Death Scenes

II can safely say, this movie is easily in the top 3 most disturbing films I have ever seen. I watched many MONDO films like Faces of Death, Traces of Death, Orozco, Killing of America, Death File Red, The Junk Films, Faces of Gore, and The Children of Darkness... This movie has everything. The images they showcase in the first 20 minutes are truly horrible. These still photos of the people that went through these suicidal acts are really hard to watch.

Next is the long a bit boring segment which showcases how famous actors died in gruesome ways. And then the last 10-20 minutes are the worst. This movie goes out of its way to showcase child death. There is a dedicated segment in this where we see nothing but the most innocent lose their lives. It was truly horrible and sad to watch that, it makes an adult man angry. How can someone do that to a young human being???? The final segment was the short war footage.

I have two negatives for this MONDO film: The audio is really bad. It was really hard to understand most of what was being said. Simply because of the quality. The second negative is that the movie does get slow and repetitive at times. It's not like Traces of Death and Faces of Death that constantly manage to ramp up the factor, here it's slow but it works. I wish I could of hear the narrator better, that probably would make this movie even creepier.

Ultimately, if you are into Mondo films, this is right up your boat. However, if you're not. Honestly, this is one of the darkest Mondo films you'll come across.

Different class than the other "Death" series. Once you part the trappings (and there are many) the movie reveals itself to be a study of an era of rapid growth and the birth of hollywoods burgeoning movie industry from an all too human side. Death. Credibility is given by LeVey rather than detracting as one would surmise by his actual experience as a crime scene photog. rather than a focus on his questionable religious practices. again,things these trivialities aside the movie resonates with the grief, violence and despair of a by gone era before Welfare, food stamps and fast food. Life was merciless and on occasion death or violence the inevitable release.

When I was a horror movie-obsessed teenager, I purchased an eight-hours' long VHS tape, consisting of Faces of Torture, Inhumanities, Death Scenes, Death Faces (IV), and Beyond Reality/ Death Faces IV, part 2. Having critiqued a couple of them here years ago, I thought I might watch the tape one last time and finish critiquing the remainder of the tape before setting it on fire.

Unwatchable, this has Mr. Satanic Bible himself, Anton LaVey, mumbling and stumbling his way through a variety of decades old still photos of suicides, crime scenes, and the like. A. McV. is usually at least charismatic and a good showman (if not a complete hack) but here he is blubbery and merely mumbling and slurring his way through the obvious narrative in mostly self-explanatory scenes of death and mayhem.

There might be a slight interest here for true-crime buffs, and to see footage of Ted Healy and some other 1930s Hollywood types, but all others will be either repelled, or bored to tears, because there is no way to make interesting a video showing still photographs for almost its entire run time.

This film is also known as Faces of Death VII, and a lot of the footage here was recycled (along with some other random stock footage) into another video in the 1990s, also titled Faces of Death 7, but using the Arabic number 7 in its title, instead of the Roman numeral VII, so, it's not confusing at all. Don't get tricked into watching this more than once, if at all.

Death Scenes Volume 1 is in no way sensationalistic. This film does not glorify death but affirms life.

I highly recommend this to individuals with an open mind and an interest in truth and in this case an ultimate truth. Hosted by the Doktor himself, D S Vol.1 is a dark, humorous and engaging documentary detailing the foibles of some most unfortunate individuals.

Fans of the recent Penn and Teller Showtime series "Bullshit" may also find this series of interest.

Death Scenes should not be lumped in with series like "Banned in America" etc. Which are void of any kind of artistic merit and only exist to shock the viewer.

Death Scenes is a slide show of gore and grim, presenting a series of old (40-50s) crime scene photographs, and revealing the darkside of a human mind. Death Scenes doesn't seek any glamour, confort or sensationalism. It presents death as it is (not how it should be); and it surely isn't a flattering thing. Anton LaVey (who worked as a crime scene photographer) does a good job as a narrator, explaining each "scenes" with a dead calm voice. I cannot recommend Death Scenes for everyone - especially for those who're weak minded (or heart).