the quirks of pop culture nostalgia. So, grab your favorite snack, settle in, and join us on this playful ride through the intersection of geek rock, VHS treasures, and the evolution of horror. Godspeed, fair Wizards!
Pop Culture Nostalgia and Movie Rentals
Speaker 1Hey, Matthew, clean it up.
Speaker 2One was with Devo, one was with Oingo Boingo. They both became like really successful cinema scorers.
Speaker 1But I mean, don't they just both get crushed by Trent?
Speaker 2No, how many did he even do? Mark Mothersbaugh's done like 10 million movies, and so has fucking Danny Elfman Trent.
Speaker 1Reznor does like five movies. Are you talking? You don't even know what you're fucking talking about, do you? He's doing like every new movie that comes out.
Speaker 2Okay. Did he belong to a geek rock band in the 80s?
Speaker 1I can neither confirm nor deny.
Speaker 2That's probably not what we're talking about.
Speaker 1Perhaps he did.
Speaker 2Oh, you think so, Perhaps? Yeah, I remember that time Trent Reznor beat out. They Might Be Giants for that one Wes Anderson movie. Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds. Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative All weapons Now Charge the lightning field. Joey Lawrence Discuss Whoa People forget, but in Blossom he was a minor league baseball player. That was his arc.
Speaker 1But did he clear all the bases with Blossom there?
Speaker 2His sister. Let me think back on the show. Hmm, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 1Well, I did not remember. They were brother and sister.
Speaker 2That was her older brother. Ah, who gives a shit? Only Joey Lawrence, and even that might be stretching it. To be perfectly honest, one of the Lawrences care, uh-huh. So it was like Joey, matthew, andrew, andrew, jennifer, beelzebub, tito, and then that last Culkin that everyone forgets Squeaky, it's squeaky. Yep, it is definitely that. No, it's a hulking. He was the minor professional wrestler that they forget about. He wore this crazy, weird drape over his face.
Speaker 1One of his finishing moves is he throws micro machines on the mat and then hits you with a paint can Give him the old blooming onion.
Speaker 2Well, that's after the show. No, we're done with Joey Lawrence, I think.
Speaker 1Oh no, joey Lawrence isn't done with us, is that?
Speaker 2a Magnolia reference. The good book says he might be done with Joey Lawrence. Joey Lawrence ain't done with you.
Speaker 1Now I'm just thinking of Joey Lawrence in other films. I abandoned my Joey Lawrence you know what.
Speaker 2Just like Hollywood, I have a hard time imagining Joey Lawrence in other films.
Speaker 1Well, not everything works.
Speaker 2No, in fact very little of what we do does.
Speaker 1We can't all be Joey Lawrence.
Speaker 2Hey, we can't all be Joey Lawrence.
Speaker 1Hey, pick and choose. Only one of us gets to be Joey Lawrence.
Speaker 2Hey, Andrew. Matthew, one of us gets to eat this week, All right.
Speaker 1Hey, is your name Joey Lawrence? I don't think so.
Speaker 2Alright, joey Lawrence cares about one guy, joey Lawrence. I just imagined somebody throwing a T-bone steak, partly chewed, down on the floor, and the Lawrence brothers are ravaging it, along with, reluctantly, two Baldwin brothers.
Speaker 1All of a sudden, heath Ledger comes out and he just breaks a pool, cue over his knee and throws the shards down.
Speaker 2That's very much like Halloween.
Speaker 1Some people just want to see the brothers burn. Welcome back to Dispatch Ajax on this obviously very spooky episode.
Speaker 2Very, very spooky.
Speaker 1I am your slowly dying and decaying host, Jake, along with my other host.
Speaker 2Oh me, yeah, it's me Skip.
Speaker 1It's the ghost formerly known as Skip.
Speaker 2Obviously, this is spooky season. Spooky get spooked, get the fuck spooked. I'm yelling at my dogs, I'm not. No, they're actually outside.
Speaker 1They can't hear you.
