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."

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.

The "Faces of Death" series nearly bottoms out here, with nothing more than one video-taped reenactment after another. The original film dealt with various cultures preparing for death. Part II dealt primarily with stunts gone wrong. This film focuses largely on serial killers, or mock serial killers. A lengthy sequence involving a supposed killer on the loose in what was called 'a major city in the United States' goes on forever and is obviously fake - why don't they ever mention where this crime supposedly took place?

I don't think that any of this footage is real, except for the scenes in the slaughterhouse, but you can watch the first movie to see that. The sequence allegedly depicting the serial killer/ rapist (played by the writer/ director John Alan Schwartz) looks like it was filmed in someone's garage, and it probably was. The tired, sickly looking narrator only appears on screen for a few minutes in the entire movie, and his scenes look like they were shot on a camcorder.

The German version of this one includes a couple of sequences not shown in the US version: a guy in an ape costume is supposed to be Bigfoot, "proving his existence". A clergyman, possibly played by writer/ director John Alan Schwartz's brother, James, in a ridiculous looking beard, driving and speaking German poorly, on his way to perform an exorcism, in the following scene. After the suicide jumper's death, police speak to his wife, before putting her in a squad car (with absolutely no identifying markings or names, pretty much showing us that the sequence is faked)

I thought that Faces of Death III was a terrible horror movie compared to the first film, which continued in the same way as the other Faces of Death films. Which Featured Death, Animal Deaths and other disturbing senses of home made video footage. I feel that The Faces of Death horror movies are quite disturbing exploitation in the way that they aim to shock the viewer with what is being shown on screen. Althoght i do seem to find them interesting to watch as i have the whole set of four films on DVD. I have managed to get through the four films without feeling too bad. I think that there is a lot of film footage in the film that some people may find it too much much for them to be able to take in without feeling ill. 2/10

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).