1978 ‘shockumentary’ Faces of Death gets a 2026 remake, starring Charlie XCX

When I was 13 years old, I watched Faces of Death. I was at sleepaway camp, and one night, someone’s older cousin showed up for a planned “special activity.” That activity involved separating the boys and girls of my age group and then showing the boys scenes from this 1978 faux found-footage cult classic. With several dozen of us crammed into a small room watching the action on an old TV hooked up to a VCR, I couldn’t really make out most of what I was watching, but I knew it was something off-limits.

Regardless of how you first experienced Faces of Death, you probably had a similar feeling of watching something illicit and wrong without totally understanding what it was. That’s partially by design. The 1978 “shockumentary,” written and directed by John Alan Schwartz, stars Michael Carr as pathologist Francis B. Gröss, who introduces himself and then shows the audience a series of gruesome deaths caught on camera. The question is whether those deaths were real or not was part of the movie’s perverse fun, but the truth is that most were faked, although some were not.

Despite terrible reviews, Faces of Death was a box-office hit that became a cult classic. It spawned six sequels and spinoffs, including a compilation and one documentary created to debunk the original.

Now, Sony is bringing back Faces of Death, but with a twist. The new film doesn’t pretend to be a documentary. Instead, it’s the fictionalized story of the female moderator of an online video platform whose job is to remove offensive content. When she finds a group of people who are recreating the murders seen in the 1978 Faces of Death, she has to figure out if they’re real or not in an era of AI fakery.

Faces of Death (2026) stars Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Charli XCX, and Jermaine Fowler. It was directed by Daniel Goldhaber (Cam, How to Blow Up a Pipeline) with a script by Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei.

On Jan. 27, Sony released the first trailer for Faces of Death, quietly uploading it to a YouTube channel called sportsfan3456. The video is tagged as mature content, so you’ll have to watch it on YouTube. The trailer doesn’t reveal much, but features a collage of black-and-white clips showing violent animals, guns, and other possible causes of death. Eventually, the camera zooms out to reveal a skull made up of those smaller videos.

The new Faces of Death remains a mystery, but whether it came live up to the legacy of the original remains to be seen. At the very least, we’re curious to see what a cast that includes Charlie XCX and Barbie Ferreira, can bring to this unnerving horror franchise.

Faces of Death releases in theaters on April 10, 2026.