I remember finding a copy of this when I was 11 and being so excited I hopped up and down until my head hurt. Why? I really don't know. Maybe it's because that glandular disorder the doctors keep yapping about. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because so few of the things that are legally verboten to a kid of a eleven actually interest a kid of eleven . I cared not for smokes or beer, and since my dad's magic cable box provided me with all of the softcore porn that I could handle, death videos were the only cool things that were completely out of reach. I was attracted to shiniest of the forbidden fruits.
This was before you had so many choices in death videos, bear in mind. The special interest section at Dollar Video has at least twenty of them nowadays, ranging from the rather benign "Traces of Death" to the surprisingly gruesome "Banned from Television." In 1992 it was either "Faces of Death" or "Mondo Cane," so this was the FIRST time that I had ever seen anything like this. I called over a friend and we popped in the tape.
Total disappointment.
It was so friggin staged that even at such a young age and even without knowing a damn thing about death videos I could tell that most of it was fake. Horribly produced fake newscasts introduced poorly acted scenes, dulling whatever effect the rare shots of actual cadavers might have had.
I do find appeal in intense gore and watching horrific videos, even to this day, as I know a surprising amount of other people do. I don't consider this a perversion since I gain no recognizable gratification from doing it, but I am well aware it is still a very socially unacceptable thing to do. But unlike most of my other aberrant habits (and trust me, there are many), I've never bothered to come up with a justification for my gore fascination: I get nothing out of it, it serves no purpose, and it's creepy. So why do I do it? Raw stimulation, I think. That's my best guess, and since a more complicated explanation would most likely be the convoluted result of a tired mind trying to justify himself to himself (rather than to those he is explaining himself to), I will leave it at those two simple words. Raw stimulation. Seeing things that you have never seen before and so feeling things that you've never quite felt before. Bud Dwyer's fountain flowing fast like a faucet. Vic Morrow's helicopter blades. Beheadings. Immolation. Things you never see on TV making you think thoughts you've never thought before without having to read or interpret. Nothing gets you thinking like death, and nothing gives you death better than moving pictures.
And that's exactly why "Faces of Death" sucks. It takes horror and waters it down. It's like opium diluted with talcum powder. When I want a quick fix, I want the hard stuff. Don't insult an addict, that's how you get cut.
This was before you had so many choices in death videos, bear in mind. The special interest section at Dollar Video has at least twenty of them nowadays, ranging from the rather benign "Traces of Death" to the surprisingly gruesome "Banned from Television." In 1992 it was either "Faces of Death" or "Mondo Cane," so this was the FIRST time that I had ever seen anything like this. I called over a friend and we popped in the tape.
Total disappointment.
It was so friggin staged that even at such a young age and even without knowing a damn thing about death videos I could tell that most of it was fake. Horribly produced fake newscasts introduced poorly acted scenes, dulling whatever effect the rare shots of actual cadavers might have had.
I do find appeal in intense gore and watching horrific videos, even to this day, as I know a surprising amount of other people do. I don't consider this a perversion since I gain no recognizable gratification from doing it, but I am well aware it is still a very socially unacceptable thing to do. But unlike most of my other aberrant habits (and trust me, there are many), I've never bothered to come up with a justification for my gore fascination: I get nothing out of it, it serves no purpose, and it's creepy. So why do I do it? Raw stimulation, I think. That's my best guess, and since a more complicated explanation would most likely be the convoluted result of a tired mind trying to justify himself to himself (rather than to those he is explaining himself to), I will leave it at those two simple words. Raw stimulation. Seeing things that you have never seen before and so feeling things that you've never quite felt before. Bud Dwyer's fountain flowing fast like a faucet. Vic Morrow's helicopter blades. Beheadings. Immolation. Things you never see on TV making you think thoughts you've never thought before without having to read or interpret. Nothing gets you thinking like death, and nothing gives you death better than moving pictures.
And that's exactly why "Faces of Death" sucks. It takes horror and waters it down. It's like opium diluted with talcum powder. When I want a quick fix, I want the hard stuff. Don't insult an addict, that's how you get cut.