Faces of Death III

Okay, first of all, if a man is being convicted for the rape and murder of a woman, and the main piece of evidence against him is a hand-held video of the assault, one would think the law might also want to go after the guy holding the camera. This "documentary" is populated with shaggy-haired mustachioed police men and soldiers who all look alike and spout such incredible kitchen sink moments as, "this place is going to hell!" and "I hope someone gets those bastards!" And I swear to god that the narrator said a cut could become "infested".

If you're looking for wild animals attacking sides of beef dressed in coats and hats (the beef, not the wild animals - that at least would be a curiosity) make this your first stop.

Faces of Death III (1985)

1/2 (out of 4)

The third entry in the series is without a question the worst and what makes it so bad is the fact that the filmmaking is just embarrassing. There's only one "real" bit of footage here and that's a brief sequence inside a chicken slaughterhouse. Outside of that everything here is poorly re-enacted sequences that actually try to pass themselves off as being real.

FACES OF DEATH was a success because it tried to claim it was 100% real but it did a very good job for the most part and the viewer couldn't tell what was real or fake. It's sequel was poorly made but had a few interesting clips throughout. FACES OF DEATH III is about as poor as you can get because of how poorly filmed these re-enactments are. I mean, did John Alan Schwartz really expect people to believe what they were seeing was real? The only thing that saves this from a BOMB rating is that some of it is so bad that you can't help but laugh. Check out the guy cracked out on PCP who doctors try to force medicine into.

The most memorable sequence here is one where a parachute jumper accidentally lands in a crocodile pit. This sequence is once again poorly filmed but there seemed to be a bit more attempt at doing something real. Other sequences like the police shoot outs and a really bad bomb explosion are just downright embarrassing. FACES OF DEATH III might appeal to bad movie lovers but everyone else should just stay clear.

These days, the Faces of Death movies are fairly redundant, the internet offering up way sicker sights than any VHS release of the '80s. That said, Faces of Death III was pretty pointless from the get go, the creators attempting to pass off badly staged footage as real-life horror. Anyone expecting a dose of extreme nastiness will be sorely disappointed by this lame threequel; part II was almost all genuine, but this one is 99% fake. The end credits state that 'certain scenes have been recreated'. You don't say!

The film's poorly acted scenes include the search for, and trial of, a serial killer, the court case involving grainy video footage of the killer raping and torturing a girl (the film doesn't explain who was holding the camera), drug traffickers shot at by police in the everglades, a parachutist eaten after landing in an alligator farm, a prisoner in El Salvador interrogated and tortured, a bomb disposal gone wrong, a suicide leap from a tall building, and a barracuda biting a diver in the face. The only real content is the obligatory animal slaughterhouse footage and some open heart surgery.

The first two films were suitably abhorrent: this one is also repellent, but only because it doesn't deliver what it promises. The raison d'etre of this kind of film is to show the viewer the harsh reality of life and death, so what's the point if virtually none of it is genuine?

1/10, with a very generous extra point for having an editor named Wayne Smegma II (his name's probably as fake as everything else, but it made me laugh).

Faces of Death 3 (1985) D: Conan le Cilaire (John Alan Schwartz). Michael Carr, John Alan Schwartz. Incredibly fake third entry in the FACES OF DEATH series is nothing more than a collection of re-enactments and cheesy acting in supposed `death footage.' The piece on `serial killer' Michael Lorenzo (played by director John Alan Schwartz, credited here as Conan le Cilaire) is especially dumb (and badly acted). What's worse is the budget looks larger this time around, proving that you don't have to be low budget to create cinematic trash (if you even want to describe this monstrosity as `cinematic'). Being a subject in a death clip (being burned alive or hell, why not getting my throat slashed) would be preferable to having to sit through this junk. RATING: 1 out of 10. Not Rated (MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY).

The "Faces of Death" series nearly bottoms out here, with nothing more than one video-taped reenactment after another. The original film dealt with various cultures preparing for death. Part II dealt primarily with stunts gone wrong. This film focuses largely on serial killers, or mock serial killers. A lengthy sequence involving a supposed killer on the loose in what was called 'a major city in the United States' goes on forever and is obviously fake - why don't they ever mention where this crime supposedly took place?

I don't think that any of this footage is real, except for the scenes in the slaughterhouse, but you can watch the first movie to see that. The sequence allegedly depicting the serial killer/ rapist (played by the writer/ director John Alan Schwartz) looks like it was filmed in someone's garage, and it probably was. The tired, sickly looking narrator only appears on screen for a few minutes in the entire movie, and his scenes look like they were shot on a camcorder.

The German version of this one includes a couple of sequences not shown in the US version: a guy in an ape costume is supposed to be Bigfoot, "proving his existence". A clergyman, possibly played by writer/ director John Alan Schwartz's brother, James, in a ridiculous looking beard, driving and speaking German poorly, on his way to perform an exorcism, in the following scene. After the suicide jumper's death, police speak to his wife, before putting her in a squad car (with absolutely no identifying markings or names, pretty much showing us that the sequence is faked)