Videos showing human killings popular in U.S.

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 39

Videos showing human killings popular in U.S.

NZPA-AP Detroit “Faces of Death" and its sequel, films made up of scene after graphic scene of actual human and animal killings, have become hot items on the American video rental market, distributors say. “It is terrible; it is gross,” Mr Dennis Peters, of Curtis Mathis Entertainment Centres, one of the United States’ leading videotape rental chains, said. It is also immensely popular, according to Mr Peters, who described the demand for the “Faces of Death” video-cassettes as phenomenal. “People like the blood and guts stuff,” he said. In spite of their common subject matter, the “Faces of Death” films differ in one crucial respect from standard Hollywood horror fare: the killings they show are real. “Basically it’s a documentary,” said Mr Jeff Robinson, manager of Movieland, a videotape rental store in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It covers everything from the electric chair to the slaughterhouse. The films also showed a tribal execution, a bridgejump suicide, several autop-

sies, and the killing of monkeys in a restaurant where fresh monkey brains are a specialty of the house, Mr Robinson said. “It’s really graphic," he said. “It kind of leaves you — looking.” Mr Robinson said customers rented out the films as quickly as he put them on the shelf. “It just kind of caught fire," he said. Mr Jaffer Ali. of Maljack Productions, of Oak Forest, Illinois, exclusive distributor of the “Faces of Death” films, said they had developed a strong following in spite of a lack of advertising and virtually no theatrical distribution.' The company had sold 30,000 copies of the two films, he said. Mr Ali attributed the popularity of the films to people’s fascination with death. What makes death such a hot topic? “We’re just curious,” he said. ‘We’re all going to die." Mr Peters, Curtis Mathis’s vice-president for sales in Michigan,, said a computer check of rental of the films at his company’s outlets in the state showed each copy had been checked out almost continually for two months.

“Once a movie pays for itself that quickly, we’ll get more copies in,” he said. The original “Faces of Death” was produced in the United States for the Japanese film market, Mr Ali said. “This outgrossed ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ for 13 weeks in Japan,” he said. “It was a smash.” Mr Ali said he had heard more objections about the movies’ scenes of animal killings than those of humans. “The same guy who complains about the slaughterhouse scene goes out and buys ‘Chicken McNuggets’,” he said. Video Trend acts as wholesaler of the film in Michigan and northern Ohio. “It’s doing very well here,” said Video Trend’s sales manager, Ms Sue Margolis, who added, “It’s not one of my top 10 films.” She said the same kind of audience that went to see a horror movie was drawn to the “Faces of Death” films, with one difference -- people were ashamed to be seen renting the “Death” films. “Its not as socially acceptable to watch footage of people actually being killed,” Ms Margolis said.