Speaker 2I made sure they can't hear Skip. Jake, when we were kids, it was a different time yes, I remember we were one, if I, if I remember right, we were animated and there was a uh, a soundtrack done by a guy from a famous geek band, right. And then we, we walked around in our diapers and then made commentary on Was that not? Oh, is that rug rats? I ain't no rug rat. That is interesting. Mashing that up with professor murder, that is actually.
Speaker 1I'm very curious as to how that would go. I know Tommy pickles.
Speaker 2I know Tommy pickles Fuck, that's a good one.
Speaker 1You didn't have the internet at the tip of your fingers, didn't have streaming options. You wanted to see new movies, old movies. You went to one place.
Speaker 2That was the video store, channel 62.
Speaker 1For your reruns, didn't the video store Channel?
Speaker 262. Boy, your reruns didn't have a oh God, Ray Stevens, Ray Stevens. That's what I was. That's exactly what I was thinking of Local. Kansas City car dealer who hosted a late night horror B movie, sort of like the Joe Bob Briggs.
Speaker 1Yeah, or like Sven Gulli, or.
Speaker 2Sven Gulli, but he was literally a used car dealer. Like he didn't have a background in film, but he apparently loved that shit. I remember watching Robocop hosted by Ray Stevens on that, like whoa late night theater or whatever it was called.
Speaker 2it was the fucking best, because he'd come back and go wow, that was weird. Huh, oh man, he was this older man with bottled yeah, bottle, I mean coke bottle glasses and, uh, a beard with gray streaks in it, slick back hair and just look kind of like a guy that in the 80s would well, I don't know. He was kind of weird. Looking for a used car dealer too. You could tell he was kind of an odd dude, but yeah, he owned a chain of used car dealerships in Kansas City and he would host a late night B-movie festival every Friday night on Channel 60.
Speaker 1Yes, If you weren't catching Ray Stevens on Channel 62.
Speaker 2Not the streak, but the used car dealer from Kansas City, ray Stevens, on Channel 62. Not the streak, but the used car dealer from.
Speaker 1Kansas City, ray Stevens. Yeah, if you weren't catching either of them on your local TV channel, which you only had five of them at the time you went to the movie store, the video store, the movie store that makes me sound like you're too old for even that.
Speaker 2If you wanted your own reel-to-reel it makes it sound like like you were my grandfather taking me to the video store you want to go to the movie store, man nelson strikes again. I had one cousin that worked at the uh lee summit for and then his brother worked at Price Chopper Video.
Speaker 1Ah yeah, price Chopper Video.
Speaker 2Oh man, where I, for literally no discernible reason other than being related to a guy that worked there, got the Primo rental package where you were supposed to like if you ran a certain number of videos in video games or whatever. You get these fake dollars that you get to like to turn back in. You have enough of them you get to. The ultimate prize was for 30 days. You got to rent up to five Sega Genesis. Well, just video games Five.
Speaker 1What.
Speaker 2No a day.
Speaker 1I know it's crazy.
Speaker 2It's crazy, as Chef Boyardee might have said, who's giving these deals? It's ironic because it sounds like a mario, but it's a sega. And then my brother and I would literally go up there every day and we'd play all of them and take them all back and then. So I played a lot of michael jackson's moonwalker on sega genesis but it was Genesis.
Speaker 1It was a choice.
Speaker 2It was a choice I made.
Speaker 1He could have chosen anything. That's what he picked, the thing is I did choose anything.
Speaker 2I chose literally everything.
Speaker 1And the thing that stuck.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, no, that's just the once, but yes, anyway.
Speaker 1Well, when you weren't getting video games or watching Channel 62, you'd go pick up movies. I know like every time I went as a kid, I never failed to always pick up Big Trouble in Little China and I'd get something else along with it?
Speaker 2Was it just you, or were your parents involved?
Speaker 1No, I mean my parents would take me, you know.
Speaker 2You're a wandering vagabond like some sort of-.
