Face à la mort III

...I, however, went into "Faces of Death III" (on loan from a friend) not being exposed to any previous or subsequent entries in the long-running DTV series and came out rather amused. This collection of supposedly authentic footage of murder and mayhem has the appeal of a traffic accident (ironically, one of the first 'faces of death' displayed here)...depicting shark attacks, (real) animal slaughter, executions et. al. While the various sequences are stitched together as loosely as Frankenstein's monster, the real incentive for viewing comes in the form of 'creative consultant/narrator' "Doctor" Francis B. Gross' commentary on them...absolutely hilarious, pseudo-philosophical rubbish that will have you rolling on floor. For an accurate look at REAL faces of death, log on to Rotten dot com; for chuckles and a funky '70s look, have a ball with "Faces of Death III."

These days, the Faces of Death movies are fairly redundant, the internet offering up way sicker sights than any VHS release of the '80s. That said, Faces of Death III was pretty pointless from the get go, the creators attempting to pass off badly staged footage as real-life horror. Anyone expecting a dose of extreme nastiness will be sorely disappointed by this lame threequel; part II was almost all genuine, but this one is 99% fake. The end credits state that 'certain scenes have been recreated'. You don't say!

The film's poorly acted scenes include the search for, and trial of, a serial killer, the court case involving grainy video footage of the killer raping and torturing a girl (the film doesn't explain who was holding the camera), drug traffickers shot at by police in the everglades, a parachutist eaten after landing in an alligator farm, a prisoner in El Salvador interrogated and tortured, a bomb disposal gone wrong, a suicide leap from a tall building, and a barracuda biting a diver in the face. The only real content is the obligatory animal slaughterhouse footage and some open heart surgery.

The first two films were suitably abhorrent: this one is also repellent, but only because it doesn't deliver what it promises. The raison d'etre of this kind of film is to show the viewer the harsh reality of life and death, so what's the point if virtually none of it is genuine?

1/10, with a very generous extra point for having an editor named Wayne Smegma II (his name's probably as fake as everything else, but it made me laugh).

If you are expecting this to be another mondo shock-u-mentary, than you are very wrong. This is just a collection of reinactments from various stories, from serial killers to drug busts. The only real life footage shows workers in a chicken factory preparing birds for consumption. Hmm, anyone for kfc. I cant believe i watched this from start to finish. After about 10 minutes i couldnt wait for this to end. Avoid at ALL costs!

I've seen a lot posts about a certain retail store selling a DVD set of Faces of Death 1-4. It's been years since I've watched any of the Faces of Death movies so I figured I would rewatch them.

First up is Faces of Death III. I'm not sure that I had seen this entry before tonight. I found F. O. D. III to be rather slow. I'm not sure that there's anything real here other than the slaughterhouse scene.

There's fatalities on the Autoban, a serial killer targeting the homeless, a guard dog attack, venomous snakes, a shark attack, suicides and more.

Faces of Death III is neither gory or disturbing. These things have been over hyped, especially on Faces of Death III.

Faces of Death III (1985)

1/2 (out of 4)

The third entry in the series is without a question the worst and what makes it so bad is the fact that the filmmaking is just embarrassing. There's only one "real" bit of footage here and that's a brief sequence inside a chicken slaughterhouse. Outside of that everything here is poorly re-enacted sequences that actually try to pass themselves off as being real.

FACES OF DEATH was a success because it tried to claim it was 100% real but it did a very good job for the most part and the viewer couldn't tell what was real or fake. It's sequel was poorly made but had a few interesting clips throughout. FACES OF DEATH III is about as poor as you can get because of how poorly filmed these re-enactments are. I mean, did John Alan Schwartz really expect people to believe what they were seeing was real? The only thing that saves this from a BOMB rating is that some of it is so bad that you can't help but laugh. Check out the guy cracked out on PCP who doctors try to force medicine into.

The most memorable sequence here is one where a parachute jumper accidentally lands in a crocodile pit. This sequence is once again poorly filmed but there seemed to be a bit more attempt at doing something real. Other sequences like the police shoot outs and a really bad bomb explosion are just downright embarrassing. FACES OF DEATH III might appeal to bad movie lovers but everyone else should just stay clear.