Faces of Death IV (1990)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

I wanted to but couldn't!

good back-story, and good acting

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Faces of Death IV (1990) ** (out of 4)To understand the cult nature or love for the FACES OF DEATH series means you had to have been a teenager back in the 80s when VHS rentals were the thing. If you went to school you probably heard of this notorious series that featured real deaths. The series and its reputation grew through lies passed around schools about the gruesome footage that the video contained.Of course, as you grew up, you finally realized that what you were watching was mostly staged scenes and the series pretty much died out after several sequels and rip-offs. The first film remains rather catchy just due to its reputation and rather twisted atmosphere. The second film had some memorable scenes but was mostly forgettable. The third in the series was without question the worst and featured some of the most embarrassing filmmaking you'll ever see. This fourth film is actually the best of the bunch because it doesn't try to be anything other than a bunch of gore scenes. This one here tries to pass itself off as being real but I'm pretty sure at this point the producers knew that the secret was out of the bag so we got some rather clever scenes of murder, suicide and destruction. Such re-enactments include a mental guy who kills three people with a screwdriver inside a hospital. There's a nuclear plant dumping toxic into a lake, which creates a large leech that attacks a woman. Youv'e got drunk college students being ran over by boats as well as jumping off roofs. You've got car wrecks as well as a Mafia execution caught on tape.There's quite a bit of gore in this installment, which helps make it much better than the previous sequels. Again, you can't really take this series serious and must try to get entertainment out of its gore. The most memorable scene here is a sequence where we meet a Vietnamese family who show us how to prepare a cute little puppy for dinner. This here is one of the most talked about moments in the series and it became quite notorious in the hallways at countless schools.

Faces of Death IV starts with graphic shots of a dead body & it's cremation. We, the viewer that is, are then introduced to Dr. Louis Flellis (writer James B. Schwartz) who has taken over from his recently deceased colleague Dr. Francis B. Gross (Michael Carr) who obviously jumped ship after he saw how rotten Faces of Death III (1985) turned out to be, Dr. Flellis claims that Dr. Gross went insane & is now dead. This instalment of the infamous series of documentaries follows the same patterns as those before it. Dr. Flellis narrates as we witness all manner of human & animal carnage, some real & some fake. The real footage consists of scenes like plane crashes, the remains of a suicide bomber, traffic accidents including one where a man is knocked of his motorbike by a speeding ambulance which then reverses & picks him up off the road, stunts gone wrong, animal cremation, third world police brutality & a trip around New York from subway accidents to people who've jumped from their hotel room window & landed on a car. The fake footage is easy to spot, there's a tiger attack where someone has their arm severed, a car falls on someone & their leg is severed, a bungled robbery, a fake dog being disembowelled & cooked, someone is drawn & quartered, an assassination of a drug dealer & some of his family, a silly bit that involves genetically mutated giant leeches & quite a gruesome sequence involving Satan worshippers & their house full of grisly secrets... Director John Alan-Schwartz again mixes real & fake footage with little regard for accuracy or factual intent. This is all about gore of which there is some but it isn't as shocking as the original Faces of Death (1978) strangely enough. For hardened gore lovers & extreme cinema enthusiasts Faces of Death IV is a little on the tame side, although most ordinary filmgoing audiences will probably find it both sick & disgusting which is fair enough I suppose. The fake parts are of reasonable quality but most of the real stuff is of very poor camcorder quality, but then what did you expect, art? This is OK for it's type but it doesn't exactly stand out in a genre where your supposed to...

I recently purchased a box set that had the 1st 4 Faces of Death in it yes, it is corny and mostly faked, but I must admit, the ending song in Faces of Death IV was actually pretty good, in a corny kind of way. The lyrics were good, and the overall song (though it is played over a scene of dead bodies as the result of a bandstand collapsing, which does make it a little tasteless...even if these supposed dead bodies do look very fake), was very well sung.Overall, besides the song, FOD IV is the weakest one in the series in my opinion.

This movie is, according to most viewers, a gruesome showcase on accidental deaths on videotape. In my opinion, it's a 'Best of'-horror catalogue by some kids who were to damn lazy to write a plot, but did have the tools to make an okay horrorflick. And the makers has a good sense of humor as well, check out the bungee jump with the short elastic or the giant mutated leeches (thanks to a *drumroll* nuclear plant!). Please, do you really believe anybody died for real in this movie? Think again. The greatest joke is not that the makers want to believe you it's all real, but that most suckers do. As fake as part 1, 2 and 3. But funnier. Even though the the Yeti-footage in Faces of Death 3, a.k.a. Fear, was a hoot as well.