Speaker 1No, no, they would just let me go pick whatever I wanted, and so I usually got to pick two movies. Okay, whatever I wanted, they'd pick their own things and like we'd watch them all together, whatever. Sure, but every once in a while I'd pick a horror film. But some of them always kind of stuck out in my mind, like I can still see the box art cover Absolutely, but I never actually rented the film.
Speaker 2So, like the 1989 film Shocker starring Mitch, Pelleggi, I don't know if you remember this, oh, I do but yeah the cover it's all black and there's just Mitch Pelleggi in the.
Exploitative Horror Films and Controversy
Speaker 1He almost looks like a crash test dummy outfit, yeah. And he's just Mr Procedure in the. He almost looks like a crash test dummy outfit, yeah, and he's just getting electrocuted on the chair and he's like gritting his teeth. I always remember that there's a film called Road Games Huh, from that's 1981. It was an Australian film. Oh okay, but I always remembered. It's like still to this day. It's one of my favorite movie poster, vhs covers Okay here just Google Road Games.
Speaker 2I'm looking right now.
Speaker 1So it's starring Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Speaker 2Oh, I remember seeing this.
Speaker 1Yeah, so it's this woman and you only see her a third of the face down and then your chest and she has like this black tank top on and her nipples kind of perked up. And there are these hands that are glove, like driver gloves.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And one of them is holding what looks to be maybe her necklace, or maybe it's piano wire that's going around her neck.
Speaker 2Or also flashing that white supremacist temple.
Speaker 1Well, the other hand is supposedly like pulling down what would be a zipper on the front of her shirt. Right, but it's done in the yellow dividing lines of a highway.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's funny. There's a different one that is really similar that I don't know if you've seen this one. It's send it to you. I don't know if you've seen this one. It's almost the exact same cover, but they show the woman's face and it is not Jamie Lee Curtis. But it is definitely from that. Hold on, let me.
Speaker 1They show the woman's face. Oh yeah, oh, yeah, I see that.
Speaker 2Let me see if it's the same one.
Speaker 1I think it's supposed to look like Jamie.
Speaker 2Lee Curtis. It does not look anything like Jamieie lee curtis it doesn't yeah no, it does not yeah no, it does.
Speaker 1I mean it looks like. Uh, if madame clouseau did a wax sculpture of jamie lee curtis, I think that's what it would look like it's more like if helen keller did a wax sculpture. It's not that it's not thatimilar especially like side by side with the Jamie Lee Curtis picture.
Speaker 2Yes, stacey Kidd. Yeah, no, I've always wanted to see this.
Speaker 1It's one of those that, like it, always caught my eye and I've always remembered it, but I never rented it because it was kind of like I don't know. I was essentially like allowed to watch anything I could rent, just about anything I wanted and watch anything I wanted, all right, but I just never did it.
Speaker 1It looked interesting and kind of titillating to like a preteen boy, of course, but not enough to like keep me from, I don't know, renting RoboCop 2 or Legend or whatever weird film I was going to rent. Do you have any?
Speaker 2that stuck out to you in the old days. I've never seen this, but I saw a lot of that kind of thing, Honestly, the ones that really stuck out Fright Night.
Speaker 1Oh, Fright Night had a great cover.
Speaker 2One of the greatest scariest covers I've ever seen. Yeah, doesn't represent the film that well, but which is fine. It's kind of deceptive because you know.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean it's again, if you guys haven't seen it. It's a silhouetted old Victorian house and there's like a person in a window that's lit up, otherwise a dark three-story house, but above it the clouds have formed into like a gaping vampire maw with these other kind of ghouls escaping out the side of it all in like cloud form.
Speaker 2It's a terrifying image it really is, and it's funny because if you watch the movie, they are depicting characters from the movie, but the character that's the most terrifying in that cover is the lamest character maybe in the history of horror. Yeah, who you just want to punch in the face constantly, oh it's the her. What? No, I thought that was the dude, the spiky haired dude.
Speaker 1No, no, Like, if you just Google Fright Night, you'll see that it's side by side. If you click on the first picture that comes up and then you see on the left hand, like next to it, it's exactly the woman.
