46 COUNTRIES FACES OF DEATH, BANNED IN THE AGE OF POLICE BODY CAMERAS AND ISLAMIC STATE EXECUTION VIDEOS, IT RETAINS ITS POWER.

 46 countries faces of death.” banned in the age of police body cameras and Islamic State execution videos, it retains its power.

The documentary approach was what made the film so upsetting. “We went into the movie knowing this was real,” says Forget. “That was what was so weird,” adds Feese. 

“I was like, ‘Why are they filming this? Why are they doing this? What is wrong with people?’

In the 40 years since its 1978 release, Faces of Death has earned a reputation as one of the most shocking films ever made. 

Even today, in the age of police body cameras and Islamic State execution videos, it retains its power.

I tracked down Feese and Forget, whose families sued their high school, while working on a feature about Faces of Death for the podcast Snap Judgment. 

I’d heard rumours about the film while working on a project with John McNaughton, director of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. 

I knew that MPI Media Group, the company that produced Henry, had distributed Faces of Death. I also knew MPI’s owners felt uneasy about the film.

 I started wondering how the director felt – and began hunting him down too, eventually finding him living with his family in Colorado, where he now runs a gun store.

“It’s kind of cool to think that, you know, I actually created a cult film,” he says. Unlike the stone-faced doctor who introduces the movie, he’s laidback and affable, with a streak of blond left in his long grey hair. 

He insists on being referred to by his directing pseudonym, Conan LeCilaire, a name he picked in his 20s because he thought it meant “Conan the Killer” in French. 

“It does not mean that at all,” he says now. “But in my brain at that age, I just thought it was clever.”