Movie Reviews
Movie Review: ‘Faces of Death’
The Video Age was an amazing boost to the film industry. Not only did it open up a whole new marketplace for studios to sell successful films too, it also became a secondary outlet to eventually recoup losses if a film performed poorly in theaters. It even opened up some films to a wider audience.Most Mom and Pop stores didn’t care that you weren’t seventeen and would rent you anything on their shelves, outside of those tapes behind the saloon doors in the back corner (from an industry that, let’s face it, probably profited more than any others since you no longer had to go to a gross and grimy theater), because every rental simply meant profit.This era also expanded an already moderately active subculture: The Cult Film. Some of those movies that didn’t do well in the theaters caught on with the rental audiences, and so did some that you might not have heard about until you stepped into the store that day. Video also helped bring into your home those movies you only heard about as being shown in midnight screenings in larger cities.There were also those that somehow became legendary through rumor. Movies whispered about in school halls or at recess. Movies that someone’s brother/cousin/friend-of-a-friend had seen at a sleepover. Movies so taboo that you’d be grounded for life if your parents found out you’d watched them. One of the most legendary of these was Faces of Death.A documentary supposedly featuring footage of real deaths, it was the king of the no-no videos, going well beyond anything else on the Video Nasties list. Though later debunked as containing faked scenes, it still holds a solid spot in the pantheon of Cult Cinema. This being the 21st century, where any past property is fair game, we of course now have a meta-reimagining also titled Faces of Death.Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works for Kino, an app similar to TikTok, as a content moderator. Every day she sits at her computer, watches the first moments of a video submitted for review and decides if it violates company standards or can stay on the platform.Margot has personal reasons for doing this, having gone horribly viral in a video, and she wants to make sure the internet is a safer place. When a series of videos come across her desk featuring deaths that look too real, she tries to get her boss, Josh (Jermaine Fowler), to go further than simply banning them, but he refuses. Since no one will listen to her, she violates the terms of the company’s NDA and begins investigating them in her free time.During her investigation, she discovers the existence of a movie called Faces of Death, and her horror-loving roommate, Ryan (Aaron Holliday), happens to have a copy. It turns out that someone is recreating scenes from the video, using the voiceover from the movie and possibly performing actual murders. That someone is Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), and Margot’s investigating puts her directly in his crosshairs.If you’re going to do anything modern with the rights to the original Faces of Death, this is definitely the direction to go. The film is a creative look into the desensitized modern screen culture and the Insta-fame of influencers. Director Daniel Goldhaber and his co-writer Isa Mazzei, who together in the same capacities brought us the excellent Netflix film Cam, have created an interesting and surprisingly entertaining treatise on the extremes that current society can make a person go to, similar to the message behind their other film How to Blow Up a Pipeline.While based on such a grotesquery as Faces of Death, Goldhaber has decided to hold back on the gore created for this version. There’s still a good amount of blood, but not as much as you might expect from something carrying this brand.Instead, the film’s more of a psychological cat-and-mouse thriller, where the emphasis is put on Margot’s investigation. Yes, through that we get to see not only Arthur’s recreations but also clips from the original video, but the filmmakers graciously curb the content shown. Plus, the slightly grainy look and the subdued lighting the Goldhaber gives to the film helps make it feel like a videotape from the 1980s, dipping us deeper into the intended effect I believe he is going for, here.Ferreira makes for an interesting choice for a Final Girl. While she’s a beautiful woman, she’s not the person would typically get hired for this role being that she’s also plus sized. This makes her more relatable than your usual Hollywood beauty. She’s not Jamie Lee or Neve, she’s you and me, and that makes the situation she finds herself in even more frightening.Montgomery is well cast as Arthur, too. He has the ability to put on this nerdy kind of public face, but his private persona is much more dangerous and off kilter. I look forward to viewing this where I can pause and see what videotape titles the filmmakers decided to put on the bookcase/door to his secret studio to see if that gives even more insight into Arthur’s mental state.While it didn’t blow me away, I really had no idea what to expect from Faces of Death. So, therefore, I can honestly say that my expectations were exceeded.
The Video Age was an amazing boost to the film industry. Not only did it open up a whole new marketplace for studios to sell successful films too, it also became a secondary outlet to eventually recoup losses if a film performed poorly in theaters. It even opened up some films to a wider audience.
Most Mom and Pop stores didn’t care that you weren’t seventeen and would rent you anything on their shelves, outside of those tapes behind the saloon doors in the back corner (from an industry that, let’s face it, probably profited more than any others since you no longer had to go to a gross and grimy theater), because every rental simply meant profit.
This era also expanded an already moderately active subculture: The Cult Film. Some of those movies that didn’t do well in the theaters caught on with the rental audiences, and so did some that you might not have heard about until you stepped into the store that day. Video also helped bring into your home those movies you only heard about as being shown in midnight screenings in larger cities.
