I just found out from a good source that Rick Benattar at Angryfilms, the Natural Born Killers company, helped score the rights to do a live action film "inspired" by Faces of Death. Yes they'll keep the title, but I think they want to use Dr. Gross to create a modern day Jason Vorhees, a new boogeyman for the milennium. I don't know the whole story but figure that you could dig, because I'll tell you, get this right and a new Faces of Death series will run for more segments than Freddy and Jason Combined!

I figured the easiest way to suss out the accuracy of this particular tip was to go straight to the source, the grand poobah of AngryFilms, Don Murphy. When I e-mailed him a brief note just saying “FACES OF DEATH?” he responded quickly and had this to say on the record:

"You have good sources Moriarty. Yes, we're in the process of putting together a commercial horror film based on the videotapes FACES OF DEATH. Our model will be what they did with the new Chainsaw, only with an original plot, since the tapes didn't really have any. A young, sexy group of kids have to figure out why all these strange deaths are happening in their small town, and they link them back to the original tapes. We'll redo some of the sequences from the original - electrocutions, autopsies, on air suicide, alligators tearing folks apart - scary stuff. The longterm goal is also to create new franchise using the host of the original series who has never stopped killing. He's like the anti-Freddy, not chasing you and cracking wise - he clinically stares into your eyes and studies you as you beg for help and die. Like if Devin from Chud was on fire and begging to be pissed on he'd just take notes! Several of the major horror distributors have been tracking this with us and this week and next we'll cut a deal with the goal to be to do this independently and get it into theatres by Halloween 06. The main thing we're gonna concentrate on is making it live up to the title - you'll want to turn away, but you won't be able to!"

So there you have it. Looks like we may be seeing a new FACES OF DEATH, and not the pseudo-snuff tapes that were so popular in the ‘80s. We’ll keep our eye on this one, and when it lands at a studio, we’ll let you know.