Director/Co-Writer Daniel Goldhaber and co-writer/producer Isa Mazzei, the filmmaking duo behind cyber horror thriller Cam, dig even deeper into the perils of the internet and humanity’s darker impulses with Faces of Death.
In their meta-update of the notorious Video Nasty releasing in theaters on April 10, Barbie Ferreira stars as Margot Romero, a woman working as a content moderator for a major video platform who discovers what appears to be re-enactments of murders from Faces of Death.
Goldhaber and Mazzei, speaking with Bloody Disgusting ahead of the film’s release, revealed that it was Legendary Entertainment who approached them to give a contemporary spin on the 1978 mondo film.
“We were working with this extraordinary exec over there named Jon Silk, really brilliant guy,” Goldhaber said. “He thought of us because the basic idea here is that Faces of Death is kind of everywhere now, especially on the internet. And he was a big fan of Cam, and thought that we might have an interesting perspective on how to render the everywhereness of Faces of Death. So, that was initially a part of what was baked into the whole thing.”
The very present concept of everything being one click away provided fertile ground for the filmmakers when it came to the horror and violence. That in itself creates a unique relationship between the reboot and the original film.
Mazzei explains, “It was interesting, because obviously our relationship to visual images of death has changed a lot since the ’70s. In the ’70s, it was something you had to seek out. This tape almost developed this kind of cultural life of its own because it was sought after. Now, I think we’re all used to seeing dead people all the time on our phones, a quick Google search. I get pushed these things on my feed even when I don’t want them.
“And so I think our relationship to this type of imagery has changed significantly. That was, for us, something that we really wanted to talk about, and we really wanted to engage with, and was really important to us to engage with.”
The original film features mostly fake footage, but does incorporate pre-existing footage of actual deaths. Goldhaber and Mazzei might eschew the documentary format for their narrative feature update, but find multiple ways of capturing the original. That includes a more modern approach to incorporating actual death in their fictional film, Mazzei reveals.
“A lot of the content that we sourced for the film that you see on the screens in the film is real content that we went out and got from the internet, to bring into our space, so we could talk about these ideas.”
“It’s also one of the core ideas of the movie that we’re constantly questioning what is real and what is fake about everything these days. That also felt like a very fruitful thing to explore in this project,” Goldhaber adds.
Also lending a dangerous quality to their reboot is Dacre Montgomery as the mysterious Arthur, an unsettling killer who gets embroiled in an intense cat-and-mouse game with Ferreira’s Margot.
Goldhaber not only reveals how Montgomery connected with his peculiar antagonist, but how that connection evolved Arthur. “Basically, with Dacre, it was really all about finding where he related to this character on a personal level,” Goldhaber explains. “One of the first things he told me when we met about the film was that he said that he has very intense OCD, and he told me that basically, he has an obsession with textures, and that he had not been able to sleep under his bedsheets for 10 years, because basically if there was a crease in the sheet, he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. So he slept on top of the sheets.
“For him, he was like, ‘This is why I think I identify with Arthur. I identify with his alienation, I identify with his desire for connection, but I also really identify with this OCD, a version he has to plot. I really think I can tap into something there.’ So, this kind of obsession that Dacre has with textures became a big part of the character, a big part of finding the costume, the skin suit that he wears, the mask, the tape. This kind of texture, this tactile, almost sexual fascination that he has with some of the objects that he’s using as part of his murder.”
When asked whether this experience has transformed their own relationship with the 1978 film, Mazzei reveals that her appreciation for the film dates back to her youth. “I have a deep respect for the original, especially as a cultural object that has such a massive impact on so many people. I mean, we can’t tell anyone that we’ve done this version of Faces of Death without them saying, ‘Oh, my God, that movie fucked me up.’ That movie was foundational to my coming-of-age experience.
“To be able to engage with something that had that much power in so many people’s lives is something that’s pretty special, for sure.”