There were also those that somehow became legendary through rumor. Movies whispered about in school halls or at recess. Movies that someone’s brother/cousin/friend-of-a-friend had seen at a sleepover. Movies so taboo that you’d be grounded for life if your parents found out you’d watched them. One of the most legendary of these was Faces of Death.
A documentary supposedly featuring footage of real deaths, it was the king of the no-no videos, going well beyond anything else on the Video Nasties list. Though later debunked as containing faked scenes, it still holds a solid spot in the pantheon of Cult Cinema. This being the 21st century, where any past property is fair game, we of course now have a meta-reimagining also titled Faces of Death.
Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works for Kino, an app similar to TikTok, as a content moderator. Every day she sits at her computer, watches the first moments of a video submitted for review and decides if it violates company standards or can stay on the platform.
Margot has personal reasons for doing this, having gone horribly viral in a video, and she wants to make sure the internet is a safer place. When a series of videos come across her desk featuring deaths that look too real, she tries to get her boss, Josh (Jermaine Fowler), to go further than simply banning them, but he refuses. Since no one will listen to her, she violates the terms of the company’s NDA and begins investigating them in her free time.
During her investigation, she discovers the existence of a movie called Faces of Death, and her horror-loving roommate, Ryan (Aaron Holliday), happens to have a copy. It turns out that someone is recreating scenes from the video, using the voiceover from the movie and possibly performing actual murders. That someone is Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), and Margot’s investigating puts her directly in his crosshairs.
If you’re going to do anything modern with the rights to the original Faces of Death, this is definitely the direction to go. The film is a creative look into the desensitized modern screen culture and the Insta-fame of influencers. Director Daniel Goldhaber and his co-writer Isa Mazzei, who together in the same capacities brought us the excellent Netflix film Cam, have created an interesting and surprisingly entertaining treatise on the extremes that current society can make a person go to, similar to the message behind their other film How to Blow Up a Pipeline.
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While based on such a grotesquery as Faces of Death, Goldhaber has decided to hold back on the gore created for this version. There’s still a good amount of blood, but not as much as you might expect from something carrying this brand.
Instead, the film’s more of a psychological cat-and-mouse thriller, where the emphasis is put on Margot’s investigation. Yes, through that we get to see not only Arthur’s recreations but also clips from the original video, but the filmmakers graciously curb the content shown. Plus, the slightly grainy look and the subdued lighting the Goldhaber gives to the film helps make it feel like a videotape from the 1980s, dipping us deeper into the intended effect I believe he is going for, here.
Ferreira makes for an interesting choice for a Final Girl. While she’s a beautiful woman, she’s not the person would typically get hired for this role being that she’s also plus sized. This makes her more relatable than your usual Hollywood beauty. She’s not Jamie Lee or Neve, she’s you and me, and that makes the situation she finds herself in even more frightening.
Montgomery is well cast as Arthur, too. He has the ability to put on this nerdy kind of public face, but his private persona is much more dangerous and off kilter. I look forward to viewing this where I can pause and see what videotape titles the filmmakers decided to put on the bookcase/door to his secret studio to see if that gives even more insight into Arthur’s mental state.
While it didn’t blow me away, I really had no idea what to expect from Faces of Death. So, therefore, I can honestly say that my expectations were exceeded.
Desert Warrior, 2026.
Directed by Rupert Wyatt.
Starring Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley, Ghassan Massoud, Sharlto Copley, Sami Bouajila, Lamis Ammar, Géza Röhrig, Numan Acar, Nabil Elouahabi, Hakeem Jomah, Ramsey Faragallah, Saïd Boumazoughe, and Soheil Bostani.
SYNOPSIS:
An honorable and mysterious rogue, known as Hanzala, makes himself an enemy of the Emperor Kisra after he helps a fugitive king and princess in the desert.
With aspirations of being a historical epic harkening back to the sword and sandal blockbusters of yesteryear, Rupert Wyatt’s seventeenth-century Arabia tale is about as generic and epically dull as one would expect from a film plainly titled Desert Warrior. Yes, there appear to be real locations here, and there are some admittedly sweeping shots of various tribes storming into battle on horseback and camels, but it’s all in service of a mess that is both miscast and questionable as the work of a filmmaking team of mostly white creatives.
The story of Emperor Kisraa (Ben Kingsley, a distracting presence even with only one or two scenes) rounding up women from other tribes to be his concubines, which inevitably became the catalyst for a revolution led by Princess Hind (Aiysha Hart), uniting all the divided clans and strategizing battle plans for flanking and poisoning, is undeniably ripe for cinematic treatment. The problem is that what’s here from Rupert Wyatt (and screenwriters Erica Beeney, Gary Ross, and David Self) is less than nothing in the primary creative process; no one seems to have a connection to Arabic heritage or culture, but they have made a flat-out boring film that is often narratively incoherent.
