Most adolescent slumber parties in the '80s began or ended with a video screening of the cult classic, pseudo-snuff flick Faces of Death. After the movie, no slumber came, only nightmares and debate.

"Did those people really beat that monkey to death and eat its brains?"

"How did they get that footage of the flesh-eating cult?"

"Is that electric chair execution real?"

Is any of Faces of Death real? What does the man who made it say?

"I'll never forget: All of a sudden on the news one night they're talking about Faces of Death!" says John Schwartz, who directed and wrote the movie and its sequels I through IV (there are now eight Faces of Death movies). The flick was intended as a Japanese-only release in 1979, but found its way to the United States, and the national news, a couple of years later.

"I almost fell out of my chair," says Schwartz in a phone interview. "Dan Rather on CBS was talking about these "incredibly horrible videos.' 'Cause everybody thought they were real!"

If anybody thinks Faces of Death is footage of actual deaths, it's because it says so on the video's box, right under the cheesy drawing of the hooded skull with the forked tongue and fangs. Schwartz and company did film real footage of slaughterhouses and autopsy rooms, but any other "real" deaths came from file footage.

"We traveled to all these different film libraries to see what we could find about death and disaster," says Schwartz. "I found this footage of this woman jumping off a building, and it was just incredible footage. But the part of the footage we didn't have was the aftermath. So we (filmed) inserts into the actual footage to match it."

Then how did Schwartz and company acquire the more bizarre footage? "I was the leader of the flesh-eating cult," Schwart admits. "I had scenes in each of these movies. . . . I'm the crazy, drugged-out killer. . . . I play this freaky rapist in the courtroom scene, and they show the rape on video, and it just so happens that the girl (in the rape scene) was this girl I was dating at the time."

You mean, the famous electric chair scene was fake? But the guy was foaming at the mouth and everything!

"We built a cell in a friend's loft, and we lined the guy's mouth with toothpaste," says Schwartz, laughing. "My research material for that: I happened to pick up a Hustler magazine and there was this great article about electrocution that really detailed how a person is executed. . . . And that's what I used as my basis."

Schwartz is listed in Faces of Death credits as "Alan Black." "My middle name is Alan, and schwarz means black in German."

He used the fake name to prevent bias at his other jobs, writing for TV shows such as Night Rider, Street Hawk and The Fall Guy as well as original movies for HBO and Showtime. But to date, the original Faces of Death has grossed over $30-million. It cost $450,000 to make. These days, Schwartz proudly includes Faces of Death on his resume when cashing in on the "reality" entertainment trend which he helped pioneer.

He's currently working for ABC's Totally Out of Control Videos series. "I created Totally Out of Control Love and Totally Out of Control Vacation . . . real stories of people who got married jumping off cliffs and underwater and, you know, weird stuff."

But once a year, at Halloween, Schwartz speaks at college campuses about his adventures creating Faces of Death.

"It can't be denied," he says. "It's my legacy at this point."
 

Breakdown Of The Original

Faces of Death" is certainly not a snuff film according to the relatively strict official AFU definition. It purports to be a compilation of footage of death, collected by somebody named Doctor Gross [sheesh] as a result of his researches into the nature of death. There are only three sequences in the entire 100 minutes that depict probably genuine deaths. One is news footage of what appears to be a political assassination at a French news conference, the second is a skydiver falling to his death at an airshow, and the third is a botched movie stunt. The famous alligator and bear attack scenes are staged, and neither scene actually shows the victim being chomped or mauled. The monkey brain dinner scene also is unconvincing.

There are plenty of scenes showing people who died _before_ appearing in the film, and a number of genuine animal slaughterings.

Detailed Description

Times are from the start of the movie.

0:00:40 Surgery scene. Draped body, see only open chest cavity with beating heart.

0:02:27 Opening credits. Shots of cadavers in body bags and on autopsy tables.

0:03:20 Autopsy. Incision, open chest and abdominal cavity. Opening of cranium with bone saw. Removal of brain and internal organs.

0:08:16 Guanajuato, Mexico. Exhumations of graves in town cemetary revealed extensive mineralization & mummification of corpses. Montage of adult and child mummies.

