You kids today with your Internet and its Rotten.coms and Ogrishes. You don’t know how easy you have it to watch real life acts of violence and death. Years and years ago all anyone had was Faces of Death. Back in my day you had to find a shady video store that would lend it to a minor, and watch a grainy VHS copy of a film in the living room late, late at night, worried that our parents would throw us out on the streets if they found out what we were really watching.

Of course, most of us did get away with seeing it, and most of our poor little minds were warped beyond repair by it (why do you think I started writing for a horror site?) Sure, a lot of the footage was found to be fake, but simply watching it and questioning what parts were real is disturbing enough.
 
And now a new generation will be able to see it, in all its beautiful glory.

Called “the ultimate taboo
tape” by Entertainment weekly, Faces of Death is the most
controversial, critically reviled and fastest selling documentary in
home video history.  Parents tried to stop it. Video stores had to hide
it. Yet across the nation, millions found ways to secretly watch it…if
they dared. Renowned pathologist Dr. Frances B. Gröss is your guide to
the most bizarre and grisly death scenes ever recorded, from
executions, assassinations and mass murder to suicide, disease and
disasters. Three decades later, is it hardcore gross-out, elaborate
hoax or still the ultimate forbidden movie?  One thing is certain – you
will never forget the original Faces of Death!

October 7th will see the re-release of Faces of Death
on a special edition DVD, as well as a Blu-Ray disc. The film has a brand new HD transfer from
“extremely rare vault materials” and a whole slew of extras, like a
documentary with the director, who’s never publicly spoken about
the creation of the film.

Besides the (feature length!) doc, here’s what else you get-

  • 5.1 and 2.0 Audio
  • “Choice Cuts with editor Glenn Gurner” featurette
  • “The Death Makers with Special Make-Up FX Creators Allan A. Apone and Douglas J. White” featurette
  • Trailers for the other Faces of Death installments
  • Outtakes (HUH?!?)
  • Deleted scenes.

The release will also be the first from the newly relaunched (seems to be a lot of that going around) Gorgon Video, the original distributors of the film series.

So, will Blu-Ray make Faces of Death that much worse? Guess we’ll see, just in time for Halloween.