Speaker 2Oh, you're right, it's when she does the whole, Okay, but she's also not really that big a part of that.
Speaker 1No, not at all.
Speaker 2Well, I always just assumed it was that idiot.
Speaker 1Yeah yeah, his best friend, the main character's best friend.
Speaker 2Yeah, who's in a bunch of the other promotional stuff? He's the Bud, the Chud of the Fright Night universe.
Speaker 1He always reminded me of the Karate Kid guy. Put him in a body bag, Johnny.
Speaker 2Yes, he's very much like that guy, 100%. Also completely underrated horror film Fright Night yeah, Life Force.
Speaker 1Oh, Life Force it wasn't even salacious.
Speaker 2It was just fascinating. I wanted to know what was happening.
Speaker 1Yeah, there was another film that I never rented from the video store Not that video store. I knew about it. I knew of it. I'd heard whispers. You'd pass by the horror aisle and you'd see the cover. Oh, should I do it? You know, am I allowed to do it? It was called pink flamingos eat shit that's the subtitle semicolon eat shit.
Speaker 2Oh man, I can't wait for Sam Raimi to do Pink Flamingo as the remake.
Speaker 1Weirdly, actual horror in a way being shown. This film also purportedly had that. It was an all-black cover, a lame skull drawn on it and in big red letters it said Faces of.
Speaker 2Death. Faces of Death. Okay, all right. Today we are talking about Faces of Death. Faces of Death Okay, alright, today we are talking about Faces of Death here. Hold on, let me open my Boulevard Wheat with my Kansas City Chief's bottle opener Now for all you kids who don't know.
Speaker 1now you know. That's it. Enjoy the podcast. Hope you come back for next episode.
Speaker 2Don't forget to like, share and subscribe.
Speaker 1Please recommend to all your parents and their grandparents and any vice principals you know what's up?
Speaker 2Jeffrey Jones, Do not talk to Jeffrey Jones. Wow.
Speaker 1Similarly sick and disturbing. This is a 1978 pseudo-documentary found footage-y collection that was purported to be real deaths and mutilations and things captured on film Holocaust. But this was part of the what would become known as like a Mondo film, which is kind of a sub-genre of exploitative documentary films. You know they're like in a pseudo-documentaries they're usually focused on sensational topics, be it sex, death, torture. A lot of times they'll have like scenes from quote-unquote other countries. They tended to be very ethnocentric.
Speaker 2And it was also kind of like the flip side of cinema verite it was supposed to. It was kind of like the grindhouse version of cinema verite where it's like yeah quite true, yeah.
Speaker 1I mean, a lot of it came out of, you know, some European, a lot of Italian grindhouse, shock documentary stuff. You know where it's like, oh, let's go check in on this African tribe or the South American tribe. And then, with Faces of Death, it kind of became this isn't quite a snuff film, but it's the closest you can get.
Speaker 2Right. I think that was kind of like brought back later, unfortunately, with the torture porn genre. It was a green inferno by Eli Roth. Yes, yeah, that's what it feels like.
Speaker 1That's very Mondo-ish, that's the feel that's very Cannibal, holocaust-y Right. Yes, as opposed to those where you could like those are definitely films. This was a little more like purported to be real and this was a time when the rumor was as much fact as anything. This is still like. This is long before blair witch. You know where it's like oh, did this happen? Is this stuff real? It was enough to where it got put on britain's list, you know, after britain passed the video recordings act of 84, where anything extreme or obscene wasn't allowed to be shown in the country and was banned. Stuff like Night of the Living Dead, evil Dead, phantasm those were all video nasties that weren't allowed. Face of Death was much more extreme. I mean. It did end up getting banned in many other countries like Australia, new Zealand, germany. In total, it was banned in, I think, 46 countries.
Speaker 2No, 48 countries, which is funny because it's not real oh well, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1It was voted the 27th most controversial film of all time. I don't know where they did that, but that is something that the director purported himself. Now, the director was not Conan LeSelary, because that was a pseudonym for Steve Jones. Steve Jones, no, john Alan Schwartz.
