By Jimmy Squarejaw
When talking to people about extreme movies, death docs, and Mondo
movies there is always the underlying purpose of the conversation; everyone
wants to know what the most disturbing movie I have ever seen is. For a lot of people, mostly people who
haven’t seen it or don’t remember it accurately, the FACES OF DEATH movies are
the end all be all craziest things on this planet and it comes as a shock when
they realize there are literally hundreds of movies that are worse in the same
death film genre. Out of that
menagerie of death documentaries I would attest that TRACES OF DEATH is one of
the most disturbing movie series ever.
I’m not saying these flicks are the worst things out there captured on
celluloid but it’s probably pretty fucking close.
TRACES OF DEATH, along with the reissued FACES OF DEATH were the holy
grails of my local video store growing up. They all had huge bright red labels applied to the boxes by
the video store employees that said in a nut -shell, “if you’re under 18 do
everything in your power to find out how to rip this sticker off and trick us
into renting this to you!” Sure
the art on the FACES OF DEATH reissues were a lot cooler in the mid-90’s
compared to the terrible computer generated covers for TRACES OF DEATH but the
content ripped my teenage balls off and firmly stapled them to my forehead.
Part one has a terrible narrator that sounds like he was pulled from the
local community theater in between auditions for haunted corn mazes. None of his dialogue is good, and his
attempt at a stoic purveyor of death is laughable. But who gives a shit when you the viewer are thrust into
absolute visual hell. TRACES OF
DEATH starts with a picture montage of death imagery that segues to the clip of
Maritza Martin being gunned down by her psychotic ex-husband in a
cemetery. The whole story is on
wikipedia folks and it’s incredibly sad.
This clip transitions to cops unloading on a pickup truck and it’s
passengers, Guerrilla solders executing a guy, and paramedics jamming breathing
tubes into the swollen face of some poor bastard who probably died shortly
after. These clips are all setup
in rapid-fire transitions that lead to a longer scene of pigs being
blowtorched. This clip went on and
on and irked me quite a bit. Then
their skin splits into deep fissures of milky white fat and that’s when I weigh
out if I want to eat procutto ever again.
After this clip is another onslaught of rapid-fire montages of death-why
not?!
The rest of TRACES OF DEATH follows this formula. Onslaught of images, longer clip,
onslaught of images, longer clip etc etc.
Some of the “highlights” are different types of autopsies for those of
you who don’t know what will probably happen to your dead body after you kick off
and buy the farm one day. We watch
a regular thoracic autopsy, a spinal autopsy, and a cranial autopsy. All of which are a pain in the ass to
put back together, but that’s why I get paid a little over minimum wage to
restore autopsies for funeral homes right? Also notable in TRACES OF DEATH are montages of people with
horrifying diseases, sex change operations, embalming procedures, the Budd
Dwyer suicide, a guy leaving his car to film lions-he survived though. No just kidding, he was ripped apart in
front of his fucking family by a pride of lions. And there are scores of other scenes on here that are sure
to quiet your kids down when they start acting up!
The version of the TRACES OF DEATH series I have is the 9th
anniversary version. These include bonus scenes after the credits
and on part one is an uninteresting interview with the founder of Brain Damage
Films, pictures of a girl who was raped to death by a broom, a kooky old man in
only underwear and an opened up flannel shirt blowing his face off with a
rifle, and a train hitting a little girl.
I guess that’s one way of celebrating an anniversary, don’t people
usually go out to dinner or exchange engraved wristwatches?
So between you and me, this is an intense watch and they get worse in
later installments! If you really
want to fuck up an 8th grade sleepover or ensure your girlfriend’s
family will hate you forever bring this tape along to a social gathering and
sit back for the tears and accusations. Otherwise, enjoy it in the dingy depths of your Axe
body spray smelling basements with bong hits and chugging 6-packs of Keystone
Ice!
Blake
and Jimmy’s Extreme-O-Gauge!
Realistic
Gore: 5 out of 5. No question.
Rape:
1 out of 5, for the pictures of broom rape death.
Animal
Death: 5 out of 5, the pig scene is fucking terrible and there is also a
Berenstain Bear who learns about electricity.
Necrophilia:
0 out of 0.
Torture: 0 out of 0, no one
is tortured in this flick except the people who are subjected to viewing it.
Overall Movie: 4 out of 5, hell.......it is what it is.
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