Traces of Death lasts for seventy eight minutes & is a collection of extreme footage edited together with a few brief & largely uninformative snippets of narration provided by writer & director Damon Fox.
Anyone familiar with these shockumentary style films will be feel right at home, having just watched Traces of Death I would say that it's 99% real footage of accidents, autopsies, suicides, crime scenes, morgues, gory medical operations & animal slaughter with the one notable exception being the scene at the end in which a man is supposedly killed by several Lions which is definitely fake & is actually ripped from another shockumentary from the 70's & even has Japanese subtitles like the only tape the makers could find was a Japanese one.
Some of this is very grim & very hard to watch, from Pigs being blow torched while still alive to autopsies in which intestines, spines & brains are graphically removed (I assume this is medical school footage filmed for teaching purposes, I simply don't know why else an autopsy would be filmed in so much detail (edit: a little research proves my initial thoughts to be correct & the footage is actually taken from something called Basic Autopsy Procedure (1961) made by the U.S. army)) to various medical operations that will make most wince just looking at them including an Asian sex change change in which a guy has his cock surgically removed & a nice new glory hole created. I feel queasy just thinking about it but I am almost positive I have seen this exact same footage before in Shocking Asia (1976).
There's the well known suicide of Pennsylvanian treasurer Budd Dwyer who blew his brains out during a live press conference, the close-up of Dwyer's face with blood pouring from his nose & mouth is yet another dubious highlight. Various crime scene photo's, sporting accidents & various other forms of human suffering, mutilation, death & pain are also included for our viewing pleasure.
The majority of this footage has no narration, Traces of Death is just scene after scene of human misery & suffering not put into any sort of context. Budd Dwyer's name is never mentioned during his suicide, medical operations are shown but quite what is going on is a mystery as are the outcomes & why the Pigs are being blow torched alive remains unanswered (although I assume it was some sort of horrible experiment).
The IMDb says this had a budget of about $18 which sounds about right, most of the footage is probably edited from other sources & randomly pieced together with no great thought behind it. Banned here in the U.K. the BBFC stated that it did not have any 'journalistic, educational or other justifying context for the images shown' which is just about spot on.
Traces of Death is brilliant if you like this sort of thing with it's graphic footage of murder, misery, death, suffering & pain but I doubt there that many people out there who will truly enjoy all seventy eight minutes of this. Followed by Traces of Death II (1994), Traces of Death III (1995), Traces of Death IV: Resurrected (1996) & Traces of Death V: Back in Action (2000).
Anyone familiar with these shockumentary style films will be feel right at home, having just watched Traces of Death I would say that it's 99% real footage of accidents, autopsies, suicides, crime scenes, morgues, gory medical operations & animal slaughter with the one notable exception being the scene at the end in which a man is supposedly killed by several Lions which is definitely fake & is actually ripped from another shockumentary from the 70's & even has Japanese subtitles like the only tape the makers could find was a Japanese one.
Some of this is very grim & very hard to watch, from Pigs being blow torched while still alive to autopsies in which intestines, spines & brains are graphically removed (I assume this is medical school footage filmed for teaching purposes, I simply don't know why else an autopsy would be filmed in so much detail (edit: a little research proves my initial thoughts to be correct & the footage is actually taken from something called Basic Autopsy Procedure (1961) made by the U.S. army)) to various medical operations that will make most wince just looking at them including an Asian sex change change in which a guy has his cock surgically removed & a nice new glory hole created. I feel queasy just thinking about it but I am almost positive I have seen this exact same footage before in Shocking Asia (1976).
There's the well known suicide of Pennsylvanian treasurer Budd Dwyer who blew his brains out during a live press conference, the close-up of Dwyer's face with blood pouring from his nose & mouth is yet another dubious highlight. Various crime scene photo's, sporting accidents & various other forms of human suffering, mutilation, death & pain are also included for our viewing pleasure.
The majority of this footage has no narration, Traces of Death is just scene after scene of human misery & suffering not put into any sort of context. Budd Dwyer's name is never mentioned during his suicide, medical operations are shown but quite what is going on is a mystery as are the outcomes & why the Pigs are being blow torched alive remains unanswered (although I assume it was some sort of horrible experiment).
The IMDb says this had a budget of about $18 which sounds about right, most of the footage is probably edited from other sources & randomly pieced together with no great thought behind it. Banned here in the U.K. the BBFC stated that it did not have any 'journalistic, educational or other justifying context for the images shown' which is just about spot on.
Traces of Death is brilliant if you like this sort of thing with it's graphic footage of murder, misery, death, suffering & pain but I doubt there that many people out there who will truly enjoy all seventy eight minutes of this. Followed by Traces of Death II (1994), Traces of Death III (1995), Traces of Death IV: Resurrected (1996) & Traces of Death V: Back in Action (2000).