Speaker 2Okay, alright, that's actually a better one than I had.
Speaker 1He was breaking into the film business. He had worked on some documentary footage and was learning how to piece things together, and then they came up with this idea. He actually watched something called the Hellstorm Chronicles, which is a cool name for a film. It was a movie about etymologists who believe that insects will destroy mankind and take over the earth. It was shot as a documentary and so when he watched it he was convinced. He thought it was true. But as the credits rolled he discovered it had twisted truth with fiction.
Speaker 2Like 90 percent of disney films, the whole lemmings thing and the whole davy crockett shit, like all of that was fabricated by disney.
Speaker 1It's the same thing, yeah, all those Disney documentaries were complete fabrications. I mean really honestly, documentaries have had problems with that since the very inception. I mean Nanook of the North was a big proponent of that. You know? Wait, what was that? 1910? 10?
Speaker 11920s Somewhere around there 1920s, somewhere around there, yeah, so he kind of came up with this idea putting these shocking and extreme sequences to film. But he had to come up with an idea because, as they were laying out some of these footages that they had, they realized that they needed something to bring it together. So they found this guy, michael carr, who just happened to be someone they found around where they're working in In their parking lot.
Speaker 2Yeah, by the dumpster.
Speaker 1I think the story they told is that he had seen him and he thought, oh, this guy's like kind of weird and creepy. He would be perfect as our pseudo host.
Exploitative Horror Films and Influence
Speaker 1He wasn't as good a quarterback as David or Derek Carr, so he plays this pathologist who is showing you these purported real scenes of death and dismemberment and whatnot. And to get to that earlier thing that you had said about the veracity of the thing, an original film is a mixture of both real footage and fake footage. So about 60% of the footage in Face of Death is real, about 40% is fake or embellished. And again, to describe what happens in Face of Death is real, about 40% is fake or embellished. And again, to describe what happens in Face of Death, there's stuff like a woman jumping to her death. There is Holocaust footage, there are car accidents, mangled corpses.
Speaker 1You have, I think they said, the pathologist to the stars, which is how he was known. He showed some autopsy footage that he had done. But you also had stuff that they did that was fake. Now, some of it they filmed, some of it they bought from news organizations, but a lot of stuff. They went all over the place. They went to a lot of slaughterhouses and watched animals being killed and mutilated. He told a lot of wild stories. There was this one story he told that he went to this lamb slaughterhouse and this guy he said, put me in the film. And he's like why should I put you in the film and this guy just reached down and bit the ear off a live lamb, as it screams out before he murdered the lamb.
Speaker 1He said that was crazy and he was very disturbed. He didn't end up putting him in the film.
Speaker 2Good, thankfully somebody please prosecute that person.
Speaker 1Jesus fucking christ he said that the lamb screams reverberate in his head. To this claire starling said yeah, no, I mean, that's the first thing that popped my head when I read that right, yeah he went to compton and he found people doing underground dog fights and he was filming pit bulls fighting almost to the death.
Speaker 1Thankfully it wasn't to the death, they would put fake blood on the dogs and when one of the dogs fell down due to exhaustion they were able to stop the fight and they cut the scene so it looks like the dog dies there. Another famous scene in the film kind of goes back to the Mondo film roots and also the genre that's known as a guna guna epic, and a lot of those were exploitation pseudo documentaries that focused on the far east and southeast asia and africa and south america and the pacific have shown these exploitative scenes of native cultures. And oh, look at the weird stuff they do for shock value because it's not like us, but the one that they do. They went to I think it was an Indian restaurant and they were kind of Temple of Doom.
Speaker 1He had remembered a story of in some Middle East where they would eat monkey brains at the table. He got a monkey trainer and then they mocked up a monkey head and they built this table so that you collapse the table around the monkey and only his head is sticking out and they put the monkey in there and the monkey started freaking out, obviously just terrified, and the trainer tried to calm him down and the monkey wouldn't. And so they then filmed the monkey getting hit with mallets, but they were prop mallets, they didn't hurt the monkey wouldn't. And so they then filmed the monkey getting hit with mallets, but they were prop mallets, they didn't hurt the monkey at all.