0:09:30 Brief bullfight scene. No death. Pit bulls, dogfighting. One shot of bloody dead dog.

0:11:10 Amazon jungle. Large spider w/ killed bird.

0:11:46 Praying mantis kills cricket. [Yes, really.]

0:12:15 Snake swimming in stream attacked by pirahnas. Underwater camera. No clear shots of fish and snake together. Ends with bloody water, shot of apparent chewed-up snake remains.

0:13:15 Ibaro Indians shoot monkey in tree with blowgun. Woman roasts monkey over fire. Indians drinking, dancing. One shot of shrunken head.

0:15:25 Africa. Masai tribesmen bleeding cattle, mixing blood and milk, butchering a cow.

0:16:25 Farm scene. Woman catches chicken and beheads it with hatchet. Long scene of headless chicken flopping around.

0:18:10 Cows and sheep in slaughterhouse.

0:19:03 Shochet slaughtering cow in accordance with Jewish dietary law. [Cuts throat, cow bleeds to death.]

0:19:45 Killing, skinning, and butchering cows and lambs in slaughterhouse.

0:21:14 Intro to famous monkey brain scene. Belly dancer performs in dining adventure." Waiter brings wine and "special dining implements."

0:22:42 Waiter carries screaming monkey to table, puts it in hole in the center, clamped around the neck.

0:23:10 Diners get their hammers ready. Long shot of table. Monkey's head is turning round and round. [Kind of like a fake monkey head on a turntable or something.]

0:23:31 Diners hammer monkey. Most camera angles don't actually show monkey's head. 2 quick shots of hammers touching head, not hitting hard. One shot from under the table. [I'm sure the diners didn't mind having a cameraman under there.]

0:23:45 Waiter cuts head open. [Probably fake - monkey's face looks like rubber.] Diners spoon out and eat monkey brain. [Well, something that looks like raw brain, anyway.]

[Looks to me like the famous monkey scene is faked. There are several cuts between the time the waiter puts a live monkey in the table and the hammering. Several camera angles are used, with two close-up shots during hammering. This would be difficult to do without interrupting the action, or a second cameraman appearing in the long shots.]

0:25:50 Man with AR-15 apparently shoots at sea otters. Actually shooting a shark. Shark fishing.

0:26:50 Pribilof Islands. Men clubbing and skinning fur seals. Shot of field full of skinned seal carcasses.

0:28:40 Alleged alligator poachers. [Yeah, I'm sure illegal hunters don't mind being filmed.] Shot of skinned gator.

0:29:30 Alligator farm. Gators eating raw meat.

0:29:50 Intro to alligator attack scene. Apparent TV news reporter doing a standup report. Bad actors worried about a 15-foot alligator in a lake.

0:30:45 Game wardens arrive in a boat. They're going to try to catch the gator.

0:32:07 Man in boat throws lasso into weeds. Suddenly yanked out of the boat. Cameraman runs closer. Confused struggle seen, with what looks like a 3 or 4 foot alligator when run frame-by-frame. Many crowd reaction shots. Several shots of alleged TV cameraman. We never actually see the alligator biting the man.

0:32:57 Luckless game warden pulled ashore. Limp, bloody, shirt torn. He's covered with a blanket.

[This sequence is laughably ungenuine. It is allegedly filmed by a TV news crew. Where did the second camera come from? How on earth did the TV cameraman manage to position himself to get close-up crowd reaction shots at the same time as he filmed the "attack"? How did he get the extreme close-up shots of the man struggling with the gator?]

0:33:16 Assassination at a news conference in "La Salle, France, 1968." Jean Voisier [sp?], head of what sounds like the Partie Socialist Populaire, stands at podium speaking. Suddenly shot in the chest, from behind the cameraman's POV. Shirt and tie move at moment of impact. Slumps over podium as sounds of audience reaction are heard.

[This could be genuine. If it were faked, they'd probably have used a blood bag under his shirt and it would have been more visually impressive. I have no idea if this assassination actually happened. Anybody?]

0:34:05 Interview with the alleged assassin, Francois Gordon. Distorted voice, ski mask. Shoots watermelons with AR-15, says he's a professional assasssin who kills because he likes it.

