Jyl vs. Faces of Death (2026)

Did Jyl find nostalgia in this meta-reboot of a beloved classic, or did she discover her new least favorite movie?

Alt tagline if that’s too mean: Jyl took one for the horror fan team to see whether Faces of Death should have stayed dead.

Faces of Death (2026)

A woman, employed as a website content moderator, comes across a series of violent videos reproducing death scenes from a film.

Directed by Daniel Goldhaber

Written by Daniel Goldhaber, Isa Mazzei

Starring: Dacre Montgomery, Barbie Ferreira, Josie Totah

Run Time: 1h 38m

MPAA: R

Release Date: April 10, 2026

I’ve always loved going to the movies, and AMC’s Screen Unseen is exactly the kind of surprise I enjoy, especially when it’s a Scream Unseen night. You get a discounted ticket to a soon-to-be released film, the MPAA rating, and not much else until the movie starts. It’s always on a Monday night, and I can’t think of a better way to start the week.

This week our surprise movie was Faces of Death (2026). Reimagining the infamous 1978 shock tape as the inspiration for a copycat killer is a genuinely disturbing setup, especially since the original built its reputation on allegedly real death footage before later being debunked. In this version, the killer essentially attempts to correct that history by recreating the scenes with actual murders, which is a dark idea that feels very in line with modern horror. The film had a strong enough premise, but I found myself wanting more from it.

The film had the chance to say something interesting about social media and the culture surrounding it. We live in a time where disturbing behavior is not only put on display for public consumption, but often rewarded with attention, validation, monetization, and a warped kind of acceptance. That kind of commentary could have given the movie some real bite. Instead, it mostly ends up doing the exact thing it seems to want to criticize. Rather than examining violence in a thoughtful or unsettling way, the film just sort of wallows in it, and that makes the whole thing feel more hollow than shocking.

It also makes the mistake of taking a cult classic and trying to go meta with it without really earning that approach. On top of that, I never really felt the tension build the way I wanted it to. The movie is too predictable, and because of that, a lot of the impact just isn’t there. For a movie built around brutality and dread, it never quite finds the bite it needs.

That said, I do think the premise itself is what keeps the movie from being a total loss. There’s an interesting idea buried in here, and I can at least appreciate that it was aiming for something darker and more provocative than a standard slasher. For the right viewer, that concept alone may be enough to make it worth checking out.

Jyl Glenn is a writer, editor, formatter, anthologist, poet, and a medical-legal writer and consultant. Her lifelong love affair with horror began at a very early age when she was left unattended on the weekend Poltergeist debuted on HBO. And then she figured out she could read any horror book she liked as long as she hung out at the public library, even if the librarian deemed it not to be age appropriate. Jyl was born and raised in New York and now lives in Tulsa with her dog and kitten. She loves creepy art, dark poetry, and pink dinosaurs. When she isn’t dabbling in the macabre—she’s most likely asleep.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.