Speaker 2Still, though, I mean.
Speaker 1Still, though. Then they took the monkey out and they had a fake monkey head that they then filmed with real mallets bashing the monkey head open, and then they had fake brains. That then the Middle Easterners at the table would pick spoons up and eat the monkey brains Middle Easterners at the table would pick spoons up and eat the monkey brains.
Speaker 2I mean, were they supposed to be Middle Easterners, or were they supposed to be Indian or Pakistani, or like what? I mean, what does that even mean? I mean Because there's a. I mean, are they talking about the Hindu world or the Muslim world, or even just in grass generalities? I don't think that they cared about that. They didn't care about that in Temple of Doom either.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean they had the monkey and his trainer dressed up in Middle East garb.
Speaker 2Yeah, pretty great.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, again, this is the late 70s. They're trying to be shocking, exploitative. That's kind of what all these films are about, and this was kind of pushing forth into not only showing these lewd and crude depictions of other cultures and practices but also these horrific actual deaths. To this day some people watch that still believe that monkey scene was real. Sure, and they actually killed him.
Speaker 1But one of the people who made that monkey head was a guy named Alan Apone who went on to do makeup effects in much bigger things like Captain America, Winter Soldier, Westworld, Django, Unchained. That was one of his early beginnings before he could work on Dunkirk or Suicide Squad, yeah. But it became infamous because there were these real deaths and it was all purported quote to be real and the lines of fact and fiction. They were very blurry at the time and so it was always like oh, have you seen faces, death, should we rent face? The death you want to like see. This is because this is long before you had rottencom and things, before the horrors of the world were easily laid bare for anybody with a mouse and a screen. Back then you had what was purported to be a real documentary at the time real death.
Speaker 2Well, at this time. These were tapes. I mean, you could watch it in the theater and you could render the video story eventually. But like this and the things that were wrought after it because of it were those things that you just like, these underground tapes you would get in college and somebody had this videotape that you could watch that really had this thing. That was really dark. It was totally real, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know, you get your ban from television or your death scenes, your traces of death, your faces of gore, right? You know shit like that.
Speaker 2Mr Show actually has a very funny skit about that yeah they do. They're not really fucking Underground videotape. Railroad. Yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 1The film was made for $450,000 and it grossed at the box office $35 million, oh boy, and supposedly at least by 2013, had grossed $60 million total, Jesus Christ. So I mean this was big business and became a huge thing at the time. Did it spawn sequels? I mean, yeah, there was a whole series. I think there were five or six Faces of Death. Sequels Sounds about right, and at least the first one. They didn't feel like just showing some of these scenes, just bam bam bam kind of told a story, and so they wanted to have this pathologist character like you're dealing with what these scenes mean, and a human take on some of this. In the latest sequels they dispose of all of that and it just becomes true grindhouse. Let's just find, yeah.
Speaker 2Like real autopsies and shit like that. Yeah, absolutely yeah. Which is now you can just find that online, Even like there's no reason for even a website or a you know or a collection of it. You just find that online.
Speaker 1I mean, there are plenty of places where you can just find, In fact, to the extent where there are plenty of places where you can just find, in fact to the extent where Face of Death. I think it is something that some people saw and kind of helped push the boundaries decades later when they were making films, whether it be your Saws or your Hostiles, your Turistas, turistas, yeah, green Infernos, things like that, you know, especially when they're trying to ape those Mondo films in a way.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm man. They're almost poking fun at them for being only half true. You know, it feels like, to a certain extent, the filmmakers that made films after that. I feel like they like playing in that space but they don't want to give the impression that they're actually real. Like you know, saw is not real. Nobody's really tried in. Legitimate filmmakers have tried to do the phases of death thing again and I think for a good reason.