0:35:51 Murder scene with cops and bystanders. Interior shot of house with body outlines in tape and bloodstains on the carpet.

0:36:21 Police surround gunman in house. Supposed to be "Mike Lawrence", on July 10, 1973. No location given. Cops shoot at house, SWAT team moves in. Lawrence driven out of house with tear gas, shot on front porch by police.

0:37:50 Interior. 3 bodies on kitchen floor, Lawrence's family. Cop in gas mask orders cameraman out.

[This is probably a re-enactment of an actual situation. The police assault on the house is shown with a large number of camera angles. Mike Lawrence's death looks staged, and there are a couple of close-up shots of him at a window shooting back at the police.]

0:39:20 Interview of Thomas Noguchi, celebrity coroner of Los Angeles County.

0:40:10 LA County Morgue. Man moves corpse from gurney to autopsy table.

0:41:32 Close-up of cadaver.

0:41:50 Autopsy - open chest cavity and cranium.

0:42:25 More autopsies. Cadaver with apparent broken leg (foot twisted around backwards.) Autopsy tools, buckets of bloody garbage.

0:44:15 Embalming at morgue. Refrigerated room with 40 ? covered cadavers. Shots of toe tags.

0:47:33 Prison, gas chamber. Unnamed criminal is about to be executed.

0:48:51 Door closed. Camera looks thru observation window in chamber as the prisoner convulses and dies.

[Staged. No witnesses to the execution except the cameraman. Sound of prisoner coughing is clearly audible, even though he's in a sealed chamber.]

0:50:00 Execution of Larry DeSilva, convicted in 1974 of rape and murder. Scene of him smoking last cigarette in cell.

0:52:02 DeSilva is strapped to electric chair. Eyes are bandaged "to prevent them from popping out of their sockets." [Yeah, right.]

0:53:45 Switch thrown. Dramatic electrical buzzing sound effects. DeSilva convulses and drools. Head moves around as if the chair's cap isn't secured. Close-up of blood oozing out from bandages over his eyes.

[Same as above. No witnesses. Business about eyes popping out seems unlikely.]

0:55:26 Beheading, allegedly shot by Canadian tourist in Middle East. Many camera angles, reaction shots. Cut between shot of man being led to the block and actual beheading.

[Again, staged. Actual beheading is seen from a distance, from the direction of the top of the victim's head. If they didn't mind this tourist filming in the first place, why not let him get a close-up? Did they wait for the tourist to finish filming village children looking frightened?]

0:56:59 Alleged cult ceremony "on the outskirts of San Francisco." Cheesy cult ritual - hippies chanting and taking some kind of pills, sitar music. Cult leader sacrifices a man, lying on the floor. Close-up of incision as he cuts chest open. Removes heart immediately. [Gee, where did the victim's sternum and ribcage go?] Topless babes eat raw meat and smear blood on their breasts.

[Oh, please. This one has lots of shots of recognizeable faces, including the cult leader who performs the sacrifice. Oops, maybe they're part of the Satanic Ritual Conspiracy and just DON'T CARE!]

1:02:45 Kentucky hills. Snake handler cult members speak in tongues and wave snakes around. Nobody gets killed.

1:04:38 April 22, 1977. Mary Allen Brighton commits suicide by jumping from a building. Shots of her falling, lying on pavement. Moment of impact not seen, though.

[Probably genuine. Too poorly filmed to be a reenactment. Dubbing Dixieland jazz in the background during this sequence was a nice tasteless touch, though.]

1:05:56 Body of Samuel Berkowitz is prepared for cryonic suspension. Shots of body in bandages. [Wait - maybe it's really - nahhh.]

1:07:51 Corpses of two drowning victims. Convincingly bloated and ugly.

1:08:04 Drowned man in surf, bystanders watch as he's pulled out and put in body bag.

1:09:20 Cave entrance. Sheriffs go in to retrieve man who fell down shaft. Shot of man's body at bottom.

[Probably reenacted, unless the rescuers really had some guy rappel down the shaft with them carrying a camera.]

