Here is a synopsis of the TRACES OF DEATH films:
Traces of Death
What comes off as a successor to the Faces of Death collection turns into yet another slapped together collection of archive film and borrowed stock footage. In its opening you see the death of a woman named Maritza Martin, who was gunned down by her ex-husband on Spanish language television. This incident was widely covered in the press and could be obtained rather easily, yet it appears to have taken off a VCR. We then witness British SAS troopers storming the Iranian Embassy in 1980, this is followed by a police chase of a criminal in a pick up truck and the deadly finale. Like FOD, Traces then goes to footage of animal experiments with a grizzly scene of a live pig being burned alive with a torch. This almost makes me wanna give up the pork rinds! Autopsy footage is then shown, the body being an Asian individual and it is complete with edits to get rid of the boring stuff. The grandiose showcase is then presented, we are shown a very graphic presentation on a male to female sex change operation. With this footage you begin to question whether the film wants to examine death or just gross you out. The operation is pretty vile yet can be seen in a few other similar films. One interesting scene has a man who had his nasal cavity removed and replaced with a prosthetic, the footage is most interesting and worth the price of admission. The producers then suddenly return to the death theme with the well known footage of R Budd Dwyer and his on air suicide with a .357 Magnum, followed by a look at one of the most notorious Nazi villains, Ilsa Koch and her sick collection of concentration camp victim tattoos which she turned into bookcovers, lampshades and wallets. The closing has some stock footage of a funeral and an animal attack which was lifted from another film. Now what makes this film really weird is the commercial at the tail end which advertises all sorts of creepy items from all over the world including T-shirt's, poster and actual human remains. For your trouble Traces of Death is not a total loss, the footage is way more shocking then any FOD video and the staged incidents are pretty much not there but the quality of production does lack the unique style of FOD and the narration is pretty crummy but Traces of Death does set itself apart as being all true and real.
Traces of Death 2
The inevitable sequel to the grizzly Traces of Death would set itself apart from the original by utilizing more of the Mondo style footage of earlier films. The footage of African rituals and their bizarre customs seem familiar to those who have witnessed any of the Italian Mondo films of the 60's and 70's. The rest of the film is a standard collection of stock footage including a hot air balloon disaster, a shark attack and some autopsy footage. The background narration's at times is quite annoying but is replaced at times by heavy metal music. The narrator details the fair play of this film by showing a sex change of a woman into a man, the footage is quite bizarre and at times unsettling. Some accident footage from Monster Truck Shows and Auto races is also thrown in as well as a request for a band to appear in TOD III. Now if you feel your band is worthy you are too late, the third one was already released. The end is followed by another catalog with even more bizarre souvenirs and oddities.
Buy the whole series for £20!
Seperate buying price of the series: £24
Traces of Death 3 COMING SOON!
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