Nobody would deny that 2026 has been the best year for horror movies in quite some time. Between Backrooms, Obsession, and Undertone, there are all sorts of horror movies for people to watch, exploring different sides of the modern world and promising great things from a new batch of young filmmakers. One subgenre that’s sorely missing from these box office hits is the slasher — and we have the solution to that problem.
Faces of Death is streaming on Shudder as of July 10. Directed by Daniel Goldhaber and co-written by himself and Isa Mazzei, the film marks their most recent project together. Ever since 2018, following the release of Cam, the director-writer duo have collaborated on numerous movies, exploring different genres to great success. Faces of Death feels the most special of the bunch. It’s a film that takes the trappings of the horror genre and gives it a sharp interpretation for today’s audience and the modern world.
Released in April of this year, the movie landed in theaters without much fanfare after a long production and post-production process mired by censorship, including banned posters and teasers on YouTube. It’s an ironic twist for a movie that explores censorship itself.
Faces of Death is a reimagining of the 1978 snuff movie of the same name. Presented as a documentary hosted by a pathologist, the ’70s film introduces viewers to footage of people dying in different ways. While some scenes were staged, others were made up of pre-existing footage, showing people dying and the aftermath of these moments, understandingly causing excitement from viewers, who had to go to great lengths to acquire copies of the movie.
Goldhaber and Mazzei take this concept and make it their own. Their film follows Margot (Barbie Ferreira), a young woman who works as a moderator for a TikTok-like social media company, clocking in to watch awful videos and determine if they should be taken off of the platform. The company almost always finds an excuse for these videos to stay on, prioritizing traffic over any sense of ethics. It’s a fitting story for a modern audience, and one that could have only come from people who grew up on the internet and know how to communicate that to their viewers.
“We just make films about existing in real life. Most of us spend hours and hours a day on our phone,” Mazzei told Polygon in an interview shortly before the movie’s theatrical release.
The story takes a turn when Margot discovers a content creator making videos that appear to depict real murders, putting her in his sight. The clips that are being posted reference the original Faces of Death and can thus escape the platform’s censorship policies.
While a lot of slashers treat their villains as bogeymen, doling them out sparingly for best impact, Goldhaber and Mazzei have no interest in following this formula. Arthur (Dacre Montgomery) is just as fleshed out as Margot. He’s a dedicated content creator whose subject happens to be finding the perfect victims for the murderous short videos he shares online. He takes his job seriously.
Throughout Faces of Death, Arthur vacillates between a nerdy guy with no connections to the outside world and a sharp hunter, trapping victims with his act, always with a contingency plan in hand. His serial killer look is eerie and memorable, the type that might inspire Halloween costumes as the movie (hopefully) becomes a cult classic. He wears red contacts under a white mask, along with coveralls and surgical gloves.
Despite the fact that Margot is an everyday woman working a terrible job and Arthur is a serial killer, the pair resonate in interesting ways. They are both dominated by their relationship to the internet and are unable to connect to the people in their lives as a result. Ultimately, Faces of Death becomes less about solving a mystery and more about the inevitable collision between the two characters. Like all great protagonist-antagonist relationships, Margot and Arthur are at odds but have a unique understanding of each other.
For a subgenre like the slasher that has been overdone for years, Faces of Death delivers something innovative and thought-provoking. The film asks questions about our impulse to watch horrible things, and what happens when these videos are simply presented to you as a part of your reality. Most importantly, it does what every slasher should: it’s genuinely thrilling and full of grisly murders.
Faces of Death is now available to stream on Shudder.
