ComingSoon editor-in-chief Tyler Treese spoke with Faces of Death stars Dacre Montgomery and Barbie Ferreira about the unique horror movie remake. The actors discussed the film’s meta approach, working with Charli XCX, and finding character inspiration from murderer Elliot Rodger. IFC and Shudder will release the film in theaters on April 10.
“In Faces of Death, the exploration of the original film’s infamous ‘is it real or not?’ conceit continues as a woman (Barbie Ferreira) working as a content moderator for a major video platform discovers what appears to be re-enactments of murders from the original film. In an online world where nothing can be trusted, she must determine whether the violence is fiction or unfolding in real time,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Barbie, we’ve seen a lot of reboots and remakes lately of horror films, and I thought this was such a brilliant kind of meta way to take a very controversial film and subvert expectations. What did you like most about how the creative team here took on Faces of Death?
Barbie Ferreira: Yeah, remakes are pretty tricky, especially with IP. It feels like everyone, what they’re trying to do, is just remake something that did really well and hope that it does as well as it did before. With Faces, it felt like a completely different take on getting IP. It felt like a really, extremely smart script by Isa and Danny, like in the way that it’s almost not a remake at all. In fact, it’s just kind of a reimagining and using IP to have a contemporary take on society as a whole right now and have a conversation about what was shocking 30, 50, 40 years ago, and what’s shocking now, and where we have devolved to with violence.
So, for me, what was really exciting was that it wasn’t just a remake of a horror movie. It’s a completely original horror film that has this historical film in here that informs what the conversation about the contemporary film is. So it felt like a really interesting way to go about it. I don’t know if I would be extremely interested in doing a remake of something that worked 20 years ago, and just redoing it the same beat for beat. I don’t know if that’s what I would be most interested in.
With Faces, what was so unique was that the script itself had nothing to do with the gore tape that is Faces of Death. But instead incorporated that in a bigger message of like where society has moved from the late seventies to the 2020s, when we’re like in an algorithmic society where everything is just violent videos, violent clips, it’s access to every single bit of the weird corners of humanity. At any time, you can go and watch weird, like security camera footage of nothing, like on a website. It’s just like the internet has really opened up so much about our fascination with the darker parts of life and being part of this new wave of just constantly being bombarded with really traumatizing imagery and videos. And so I thought it was really, really cool the way that they used existing IP in a completely original way in Hollywood.
Dacre, your character is really putting on a performance for social media. This film is very modern, and he has this need to feel vindicated and celebrated by an audience. There’s a really funny scene where someone says it looks like a student film, and he gets upset. What did you find most interesting about this character in his search for praise?
Dacre Montgomery: Yeah. One of the real-life people that Danny asked me to look at was Elliot Rodger. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him.
Oh, yeah. The incel.
Dacre Montgomery: Yeah, yeah. Like the king of the incels. This idea of the need for praise and attention, combined with someone who is quite smart, I think, packaging this idea of playing into the kind of attention economy, as sort of said in the film. Like he is smartly playing into society’s fear to get likes, to get views, to get attention, which isn’t so different from anything a lot of people are doing at the moment, which I think is why he’s a sinisterly relatable character like he just is.
Elliot was interesting. I was really interested in him as a sort of archetypal character, a human being to study because he was posting his stuff on YouTube. His videos of him saying how he felt about stuff or views for likes, for girls’ attention, to try and one-up all of these kinds of guys he perceived to be these awful, toxic, masculine kinds of individuals. I’m always interested in the villain’s crusade. What is their crusade? What are they on the hunt for and to achieve? And Elliot, that just seems to be a lot of crossover between him and Arthur, which I felt really fascinated by.
Barbie, you share a couple of scenes of Charli XCX, and you even call her the c-word during one. How is it just filming with her? You’re probably the only person who got to call her that and wasn’t punched afterward.
Barbie Ferreira: It was amazing. I’ve known Charli for a long time now. We’re both like Tumblr girls, and to watch her career just… I mean, she’s one of the most talented musicians of our generation, and she completely recreated hyperpop and has defined this generation with her music. Now she’s like an a prolific actress, like, hello. I mean, this woman, I feel, is in the likes of Cher and Barbara Streisand and the pop stars who are also [movie] stars, it’s such a cool thing to watch a modern pop star do that. Her foray into indie cinema and the projects that she picks are so cool.
This was her first acting job, so I was shocked that she even wanted to be a part of it. I remember being like, “Oh my God, Charli, like, that’s so cool.” That’s a huge get. I was like, “Oh my God, she’s like one of the most talented musicians of our time.” For it to be at the precipice of Brat and right before Brat and seeing her flourish in such a great way and being this “voice of a generation,” as Lena Dunham put it in Girls … it was so cool to see.
So, I love Charli. She was incredible. It’s so cool to see her outside of her element and like on the stage. Because she’s such a powerful, powerful performer. I’ve seen her countless times on stage. I love going to see her, her past couple of albums. I’ve been to a lot of her shows. It’s just so cool to see her kind of channel that into being this multi-hyphenated just star. The choices she’s making are really, really, really, really cool and smart. I think with her indie movies and doing the festival circuits is really sick, and I’m so happy that she’s part of Faces of Death. That’s like such a cool lore.
Dacre, you’re wearing a mask in some of these scenes. How do these help you get into character, or how was it filming with that physical aid?
Dacre Montgomery: Yeah, I mean it’s all this tactile, tangible thing. I want to be able to feel and touch those elements. The biggest thing that helped me was, I don’t know if you like saw, but I wear like… a catsuit thing. I wore it the whole film, under that black shirt, and it made me feel that he has this obsession via Faces of Death, and the obsession with bringing it back with mannequins, and this idea of the mannequin being sexless, I think, is interesting to him. I think this idea of being this eunuch kind of thing, being the epitome of like kind of a masculine beauty, like this masculine-feminine beauty thing.
I don’t know, I was really fascinated by it because Arthur strikes me as a guy that’s kind of rebuilt himself. He’s gone to the gym, but he was probably really skinny and scrawny growing up, and he’s made a bit like Elliot Roger. I mean, he would criticize these men that were like Adonises and would say these are the worst kind of guys ever. Like, these guys just f— chicks, f— around and do whatever, but I want to be in a way them, right? Like, that was the whole thing. He wanted to just have attention from the women on campus, that he so tragically went and killed all of these people.
The mannequin for me was a way in for both Faces of Death and to this idea of like, perceived beauty. This idea of like this flawless skin, like glass, unaffected by any kind of pigmentation or anything. This kind of odd, disgusting, slinky beauty. I was really fascinated by that as well, and I’ll end on this: the compression element.
So it was so tight that it was like you could hardly breathe. I found that really interesting to act with. It was so tight on my body. So, I felt this trapped thing, this suffocating kind of idea. I was like, “Oh, that’s really interesting to explore.” So I did wear it when you couldn’t see it on screen. I just thought it was very helpful for me in identifying a constant touchstone. It’s like if you’re supposed to have a limp and you put a rock in your shoe, you know, so you never forget, and then you’re not really acting. It’s that touchstone for me of I wear this thing, and then I never forget because I can’t really breathe [laughs].
Barbie Ferreira: I was also wearing my Skims under my costume. So we were doing twins.
Montgomery: Oh yeah, that’s right.
Ferreira: I had a body suit too.
Montgomery: Yeah, the body suit. That’s the thing, it is interesting. So I don’t know. Take from that what you will.
Thanks to Dacre Montgomery and Barbie Ferreira for taking the time to talk about Faces of Death.
