Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei are longtime collaborators who have worked together across three feature films, CAM (2018), How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022), and now Faces of Death (2026). The film is a remake of the 1978 film, which spawned significant controversy for its grotesque depictions of death scenes, and the lore surrounding whether they were real deaths turned the film into a cult-followed franchise.
The 2026 edition stars Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler, and Charli XCX. We are joined by the film’s director and co-writer to discuss their take on interpreting the source material in a contemporary landscape. The pair also provides a behind the scenes look at soem of the film’s most notable choices in cinematography and art direction.
Faces of Death is a real movie—a real cultural object. I think we never want our adaptations to replace the original, update the original, or really interact with it in that way. For us, we always want it to be additive. We thought we’ve got to do a narrative story, we’ve got to make it modern and current, and it’s going to engage with Faces of Death in the same way that we were engaging with it [the 1978 film] as well. So I think that was the initial thought process behind building out a larger narrative story.
Faces of Death is having its World Premiere at Beyond Fest on April 5 and will be in theaters on April 10 from IFC and Shudder.
Follow our interviewees online:
Daniel Goldhaber Website, IMDb, Instagram
Isa Mazzei Website, IMDb, Instagram
Follow our interview host online:
Danny Jarabek
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Credits:
- Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
- Artwork: Danny Jarabek
- Editor: Danny Jarabek
- Assistant Producer: Evan Miller
- Feature Image Credit to IFC