Existing in a place halfway between the "Mondo" documentaries of the 1960s and the reality-television programs that litter the airwaves today, Faces of Death purports to present actual footage of violent demise. While most of the depictions of human death are faked, there are copious (and graphic) scenes of real animals being slaughtered for food and other uses as well as lengthy strolls through morgues and genuine autopsy footage that will satisfy the grim appetites of gorehounds too jaded to enjoy mere special effects. The film is narrated by Dr. Francis Gross (actually an actor named Michael Carr), a gaunt pathologist with a lifelong interest in death that began with a strange, recurring dream (a funeral conducted by a swimming pool that is reproduced for the viewer). "My friends thought me compulsive and insane, while others said I was a distorted fanatic," he claims. While the distinction between the two viewpoints may be negligible, Gross is clearly the right man for the job as a guide through simulated scenes of assasinations, executions, animal attacks, and a deliriously goofy hippie cannibal cult that allows a little sex to get mixed in with the carnage. There's also stock footage of actual rail and air disasters, skydiving accidents, and suicide leapers, but the honest scenes never deliver the close-up moments of death that the film promises, a fact that, depending on the viewer's expectations, will either dismay or relieve. Faces of Death takes an abrupt left turn near the conclusion to investigate a haunted house and then present a fake childbirth, a half-hearted attempt to address "the circle of life" and give the film a moral compass. Despite the psuedo-scientific tone, the film is clearly flim-flam of a highly exploitative nature, which is precisely why it became successful enough to spawn at least four sequels and dozens of imitations.