I really enjoyed this compilation when I was a kid, I used to watch it a lot back in the day.I always wondered where the director was (Damon Fox), he goes by the alias 'Damien Black' too, although his real, full name is William Robert Rocz Jr.. For those who don't know, his father was Bill Rocz, the local Tempe, AZ film critic. You can see him for a few seconds in Raising Arizona. I first bought a VHS copy of Traces at a video rental store when I was about 12. I also bought The Amazing Shocking Asia the same day. Traces was much better. Later on I discovered Damon's magazine, 'Foxx Entertainment Enterprises Ltd.', and I wanted so much stuff in the magazine, but by the time I discovered it, everything was long gone. Nobody has heard from Damon for years. I would love to know where he is today, he made some INCREDIBLE designs back in the day. And I'm also a fan of the Stormtrooper album 'Armies Of The Night' he made under the name 'Damien Black'. This review is not so much about the film itself, everyone else has already mentioned so much about it, anything I have to say would be useless.This is just about the mystery of Damon Fox. Where is he today? And no, the Damon Fox that narrated Death Scenes and sang in the band Stormtrooper is not the same Damon Fox that is on Facebook right now. That guy is in the band 'The Cult' and he never responds to any questions whatsoever. A simple 'Not the same guy' would have been nice, but I suppose if you're not Kat Von D or some other semi-famous person, he doesn't have time for replies.Anyway, if anyone knows where Damon Fox (Aka Bill Rocz Jr.) is today, please let me know. I would love to talk to him about Foxx Entertainment Enterprises. They had highly superior items, not the cheap low quality crap that gets mass produced today.

The original "Faces of Death" 'shockumentary' was many things in its heyday: the ultimate Mondo-movie, the closest thing to a real snuff-movie and, during the staged scene, an often (unintentionally) hilarious bogus-documentary. More than that, during the 1980's and 90's it was somewhat of a "rite of passage" for many teenagers, who tried to show off their psychological 'manliness' (and at the same time were hoping that the creeped-out girls in the audience would snuggle a little closer).Those teens eventually grew up, possibly going to college and having long realised that 90 percent of "Faces of Death" had been fake, staged, pure bogus. But word had it – promoted largely by word-of-mouth, obscure Heavy Metal fanzines and a 14.4kbps internet – that there was a new, a "real" shockumentary around, and this shockumentary was "Traces of Death".The entrepreneurial Metalhead Damon Fox had not only realized that the taste for gore among gorehounds had not faded, but that – unlike in the 70's – one no longer needed a film-crew to create a mondo-documentary. All that was needed was an editing device and enough shock-and death-footage from various news-sources, "Faces of Death"-clones and the internet to stuff 90 minutes into a video-tape.Having culled and assembled said footage, all Fox had to do was to add narration (provided by himself in a distorted voice, all the time sounding like that creepy neighbor-kid who explains why pocking a dead dog with a stick is "good fun") and a soundtrack. The soundtrack itself is already the highlight – if we may speak of a highlight in this context – a minimal, yet haunting, pulsating Electro-sound-frenzy, both morbid and captivating at the same time. In consequent sequels the electro-sound has been dropped in favor of Grindcore, Black- and Death Metal, supplied by bands hoping to promote their equally gore-soaked albums and demos.Where mondos like "Faces of Death", "Mondo Carne" or "Shocking Asia" still had unwanted humor in the staged scenes and an air of the forbidden, "Faces of Death" is just a an assembly of disfigurement, accidents, suicides and autopsies that, more than being shocked or grossed-out,leaves the viewer with the same impression of having spent a day at the slaughterhouse: desensitized and nauseated more by the smell than by the actual carnage.Today "Traces of Death" is merely a footnote in the history of mondo-productions; the internet is full with infinitely more shocking images, videos and sites, free-of-charge for the jaded souls and ghouls who seek them (and have turned off the safety-mode of their search-engines). Even Fox himself has turned on his on "film-production", despite his cinematic and musical brilliance (which his IMDb-biography assures us of, no doubt composed by Fox himself)."Traces of Death" remains a curiosity in the history of mondo-films, having no other merits than that. I'll give it two points from 10: one for the soundtrack and one for the sake of being a curiosity.

I agree with D Segura that most of the film especially the autopsies need some narration of some sort as they tend to get a bit boring if you don't know what is happening. Its still fascinating in some parts. The sex change operation is painful to watch if you are a man ha ha. The pigs getting burned I could have done without though, very cruel indeed. The Faces of Death series at least had some sort of structure to it and it feels as though this has just been thrown together in no order.Some of the scenes were short/poor quality and not explained at all.The narrator is a giggle with his horror voice.

if i could id give this a 666 out of ten, anyhow....if you don't like this then you are normal. i am not and think this is a great (horrific) depiction of what could happen to us. I've seen up to IV and all are morbid master pieces...the other ones include glorious death metal/grind gore which i also enjoy. we shall all die and some of us shall die very, very, gruesome violent chaotic moronic disgusting deaths. a lot of us humans will also come into contact with hospitals via terrifying sadistic injuries. those stupid shows on true TV and stuff like that that claims its "worlds wildest videos" does not have anything on the wildness and bizarre images contained in this video. its not a movie and its not a documentary its just pure unadulterated death and human destruction. and if you are at all up set by things that happen in real life then stay away in your peaceful, ignorant world and leave the death to us. only black is true, only death is real!