Faces of Death Review: Bloodsoaked Meta Reboot is the Definitive Horror Movie for the TikTok Generation
Barbie Ferreira plays a content moderator who discovers alarming videos inspired by the 1978 original. Dacre Montgomery and Charli xcx also star.
by Alex Kaan 6 April 2026
IFC and Shudder
After a finished cut lingered for two years in limbo, the distribution issues for Faces of Death, the digital age reboot of the 1978 faux documentary compiling a series of ‘real’ deaths, seemed like they could spell trouble. Since the film shot in 2023, movies like Red Rooms and American Sweatshop have explored the dark side of the internet to chilling effect, and the question arose of whether a project designed to capture the zeitgeist would still hold relevance in a fast-moving, trend-based online sphere. Thankfully, writer-director duo Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber’s (Cam, How to Blow Up a Pipeline) film, now picked up by IFC and Shudder, puts any such fears to bed in about five minutes.
A refreshingly unique remake with shades of Ringu and Blow Out, Faces of Death follows a content moderator (Barbie Ferreira) investigating copycat videos of the 1978 original on a TikTok-like platform called KINO. While some of her colleagues have more bizarre reasons for working the gruelling job of sifting through violent and sexually explicit clips (Charli xcx’s Gabby explains “It’s a thrill when you get a good one—plus, I have dental”), Ferreira’s tightly-wound Margot takes her job extremely seriously after a filmed tragedy in her past leaked and went viral. It’s why she can’t shake an uneasy feeling when a series of hyper-stylised but potentially real videos are posted from various anonymous accounts.
IFC and Shudder
Margot’s fixation starts to worry both her best friend/roommate (Aaron Holliday) and her boss (Jermaine Fowler), who encourages her to support the “DIY horror” trend and not block the videos. Her sleuthing brings her into the orbit of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), the insidious DIY filmmaker behind the clips, who spends his time stalking a fame-hungry influencer (Josie Totah) and a neighbourly news anchor (Kurt Yue).
With rich 35mm cinematography from Isaac Bauman, delicately orchestrated tension, and Charli xcx as a phone-addicted gorehound, Faces of Death feels like an unearthed 70s thriller that just happens to be a piercingly topical look at the digital age. This is, at its heart, a De Palma-esque tale of an obsessive protagonist who can’t stop chasing a sinister trail, while the lush colour grading, roaming camera, and Gavin Brivik’s moody synth score give the film a dynamic retro charm to match that story. And the stylish genre fare hinges on two stellar performances: a visceral lead in Barbie Ferreira and a memorable villain in Dacre Montgomery, who brings a gloriously campy intensity to the deranged content creator remaking the original. Though thoroughly unnerving, his character occasionally offers the film some welcome humour, like when he defends his snuff films from hate comments with a burner account. The other comic relief is Charli xcx in an amusing bit part, while Josie Totah and Aaron Holliday shine in supporting roles.
IFC and Shudder
As displayed on the VHS cover that Margot finds in her research, John Alan Schwartz’s cult hit was banned in 48 countries, something which only contributed to its mystique, and it’s clear that the reboot has similarly struggled to get in front of audiences due to its explicit imagery rather than any weakness in the filmmaking. What makes the update work is how it responds to today’s culture—where before one could only find graphic content in a video store, anyone with access to the internet is positively spoilt for choice. As fakes get more convincing and AI is implemented, the remake has the perfect “in” to recycling the “Is it real or not?” conceit of the original. The result is an addictive blend of mystery, gore, and biting observations.
Meta, brutal, and razor-sharp in its social commentary, Faces of Death echoes the original Scream as an invigoratingly current, self-aware horror movie. Rarely do genre films have such a clever script without sacrificing a gruesome, gleeful sense of fun.
Faces of Death hits US theatres April 10th.