1:12:52 Bear attack. 2 cars with tourists. Man gets out of one car to film as woman throws bread to the bear. Dialogue ("Be careful, Bob. Bob, be careful.") is recorded across a cut from Bob's camera to the one in the other car. Bear rears up over Bob. Woman screams "Oh my God!", and car horn blows, all recorded by other camera 50 or 60 feet away. Bob's-eye view of bear's face in extreme close-up. No shot of bear actually mauling Bob, just eating some raw meat. Jumpy shot of bear leaving with unidentifiable object in mouth.

[Staged. This time, though, the camera angles are actually consistent with two cameras in or near the cars, with one exception. To get the shot of the bear eating, the other cameraman (not Bob) would have had to get out of his car and move closer. Not real likely, given what he'd just supposedly seen.]

1:14:53 Stock footage of volcanoes, flooded town, a tornado, burning buildings. One shot of man's body in wreckage following a tornado.

1:17:05 High rise building fire. 2 shots of victims trying to escape and falling from windows, with dubbed screams. Woman's body on pavement in the street.

1:17:40 Trash, landfills, air pollution. Sappy song ("Jesus Doesn't Live Here Any More"). Shot of what looks like an oil refinery, with anti-nuke protestors marching around. Allegedly at Three Mile Island, though the protesters are nowhere near a nuclear power plant and the vegetation looks a lot more like California than Pennsylvania. One protester douses himself with gasoline and sets self on fire at the gate.

[Staged. Too many camera angles and reaction shots of a blond woman in hotpants screaming prettily. Several shots from opposite side of man on fire. No other cameraman is visible.]

1:20:03 Stock World War II footage. Naval gunfire, bombers, artillery firing, infantry in combat, corpsmen carrying casualties.

1:21:10 Nuclear test. Bikini? Johnson Island? Bunch of ships moored near ground zero.

1:21:27 Stock footage of Nazi rallies. Aerial footage of bombers, bombs hitting target. Stukas diving, street scene in burning city with troops running around.

1:22:20 Night incendiary bombing footage.

1:22:37 Concentration camps. Mass graves, emaciated corpses, more mass graves.

1:23:50 Bubonic plague, rats, rabid vampire bats. Narrator claims rabies victims eventually "choke to death on their own saliva."

1:24:20 Cholera epidemic in India. Sick people, none dead.

1:25:01 Malnourished Biafran children.

1:25:29 Surgery on dog at UCLA laboratory for cancer research.

1:28:22 Airshow. Real-time and slow-motion footage of a skydiver falling under a partially opened parachute. Dubbed thump when he hits the ground.

1:29:46 Movie location. Preparation for shooting scene 47B of some movie called "Hell Raisers." On first take, a car stunt is botched - car drives off low bluff into shallow stream, but hits opposite bank. Close up of unconscious driver.

1:31:45 Film of freight train derailing. Could be from some other movie.

1:31:50 News footage of passenger train wreck. One face, several hands seen in wreckage. Body under blanket.

1:33:04 Still photos of car wrecks. News footage of female bicyclist who was run over by semi.

1:34:05 News footage of plane crash. Unidentifiable light plane. 2 bodies, one decapitated, pulled from wreckage.

1:35:32 Cockpit shots of Cessna and Boeing 727. Air traffic control tape of the September 1978 midair between a Cessna 182 and a PSA 727 over San Diego plays in background.

1:36:24 Two still photos of 727 going down. Film of distant column of smoke and fires on the ground, probably from either news media or police video. Aerial view of crash site, ground shots of wreckage. Emergency crews fighting fires. Sheet-covered bodies in street. Shot of bloody splash mark on house, men on roof covering a corpse. Crews removing bagged bodies. 2 shots of body parts in street. Woman's torso w/ head and one arm, hand outstretched, in street.

1:39:15 Haunted house story. Joseph Binder, architect, claims his house is haunted by ghosts of his wife and 5-year-old son. Paranormal investigators fiddle with "sensitive instruments", then spread flour on floor to detect ghost footprints. [Snicker.]

1:42:15 Narrator pontificates about life after death. Shot of woman in labor. Closing song, "Life", begins.

1:43:30 Closing credits over scenes of woman playing with newborn baby, walking by ocean, et cetera.

The closing credits list the name of the actor who played Dr. Gross, and conclude with the statement "Exiguous scenes in this film were re-enacted."