The story of the 1978 film Faces of Death has been retold, not by repeating its shocks, but by translating its myth into the language of modern platforms. Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber approached the notorious VHS phenomenon as material to interrogate how images of pain travel today. Their project reframes the original’s lurid reputation inside a film that centers on a young content moderator and a creator who stages elaborate, copied deaths for viral attention. Rather than simply redoing old sequences, this version uses the cult classic as a cultural object to ask why we keep watching.
Mazzei’s trajectory informs much of the film’s perspective: a writer and producer with a background in performance and online work, she connects intimately with how identity and spectacle are negotiated on camera. She draws on earlier projects such as Cam and the eco-thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline to build a film that is equal parts social critique and genre entertainment. The new movie intentionally positions itself as a commentary on the original — not a beat-for-beat remake — and explores how a once-hidden shock tape becomes fodder for an attention economy.
The premise and meta structure
At the center of the story is a TikTok-like platform where an algorithm rewards engagement above all else. The plot follows a young moderator (played by Barbie Ferreira) who encounters a string of disturbing clips that appear to re-stage sequences from the 1978 compilation. Mazzei and Goldhaber construct a layered narrative in which a charismatic, camera-obsessed antagonist (portrayed by Dacre Montgomery) harnesses the viral mechanics of the platform to build notoriety. The film examines the slippery boundary between performance and real harm, and it asks whether fame can be manufactured through repetition and remixing of violent imagery.
Collaboration and creative authorship
Mazzei and Goldhaber credit the film jointly as “A film by Isa Mazzei & Daniel Goldhaber”, a deliberate choice that reflects their unusually integrated working method. Their partnership blends Mazzei’s narrative and producing instincts with Goldhaber’s technical direction; together they cast, planned visuals and shaped performances. The duo were approached by a studio about the concept in 2019 and developed a meta framework that preserves the original’s central question — is what we see authentic? — while translating it to a platform-saturated era. Their approach treats the original as source material for a conversation about media, not as a script to be copied.
Casting and character dynamics
Performances are central to the film’s emotional weight. Ferreira anchors the story as the moderator pulled into obsession, while Montgomery plays the creator whose artful brutality confuses devotion with transcendence. The ensemble includes performers who bring distinct registers to the material, and the production sought actors who could convincingly straddle online persona and private vulnerability. Intentionally, the film also features queer friendship and non-romantic intimacy that feel lived-in rather than theatrical; Mazzei has said representation is woven into her work without making queerness the plot’s entire axis.
Themes: image, ethics and the algorithm
Underneath the thrills, the film interrogates how platforms monetize attention and how audiences have grown numb to repeated exposure. Mazzei uses personal memory and cultural history to show that once-taboo footage has become normalized by constant circulation. The screenplay and editing ask audiences to consider who profits from our engagement — content creators, platforms, or viewers themselves — while the film purposely stages licensed graphic clips to provoke discomfort in a theater setting, reframing what many now see casually on phones into a more confrontational context.
Visual language and digital authenticity
To convey what being online actually feels like, Mazzei and Goldhaber developed a visual grammar that treats screens as performative spaces. The team scripted detailed online interactions and filled message boards with believable posts to avoid the sterile, unrealistic displays often seen in films. They leaned on close, immersive framing so that social media interfaces become visceral rather than flat, and they invested in authenticity to make Reddit threads, chat logs and feeds feel like active participants in the story. The result is a film that uses form to amplify its thematic questions.
After production setbacks and distribution hurdles, the film found partners willing to embrace its risky critique, and its release invites renewed debate about the old shock tape’s place in a digital age. By treating the 1978 original as cultural evidence and not mere spectacle, Mazzei and Goldhaber have created a movie that both honors a notorious legend and interrogates the contemporary systems that amplify violent imagery for attention. It asks viewers to look at themselves in the algorithmic mirror and decide what to do with what they see.