Speaker 1One reason might be because it did affect some people immensely. There's a story of the high school teacher in 1985 who screened it for his class.
Speaker 2Oh, that's right screened it for his class oh that's right.
Speaker 1But a year later, in 1986, there was a 15-year-old boy who did kill somebody. He beat a classmate of his to death with a baseball bat.
Speaker 2I was going to say a baseball.
Speaker 1That's impressive actually, yeah unfortunately, when he was interviewed by a psychiatric counselor, he said that he decided to kill someone and he wanted to see what it was like and really feel it after he had seen the Faces of Death video that depicted both animal and human deaths and he said that it sparked that in him. Now, hopefully, in the next year or two, when the Faces of Death remake.
Speaker 2What is the point of a Faces of Death remake? It's like the Blair Witch remake. What is the point? What are you trying to accomplish here? I don't know, I don't, I don't know, I don't know what you're trying to accomplish here.
Speaker 1I do not understand it, but it is in the process of being made Euphoria's Barbie Ferreira and Stranger Things' Daiquiri Montgomery. It's written and directed by the same team behind 2018's digital horror film Cam I don't know which would be Daniel Goldhaber. He's also the guy who did how to Blow Up a Pipeline, which is very good. That's well worth your time. I don't really know. A woman employed as a website content moderator comes across a series of violent videos reproducing death scenes from a film.
Faces of Death and Horror Influence
Speaker 2Okay, so right. So now, if you're going to remake it, it has to be a meta thing where it's not yeah, it's not the direct audience reaction to it, it's the audience reacting to an audience reacting to it because we know that it's not real.
Speaker 1Yes, thankfully, that does appear to be the avenue that they're going. Well, how?
Speaker 2else could you do it? You know what I mean. Otherwise, just waiting for other people to forget that it happened, but not in the internet age this is not how it works.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2I mean I don't know, I mean I don't that's the only way you can do it honestly, unless well, I mean not the only way, but the only if you want to make it that type of film. That's the only way you can do it. The other one is to be like you go like the scream meta version, but you know, like that's, that's a different animal. Or to do the new matlock tv show, where they are aware that Matlock was a TV show, so what?
Speaker 1I don't know. This cam movie's on Alice. An ambitious cam girl wakes up one day to discover that she's been replaced on her show with an exact replica of herself.
Speaker 2I've actually watched it a couple of times accidentally.
Speaker 1It's okay, you accidentally watched it a couple times.
Speaker 2Well, because I watched it. It was the it same thing. But from before I watched it and I was like half paying attention. I got all the way to the end I'm like, oh, I see what you're doing here at the end, and then I'm like looking around for another movie to play in the background and I'm like, oh, this seems interesting and I put it on and I'm like, have I seen this? And then I'm working and then like 45 minutes hour. Then I'm working and then like 45 minutes hour into it I'm like, fuck, I have seen this. Well, I've already fucking put this much time into it.
Speaker 1Okay, Premise-wise, it's interesting.
Speaker 2I'm not saying it's terrible, because there are way more movies that are worse than that, but it's okay.
Speaker 1All right, good to know. And I'd say in general, folks, I can't recommend face of death, not for me, especially two, three, four. No, thank you again you guys do you?
Speaker 1but as a a cultural moment I think it's a big one, helped, you know, spark a lot of things and a lot of people, filmmakers that you might know and recognize their works kind of helped with blurring the lines of real and unreal, those found footage, documentary type things, I think Faces of Death it's a precursor to a lot of that stuff it really basically is like Faces of Death, and then I mean in the mainstream at least, blair Witch, there's not really a lot in between.
Speaker 2That was culturally that impactful.
Speaker 1There are plenty of films in between. I mean Cannibal Holocaust comes out after UFO abduction, sure, but are those as culturally relevant?
Speaker 2No, not as big. By the time you get to Blair Witch, you're living in a house that the Faces of Death built, and with a lot of hit and misses between so.
Speaker 1Yeah, but it's definitely a unique thing.
Speaker 2And.
