facesofdeath4

This is the fourth installment of Cilaire's hugely successful mondo movie series. Like the other three, it mixes mainly fake death scenes in with a few real scenes of plane crashes, car crashes, dead bodies, and animal cruelty. These segments are presented by the wild eyed neurosurgeon, Dr. Lewis Flelis. He claims that he is studying death, so that he can appreciate life. Although he's very crazy looking , his narration is deadpan, and at times it is quite hilarious. The first notable scene shows alleged news footage of a hostage situation at a mental hospital. For some reason, the cops have allowed the media right into the thick of the action. A mental patient has killed a janitor with a screwdriver, and is holding a nurse hostage, giving her shock treatments in the face. The champagne acting by all involved is very cheap. For some reason, the cops let him kill her too, and actually explain why to the camera..... hadn't they ever heard of no comment ? In fact all emergency workers shown in this mondo movie seem very willing to discuss their incompetence.

Another death scene is set up by a few minutes of real daredevil stock footage. One that made me wince in sympathy, then laugh at the guys stupidity is footage of a daredevil who gets a pickup truck packed with about twenty people to drive over his chest. Naturally every rib is shattered. This all leads into 'authentic' footage of a drunken co-ed party where a guy decides to bungee jump off the roof. Unfortunately his freinds miscalculate the length of the rope, and he crashes into the ground with ten feet of rope to spare. A now sober freind tells the camera "We were just havin' a little fun". This is followed by another dire warning about mixing alcohol, and leasure. A drunken waterskier is shown being run over by a speedboat. I guess this is how Faces of Death 4 sees itself, as a community service message on safety.

Although this movie is mostly fake, it also has some real aftermath footage of plane, and car crashes, murders, drownings, and a dash of animal cruelty. Dr. Flesus shows us footage of the time he went to dinner at a Vietnamese family's house, and ate dog. We see them killing, preparing, and eating the puppy, but we never see the Doc, so this is probably stock footage from a documentary on asian culture. It doesn't stay realistic for long though, and we see a girl attacked by a giant leech that was mutated because of toxic waste being dumped in a lake. The leech is as big as an eel, and ends up killing her by injecting her with toxic chemicals. This isn't a great mondo movie, but it's definitely a lot better than Charles Gatewood's bore-a-thons like Shocking Amsterdamn , and Mondo New York. Even though most scenes in this are staged, for some reason it has a very gritty, unwholesome feel to it. This is O.K. with a few beers.