“Faces of Death” Director Wants Viewers to Know the New Horror Film Is ‘Not Really a Remake’ of 1978 Original (Exclusive)
“Faces of Death” Director Wants Viewers to Know the New Horror Film Is ‘Not Really a Remake’ of 1978 Original (Exclusive)
Bailey RichardsSun, April 19, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC
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Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery in 'Faces of Death'Credit: Independent Film Company; Courtesy of Independent Film Company and Shudder -
The new Faces of Death is not a "remake" or "re-imagining" of the original 1978 film, according to director Daniel Goldhaber
"It's a movie about Faces of Death," the director tells PEOPLE of the 2026 film, in theaters now
Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery lead the film, which was co-written by Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei
Despite sharing a name, the new Faces of Death is far from a remake of the infamous ‘70s mondo film.
Speaking with PEOPLE about the new horror movie, which premiered in theaters on April 10, director Daniel Goldhaber stresses that the story he created with his co-writer, Isa Mazzei, is not a remake of anything.
Rather, it incorporates the original Faces of Death, once widely believed to be an actual snuff film, into a brand new plot specific to the digital age.
“I think that ultimately, it's not really a remake,” Goldhaber tells PEOPLE of the film starring Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery. “It's not even really a re-imagining. It's a movie about Faces of Death.”
Dacre Montgomery, Isa Mazzei, Barbie Ferreira and Daniel Goldhaber at a 'Faces of Death' screeningCredit: Kayla Oaddams/Getty
The original Faces of Death is a mockumentary featuring various death scenes — from fatal shootings to an infamous sequence involving monkey brains — narrated by a morbidly curious pathologist portrayed by Michael Carr. For years, it confused audiences: Are the violent deaths shown on-camera real? (They are not.)
The 2026 movie of the same name, meanwhile, follows Ferreira, 29, as Margot, a content moderator for a social media platform who “discovers what appears to be re-enactments" of the murders shown in the original mondo horror, per an official synopsis. It also sees Montgomery, 31, step into the role of mask-wearing villain Arthur.
“It's a fun, horror thriller thing. It's an ‘80s slasher about Faces of Death,” Goldhaber says of the new release, adding that “every fandom will love a remake” and “there will always be people that just don't like something that's about something that already exists.”
“You cannot make everybody happy, but we felt very confident that we had a really fun and scary and meaningful story to tell about this legendary piece of media,” he adds.
Both he and co-writer Mazzei, he tells PEOPLE, “Had a lot of confidence in what we wanted to say.”
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Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery in 'Faces of Death'Credit: Courtesy of Independent Film Company and Shudder
A studio approached the duo — who also collaborated on the 2018 thriller Cam, which centers on an online camgirl — about a new Faces of Death, and they started pitching the feature back in 2019 and eventually filmed it in 2023.
“Content moderation was something we were interested in beforehand,” Mazzei tells PEOPLE. “We had conversations about it. We found it to be a very interesting space and something very relevant to our experience like growing up kind of alongside the internet. But we never knew what the story was there.”
“And as soon as we had Faces of Death and we realized we have the idea of a killer killing people remaking this movie, the two ideas just kind of fit perfectly together,” the co-writer continues. “And we realized this was a way to kind of tell the story that would be really narratively compelling, and be able to access all of the themes and ideas about the internet that were important to us to kind of explore as filmmakers.”
Barbie Ferreira in 'Faces of Death'Credit: Courtesy of Independent Film Company and Shudder
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Echoing Mazzei, Goldhaber — who once worked as a content moderator himself — says, “Once we started digging into this idea of, like, ‘Where is Faces of Death [today]?’ we quickly realized that that was actually super fruitful thematically.”
“Because what used to be this cursed videotape that was impossible to get your hands on, that had been banned in 46 countries, is now content that's beamed into every single smartphone across the planet 24/7 for easy access,” the director explains. “And that felt like a tectonic shift in our relationship as a society to violent imagery, to imagery of real death, that these images were very hard to get your hands on.
“And now some of the largest corporations on the planet sell ad space on it," he adds.
Faces of Death — which also stars Charli xcx, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday and Jermaine Fowler — is in theaters now.
on People
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