Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery deliver unforgettable performances in Faces of Death, a chilling descent into the dark side of online validation.
The original 1978 film, Faces of Death, built its entire legacy on a singular, morbid question: Is what I’m seeing real? This reimagining takes that DNA and grafts it onto our modern digital landscape. It’s a chilling exploration of just how far people will go for approval online. While the film is a brutal thriller at its core, the most haunting takeaway for me was its commentary on our desperate need for validation.
In this version, we follow Margot (Barbie Ferreira), a content moderator for a major video platform. Her job is essentially to act as a human filter for the world’s trauma, and through her eyes, we see the absolute worst of the internet. When she discovers videos that appear to be re-enactments of murders from the original Faces of Death, things get intense. In a world of deepfakes and clout chasing, she is forced to figure out if she’s watching a high-effort prank or a live execution.
One of the most interesting choices the film makes is revealing the killer right out of the gate. We know exactly who the monster is from the start, and that shifts the tension entirely. Instead of a traditional mystery, the suspense lies in Margot’s desperate, isolated crusade to find this man and prove to a desensitized world that the blood on the screen is real.
That killer is played by Dacre Montgomery, who is absolutely incredible. I’ve seen him play intense characters before, but he goes all in here. He is pure, unadulterated evil. Usually, modern scripts try to give villains a gray area or a tragic backstory to make them sympathetic, but not here. He is a void of morality, and Montgomery plays it with a terrifying commitment that made me wonder how long a character that dark sticks with an actor after the cameras stop rolling.
Barbie Ferreira also delivers a powerhouse performance, especially as we head into the finale. She holds nothing back. Without giving away any spoilers, I will say she really goes for it in the final act. Her descent from a skeptical employee to a woman pushed to the absolute edge of her rope is captivating. You can feel her frustration as she tries to scream into the digital void, only to be met with the apathy of a public that has seen it all.
This movie is scary for reasons that go far beyond jump scares. It forces us to look at how social media and viral trends have desensitized us. We’ve become so used to seeing extreme content that we either automatically assume it’s fake or we’ve become completely numb to it.
Faces of Death is willing to teach us a lesson about that numbness, and it isn’t a gentle one. It critiques the way people blindly follow trends or perform dangerous stunts just for a fleeting moment of attention.
For those who get queasy, know that this movie is violent. It is grotesque and heavy. As someone who loves the horror genre and appreciates well-done gore, I didn’t think it was too much, but I’m aware I have a high threshold. For the average viewer, it is a lot. It’s extremely dark, and the film doesn’t shy away from the visceral reality of death, which is fitting, given the title it has to live up to.
Ultimately, Faces of Death is a mirror held up to our current culture. It suggests that in our quest to be seen online, we might be losing our ability to actually feel anything at all. It’s a heavy watch, but for those who can stomach the carnage, it’s a necessary look at the monsters we’ve created in our pockets.
About Faces of Death
In Faces of Death the exploration of the original film’s infamous “is it real or not?” conceit continues as a woman working as a content moderator for a major video platform discovers what appears to be re-enactments of murders from the original film. In an online world where nothing can be trusted, she must determine whether the violence is fiction, or unfolding in real time.
Faces of Death comes to theaters April 10th.