Speaker 1I thought for this Halloween, let's peer at one of the darker paths that horror films I mean, if even is gore and death and atrocities I guess that's horror in a way, the horrors of mankind. It's not my type of horror.
Speaker 2But you know like I'm grossed out by it and I don't want any of this. But I understand.
Speaker 1Um, if you're not weirded out, okay, that's fine yeah, but I mean, feel free to take a gander you know, deal with uh your own look at morality and mortality in your own way.
Speaker 2Yeah, and if you want to look at the tapestry of the horror genre and even the reality genre like it's, you probably should watch it. I mean, you really should just kind of know, you know, like, where these things come from if you want to understand the current landscape.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean again. It's one of those building block pieces and for us, especially of our generation, it was one of those it was out in the open but it was, yeah, it was taboo and you know it was always with with hushed whispers and you know shady back of the store deals, kind of.
Speaker 2But you could get it at blockbuster.
Speaker 1I actually don't think blockbuster carried it.
Speaker 2I think it was banned, but there were establishments, yes it is Hushstones and it is stuff that you think you're getting something secret, something taboo, something from like the movie 8mm. You think you're going to that fucking weird bazaar and you're getting this secret thing or whatever, but maybe you'd have to go behind a curtain. But yeah, you could totally fucking rent it.
Speaker 1The weird thing is that as more sequels came out, I think it became more okay, but those were just more gratuitous.
Speaker 2Yeah, those got worse.
Speaker 1Just straight death and shootings and bombings, absolutely Faces of Death, is on Shudder and it's on Roku. It's probably on the Roku channel. Yeah, yeah, it's on the Roku channel.
Speaker 2It is a cultural touchstone. I'm out. It just never really appealed to me. No.
Speaker 1No, no, it's nothing I need to see.
Speaker 2But understandable that it exists.
Speaker 1No no. And it had a purpose. And you know, I think there is even some element of artistry from what the director was trying to do and whatnot?
Speaker 2Sure, yeah, I mean, it's been mimicked so many times, it has to be doing something, right, right?
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, he was trying to say something. Whether his aims amounted to a hill of beans in the end for better ills, that's up for debate, but that's not our hill, to put a flag into A hill of beans to die on man, you're just really fingers on the pulse of the nation.
Speaker 2man, you're so online, so hip man.
Speaker 1All of my metaphors. Slap my friend.
Speaker 2No more malarkey, says Jake Nelson.
Speaker 1No more malarkey.
Speaker 2All my analogies, they're rizzed up, my friend Rizzed up. I don't think you're using that right.
Speaker 1It's very demure, very mindful.
Speaker 2Whoa, you're being real Brett right now.
Speaker 1Well, sometimes Brett's got to watch Facebook, sometimes it's Brett Ratner, sometimes it's yes.
Speaker 2No, I don't know, I had nothing to do with that. All right, well, there's something there, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1Tune in for your next spooky tale of the geeky world that you all live in. Please like, share, subscribe. Rate us five faces of death on the podcast app of your choice.
Speaker 2That actually works, kudos.
Speaker 1On Apple Podcasts. That is the easiest way for us to be seen. Thank you for listening. We greatly appreciate each and every one of you and hope that we have brightened your day or informed you in some way.
Speaker 2Despite faces of death.
Speaker 1You know everyone's got their thing.
Speaker 2We hope we brought sunshine to your day by presenting you with faces of death.
Speaker 1We didn't make you watch it, okay, but we will Skip until they listen to us next time what should they do?
Speaker 2They should clean up after themselves to some sort of reasonable degree. Make sure they pay their tabs. Make sure they've tipped their bartenders, KJs, DJs and the like. Make sure AJs Tip your AJs as well. Yeah, every AJ that you know AJ Bowen, aj Melendez, make sure to focus on the tip of any HJs also it depends on if they're circumcised or not. Make sure that you have I don't even know where I am Make sure you support your local comic shops and retailers. And from Dispatch HX we would like to say Godspeed, fair Wizards.
Speaker 1Please go away.