Faces of Death (2026) Review — The Most Cursed Job on the Internet

It’s 2:47 in the morning and the rest of the world is asleep. You are not. You’re on your third energy drink, staring at a queue of flagged videos that stretches into infinity. Click. Delete. Ban. Click. Flag. Escalate. Every clip is another stranger’s worst moment, served up raw and unfiltered, and you’re supposed to watch it all with the professional detachment of someone sorting mail. You’ve seen things tonight you will never be able to unsee — and you still have four hours left on your shift.

That’s the genius hook of Faces of Death (2026): it takes the worst job on the modern internet — content moderator — and drops it into the grimiest corner of horror history. You know the original. The 1978 “documentary” that every kid in the video-store era claimed to have seen at a sleepover. The one that was half fake and still managed to traumatize a generation. Now imagine that tape crawling out of the VHS bin and into your algorithm.

Director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei — the Cam duo, the people who made you afraid of your own webcam — ask the question nobody else had the stomach to ask: what happens when the cursed artifact of the analog age goes viral? The answer is this movie. And folks… it got under my skin in ways I genuinely did not expect.

The Setup: Your Feed Is Trying to Kill You

Barbie Ferreira plays Margot, a content moderator whose daily grind of scrubbing humanity’s worst impulses off the internet takes a sharp left turn when she starts receiving videos of people reenacting deaths from the infamous 1978 mondo film Faces of Death. The clips are slick, stylized, and engineered to spread — and spread they do. Margot dives into the dark corners of the internet — dead links, encrypted chats, forums you don’t find on Google — to find out who’s making these things. And the question that haunts every frame: are they real? Because at the center of it all, she uncovers a deadly game with rules nobody wrote down.

What Works: The Internet Is the Monster

The single smartest decision Goldhaber and Mazzei make is treating the internet itself as the haunted house. Every forum thread is a creaking hallway. Every DM is a door you shouldn’t open. This is the Cam team’s home turf — nobody working in horror today understands the dread of a loading screen quite like these two — and it shows. The film’s best scares aren’t jump scares; they’re the slow-dawning realization that Margot can’t log off from this. None of us can.

It also nails the texture of content moderation without turning it into a lecture. The endless queue, the gallows humor between coworkers, the way your eyes glaze over until something in the footage makes your stomach drop — it rings true, and it makes Margot’s descent feel personal instead of procedural. When she can’t look away, neither can you.

And let’s talk craft: at 98 minutes, this thing is lean. No bloated second act, no subplot about a podcast host that goes nowhere. It moves like a video buffering at 2x speed — in the best way.

What Doesn’t: A Few Buffering Moments

No film is perfect, and this one has a couple of dead pixels. The third act leans on a few familiar thriller mechanics — if you’ve seen enough techno-horror, you’ll spot one or two turns coming. And while the mystery of whether the videos are real is the engine of the whole movie, the film occasionally teases answers it isn’t quite ready to give, which might frustrate viewers who want every thread tied off.

That said? These are quibbles. The atmosphere is so thick you could spread it on toast, and the film earns every one of its 98 minutes.

The Performances: Ferreira Carries the Feed

Barbie Ferreira is the whole show, and thank every dark god for that. Margot could have been a generic “troubled protagonist” in lesser hands, but Ferreira plays her with this exhausted, wired humanity — you believe she’s seen too much, and you believe she can’t stop looking. It’s a star turn.

Dacre Montgomery brings genuine menace to Arthur Spevak, the kind of character who makes you check your locks. Josie Totah is sharp and funny as Sabrina, the friend who says what the audience is thinking. Jermaine Fowler’s Hopper gets some of the film’s best gallows-humor lines, and Aaron Holliday rounds out the crew as Kyle. And then there’s Charli XCX as Zoe — yes, that Charli XCX — who shows up and reminds you that pop stars with horror instincts are a gift. If you want more slow-burn dread with a killer hook, check out my Leviticus (2026) review — different monster, same itch.

The 1978 Connection: Respect for the Original

Here’s where the film earns its horror-nerd stripes. The 1978 Faces of Death was a mondo “documentary” — staged deaths presented as the real thing, narrated with all the warmth of a tax audit — and it became one of the most notorious tapes in horror history precisely because people believed it. Or half-believed it. Or believed it just enough to have nightmares.

The 2026 film doesn’t mock that legacy, and it doesn’t do a lazy shot-for-shot remake either. Instead, it treats the original as what it always was in the cultural imagination: a cursed object. A tape that passed from hand to hand, daring you to watch. By making the 1978 film the in-universe artifact that the viral videos are reenacting, Goldhaber turns nostalgia into a weapon. The original traumatized the video-store generation; this one is coming for the algorithm generation. For the full history of mondo madness and cursed cinema, dig into the Think Horror wiki.

Trivia & Facts

• Directed by Daniel Goldhaber, written by Goldhaber & Isa Mazzei — the duo behind Cam (2018).
• Budget: $7.4 million. Runtime: 98 minutes. Rated: R.
• US theatrical release: April 10, 2026, via IFC Films — now streaming on Shudder.
• Cast: Barbie Ferreira (Margot), Dacre Montgomery (Arthur Spevak), Josie Totah (Sabrina), Jermaine Fowler (Hopper), Charli XCX (Zoe), Aaron Holliday (Kyle).
• It’s a reimagining/reboot of the notorious 1978 mondo film Faces of Death — not a sequel, and not a shot-for-shot remake.
• Goldhaber also directed How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022), because the man contains multitudes.

Harper’s Extras

• 🍿 Best enjoyed with: the lights on and your webcam covered. Trust me on this one.
• 📼 Harper’s double-feature pick: pair it with the 1978 original for the full “cursed media” experience — just maybe not on the same night. Or do. I’m not your mom.
• 💀 Drink every time Margot says something you have absolutely thought while doomscrolling. (Please drink responsibly. Hydrate between scares.)
• 🔍 Keep an eye out for the little visual nods to the 1978 film hidden inside the viral clips — horror nerds will catch them, and they’ll make your skin crawl.

Where to Watch

Faces of Death (2026) hit US theaters on April 10, 2026, via IFC Films, and is now streaming on Shudder. At 98 lean minutes and a hard R rating, it’s the perfect Friday-night watch — the kind of movie that makes you side-eye your phone for the rest of the weekend.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Faces of Death (2026) based on a true story?

No. It’s a fictional reimagining inspired by the notorious 1978 mondo film Faces of Death — which itself presented staged footage as a “documentary.” The 2026 film’s story of viral death-reenactment videos and the deadly game behind them is pure fiction. Sleep easy. (Or don’t. The movie won’t care.)

Where can I watch Faces of Death (2026)?

It’s streaming on Shudder, following its US theatrical release on April 10, 2026 via IFC Films.

Who directed Faces of Death (2026)?

Daniel Goldhaber, who co-wrote the script with Isa Mazzei. The pair previously collaborated on the acclaimed techno-horror film Cam (2018).

Is the 2026 Faces of Death a remake?

It’s best described as a reimagining — or reboot — of the 1978 film rather than a straight remake or sequel. It takes the original’s infamous premise and rebuilds it for the age of viral video and content moderation.