Faces of Death (2026)
Directed by Daniel Goldhaber
Screenplay by Goldhaber & Isa Mazzei
Starring Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler, & Charli XCX.
Horror
★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
DISCLAIMER:
The following essay contains
MINOR SPOILERS!
In Daniel Goldhaber’s Faces of Death, Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works for a company called Kino that monitors online videos and decides what’s censored or entirely removed from the algorithm. She starts to notice there are disturbing videos that others believe are fake but she feels are genuine snuff. No matter whom she tells, Margot gets nowhere. Meanwhile, Arthur (Dacre Montgomery) is a ‘filmmaker’ bent on remaking some of the videos that appeared in the original Faces of Death (1978). And unfortunately, Arthur will cross paths with Margot on her search for the awful truth.
Faces of Death is a smart commentary about how desensitised the online space has become over the years with a constant influx of horrific, graphic videos that never seems to slow and certainly will never stop at this point. Arthur himself is symbolic of so many frightening men who feel the world owes them time and attention—men willing to do harm to others until they get what they want. Faces of Death confronts online desensitisation and the hubris of men with big egos by offering up a counterpoint: a woman with empathy who will not allow men to dictate what is or isn’t the truth.
The desensitisation of no doubt countless millions online is a focus throughout Faces of Death. At one point when Margot is posting online to track down the maker of the horrific snuff videos, someone comments on the video she cites: “so awful. nice find.” This, in four brief words, epitomises the complete desensitisation of people watching graphic videos online. At once this user recognises the horror but then immediately afterwards compliments it as a great discovery of an online treasure. Later when the shit hits the fan and things get bloodier, users watching an important upload all start rushing to comment “First” despite the horrors unfolding on their screens. Margot, a victim herself of online fascination with death and violence, describes it perfectly: “We watch this shit for entertainment & we forget that these are real people with lives & families & they’re not just a digital fucking image.” Not only are people desensitised online, they’ve also objectified people, and the human body, so much that even the most realistic videos of human suffering don’t seem real anymore; it’s only getting worse with the advent of generative AI.
Faces of Death does well skewering “the attention economy” while dealing with dangerous men who wind up with big online platforms. While he doesn’t focus on masculinity, Arthur would fit in perfect with the ‘manosphere’ because he’s the archetypal man who feels he’s been overlooked by society. He whines to one of his victims that “people have always criticised me my entire life” and later talks about how now everybody from the government to the advertisers love him. But Arthur comes up against Margot, a woman not being believed, a woman willing to go to any lengths to prove she’s not simply, as the cops deem it, having a “mental health crisis.” All of Arthur’s perceived power has to deal with a woman who’s been passed over by her co-workers, friends, and the cops. As we deal with the ongoing fallout of the Cornell rape investigation in America, the collective rage of women who’ve been assaulted and not believed is rightfully reaching a fever pitch. Although Margot’s story has nothing to do with assault, she is a woman telling the truth and being disregarded time and time again by all the systems that are supposed to be in place to protect people. Faces of Death is mostly about the dangerous place to which online desensitisation has led us, yet it’s also a fantastic commentary on how bad men getting away with inhuman horrors are running out of time because women have simply had enough of their destruction.
