Faces Of Death (1978) **

I never thought I'd ever watch the notorious Faces Of Death (1978) again, but here I am, thanks to the weekly film night that I regularly attend. I remembered that the most shocking parts of FOD were the real animal slaughter and those scenes are still disgusting to me. When I saw FOD for the first time, when I was an "edgy" teenager, those scenes gave me pause (and that was close to a decade before I went vegetarian and then vegan). 

I am relieved to learn years later that some of the animal cruelty is faked (I knew a good deal of the footage was). There is some real footage of death (before, during, and after) which is still disturbing. Despite that, there is a lack of cohesion to FOD, which is unfortunate. There are serious topics (environmental, religious, philosophical) covered in this "documentary" that, if it weren't for the faked footage plus the incongruous music choices, would leave more of an impact. What could be a sobering and somber film actually ends up being silly and a little boring.