Following the death of her father and escaping the clutches of oppression, the honorable Princess Hind joins forces with a troubled, nameless bandit played by Anthony Mackie (he totally belongs here…), who seems to be here solely to give the movie some star power boost without running the risk of white savior accusations. Whatever the case may be, it’s jarring, but not quite as disorienting as how little screen time he has despite being billed as the lead and how little characterization he has. It is, however, equally disorienting as some of the other names that show up along the way.
As for the other factions, Princess Hind talks to them one by one, giving the film an adventure feel that fails to capitalize on using beautiful scenery in striking or visually poignant ways at almost every turn; the leaders of these tribes also often have no character. There also isn’t much of an understanding of why these tribes are at odds with one another. This movie is filled with dialogue that consistently and shockingly amounts to vague nothingness. Nevertheless, each tribe doesn’t take much convincing to begin with, meaning that not only is the film repetitive, but it’s also lifeless when characters are in conversation.
That Desert Warrior does occasionally spring to life, and a bloated 2+ running time is a small miracle. This is typically accomplished through the occasional fight scene between factions that also serves to demonstrate Princess Hind coming into her own as a warrior. When the tribes are united in a massive-scale battle, and that plan is unfolding step by step, one certainly sees why someone would want to tell this story and pull it off with such spectacle. However, this film is as dry as the desert itself.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
‘4’, the opening track on Richard D James’ (Aphex Twin) self titled 1996 album is a piece of music that beautifully balances the chaotic with the serene, the oppressive and the freeing. It’s a trick that James has pulled off multiple times throughout his career and it is a huge part of what makes him such an iconic and influential artist. Many people have laid the “next Aphex Twin” label on musicians who do things slightly different and when you actually hear their music you realise that, once again, the label is flawed and applied with a lazy attitude. Why mention this? Well, it turns out we’ve been looking for James’ heir apparent in the wrong artform. We’ve so zoned in on music that we’ve not noticed that another Celtic son of Cornwall is rewriting an art form with that highwire balancing act between chaos and beauty. That artist is writer, director and composer Mark Jenkin who over his last two feature films has announced himself as an idiosyncratic voice who is creating his very own language within the world of cinema. Jenkin’s films are often centred around coastal towns or islands and whilst they are experimental or even unsettling, there is always a big heart at the centre of the narrative. A heart that cares about family, tradition, culture, and the pull of ‘home’. Even during the horror of 2022’s brilliant Enys Men you were anchored by the vulnerability and determination of its main protagonist.
This month sees the release of Jenkin’s latest feature film, Rose of Nevada, which is set in a fractured and diminished Cornish coastal town. One day the fishing boat of the film’s title arrives back in harbour after being missing for thirty years. The boat is unoccupied. And frankly that is all the information you are going to get because to discuss any more plot would be unfair on you and disrespectful to Jenkin and the team behind the film. You the viewer should be the one who decides what it is about because thematically there are so many wonderful threads to pull on. This writer’s opinions on what it is about have ranged from a theme of sacrifice for the good of a community to the conflict within when part of you wants to run away from your roots whilst the other half longs to stay and be a lifelong part of its tapestry. Is it about Brexit? Could be. Is it about our own relationships with time and our curation of memory? Could be. Is it about both the positives and negatives of nostalgia? Could be. As a side note, anyone in their mid-40s, like me, who came of age in the 1990s will certainly find moments of warm recognition. Is the film about ghosts and how they haunt families? Could be…I think you get the point.
The elements that make the film so well balanced between chaos and calm are many. It is there in the differing performances between the brilliant two lead actors George MacKay and Callum Turner. It is there in the sound design which fluctuates from being unbearably harsh and metallic, to lulling and warm. It is there in the editing where short, sharp close ups on seemingly unimportant factors are counterbalanced with shots that are held for just that little bit too long. For a film set around the sea, it is apt that it can make you feel like you’re rolling on a stomach churning storm one minute, or a calming low tide the next. Dialogue can be front and centre or blurred and buried under static. One shot is bathed in harsh sunlight whilst the next can be drowned in interior shadows.
Rose of Nevada is Mark Jenkin’s most ambitious film to date yet he has not lost a single iota of innovation, singularity of vision or his gift for telling the most human of stories. It is a film that will tell you different things each time you see it and whilst there are moments that can confuse or beguile, there is so much empathy and love that it can leave you crying tears of emotional understanding. It is chaotic. It is beautiful. It is life……
Rose of Nevada is released on the 24th April.
Mark Jenkin Instagram | Threads
Released through the BFI – Instagram | Facebook
Review by Simon Tucker
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