Ninety minutes' worth of crushed heads, charred flesh, and exposed entrails in a mondo movie to sate even the hardest, most unbalanced real-death enthusiast. This footage, originating from Asia, is genuinely nauseating stuff - with the exception of a clearly fake interview with a supposed Japanese hitman, and a selection of gore effects from The Necro Files, all images on show are authentic aftermaths of violent sloppy deaths. Only the most crimson-soaked gaping wounds have found their way onto this somewhat dubious collection. To avoid any confusion on the part of the viewer, the film is helpfully divided into three sections; crash, suicide, and murder.
If this all sounds gruellingly serious, well, think again; what makes this film truly shocking is not the footage on show, despite its intensity, but the outrageously juvenile approach to it all. The film's host, a Dr. Vincent Van Gore (sure thing, you guys), looking for all the world like Peter Fonda's bombed-out stoner cousin, is apparently a member of the Institute of Gorenology (!), who has returned from his studies in Japan into the 'Phenomena of Death' carrying his findings in what appears to be an old lady's shopping bag. The narration which plays over these images has to be heard to be believed; burn victims in a train wreck, for instance, would be better off dead as they now have to `live out their lives as badly deformed freaks who no-one would love.' Beavis and Butthead themselves couldn't have put it any better. A teenage boy, having hanged himself over poor marks at school, is referred to as a `self-defeatist who has taken the easy way out'; the narrator quips that, `if only the students in America were this conscientious about maintaining their grade-point averages, we'd have an epidemic of mass suicides on our hands.'
Not that we should take everything we are told here as gospel. A coroner, seen in one of the clips examining a newlywed couple killed in a car smash, is identified as one Mr Sato, a fellow member of the Institute of Goreology who just happens to be a practicing necrophiliac! If there was any remaining doubt over the true 'scientific' level at which Faces of Gore is operating, the narrator's gloating over a naked female corpse - even informing us of the unfortunate young woman's bra size - ought to dispel them at once. Faces of Gore's closest spiritual cousin, it quickly becomes apparent, is South Park: The Movie.
`We know only one thing for certain,' Dr Van Gore tells us, strolling through a cemetery on a sunny afternoon; and that is `that death will come, and whether it's suddenly in a car crash, or slowly from a painful, lingering cancer, it will matter not, for we shall never escape. We will all die, sooner or later.' Surprisingly for this film, never has a truer word been uttered; I guess the most any of us can hope for, then, is that when our time is up, our bodies don't find themselves being paraded and ridiculed on a tape like the Faces of Gore.
