Episode 17

Faces of Death (1978)

Published on: 13th May, 2022

A story about animals dying, people dying, meditations on dying, and really weird music choices.

Listen in as me and my guest Devon discuss the film whose legend is nearly without equal.

Written and directed by John Alan Schwartz (Faces of Death 1-6), Screen Anarchy called the film "a curious bit of film history, but nothing more," while Mondo Bizarro said "this movie sucks." Well, seems like folks aren't as bowled over by this film as they were when it blew up in the 80s via the VHS market.

It tells the story... Okay, well, it's not really a story. It's a documentary about death. That's pretty much it. We are introduced to a "pathologist" named Dr. Gross (played by Michael Carr) who tells us he decided to study death and the film is the summation of his findings. Albeit, the lore around this film shines brighter and rings louder than the work itself, one cannot deny its infamy. To truly appreciate what was done here you need to think about the world in which it was made, then you will see that this really was rather subversive.

The film is currently available on Blu-Ray and DVD.

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About the Podcast

Subversive Cinema
The show about the weird, whacky, and downright wrong entries in cinema history.
There are a lot of films out there, so it's only natural that a decent amount of strange content exists. These are the films we examine.

Each week, I sit down with a guest and we take a look a one of these weird, whacky, or downright wrong cinematic entries. Each of them has something about it that makes it special — I call it the "Subversive Sauce" — and that is recipe we try to break down.

Is it scientific? Absolutely not. Will you learn things you didn't know? Maybe. Might you hear about films worth checking out? Most definitely.

Tune in and see what the subversion is all about!
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About your host

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Art Hall

Art started in the podcasting ecosphere back in 2007 with the outrageous, yet short lived, scripted variety show "WBKR: Buckwilde Radio," which claimed listeners from over 20 different countries. After hanging up his headphones and heading west to move to Los Angeles, he kept podcasting in his heart but only made appearances rather than producing or hosting. It only took a global pandemic, boredom, and the pleading from his buddy, Joe, to get back into the mic booth.