The original 'Faces of Death' has a twisted past at Southern California high schools

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It’s been decades since “Faces of Death” stirred panic among parents of teens trading the 1978 pseudo-snuff VHS.The “video nasty” spawned a number of sequels, spinoffs and now a remake starring Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery that hit theaters this month.

But back in the 1980s, the original film caused an uproar at Southern California schools.Days before school was out for summer in 1985, Escondido High School math teacher Bart Schwartz, then 28, used a spare two hours during finals week to squeeze in a film screening with his class.Schwartz wanted to show the film because it was “interesting.”According to the Times coverage of the incident and subsequent lawsuit, the scenes shown in the classroom included autopsies, decaying cadavers and live animals being butchered, mutilated and tortured.

The original “Faces of Death” also includes scenes of a man being electrocuted, a decapitation and an orgy during which a man is gutted by a flesh-eating cult.Although today’s audiences might be more desensitized to such gruesome scenes thanks to hyperrealistic special effects in modern horror movies, and the commonplace spread of graphic clips online, audiences of the ‘80s were reportedly traumatized and scandalized.

Not only was the film considered macabre, but it also was widely believed to be composed entirely of real footage.The original was a trashy videocassette phenomenon, but director Daniel Goldhaber and screenwriter Isa Mazzei have hatched a remake for a new era of viral violence.“The ultimate taboo,” “100% real” and “banned in 46 countries!” were taglines for the original film.It wasn’t until decades after the film’s release that director John Alan Schwartz publicly confirmed that while some footage was real and pulled from news and autopsy archives, much of the movie was staged and the shockumentary’s host pathologist, Dr.

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