Traces of Death

Traces of Death is a 1993 Z movie mondo shockumentary that consists of various scenes of stock footage depicting death and real scenes of violence.

Traces of Death
VHS cover
Written byDamon Fox
Based onFaces of Death
Narrated byDamon Fox
Music by
  • J. R. Bookwalter
  • Matthew Jason Walsh
Edited by
  • Studio D
  • Dennis Deroche
Production
company
  • Dead Alive Productions
  • Foxx Entertainment Enterprises
Distributed byBrain Damage Films
Release date
April 20, 1993
Running time
76 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Unlike the earlier Faces of Death which included fake deaths and reenactments, Traces consists mostly of actual footage depicting death and injury, and consists also of public domain footage from other films. It was written and narrated by Damon Fox.

Since its release, Traces of Death has been followed by four sequels. The first sequel, Traces of Death II, was released in June 1994. This was followed by Traces of Death III in December 1994, Traces of Death IV: Resurrected in 1996 and Traces of Death V: Back in Action in April 2000.

Film content

In the first two films of the series, Damon Fox was the narrator. Darrin Ramage, who would later become the founder of Brain Damage Films, would become the host for the third, fourth and fifth volumes. Unlike Faces of Death, the footage throughout the entire films are real and are not staged or reenacted. Starting with Traces of Death ii, scenes were accompanied by background music from death metal and grindcore bands.

Also contained in the series, especially in the first one, is footage of step-by-step autopsy procedures, which are shown from a coroner's point of view. Most of the other footage is recognizably notable. Among the footage samples seen on Traces of Death and in the sequels that followed are listed below.

Traces of Death (1993)

The first film of the series also contains allegedly staged footage from Ultime grida dalla savana, where a tourist, Pit Dernitz supposedly gets mauled and eaten by African lions.

Other scenes that feature animals include undated footage of a pig experiment by the U.S. Army scientists at the Burn Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas (derived from a 1987 mondo film entitled True Gore), and a black bear getting shocked off a utility pole in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1989.

The first two films both contain scenes of sex reassignment surgery, which is featured in the 1974 mondo film Shocking Asia. Some autopsy footages were taken from, Basic Autopsy Procedure.

It features an interview of James Vance, who attempted suicide at the church playground in Sparks, Nevada.

Also including a footage from the evidence of Ilse Koch (the sadistic "Bitсh of Buchenwald").

Traces of Death II (1994)

There is one unusual piece of footage taken at a monster truck show in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 23, 1992. What makes this footage so unusual is that the robot transformer at the show malfunctioned. A big rod from the malfunctioning robot went into the actor of the alien suit's chest, and exploded.

Another notable air show crash in the film took place in Plainview, Texas, on September 11, 1983, where the pilot lost both his plane's wings in mid-air and plummeted into the field below. There are many other various plane crashes and race car crashes during the middle and towards the end of the film.

Traces of Death III (1995)
  • The first Markale Massacre in 1994
  • Killings of children during the Algerian Civil War
  • Necklacing in South Africa
  • Villager killings during the 1984 elections in El Salvador
  • El Cordobés during his career in the bullring
  • The Sabra and Shatila Massacre
  • The 1991 discovery of Ötzi
  • A 1988 crash involving the monster truck Wild Stang, which was one of the first monster truck crashes to be captured on film
  • Rare scenes of body parts from victims of the Cambodian genocide and Burundian Genocide in 1972
  • The assassination of a Haitian lawyer in 1994
  • The 1994 assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio
  • Discoveries of skeletal remains in the Killing Fields in Cambodia

The third edition starts with crime scenes in urban American cities such as New York City, ranging from murders to traffic accidents. These pieces look as if taken from the '60s and '70s.

This volume also shows what its like to survive an attack, as of a 1991 press conference of Frank Tempest, an English man disfigured in the face when he was attacked by two pit bulls.

Also included is graphic content of gang violence in Russia, various motocross and amateur race car accidents.

Traces of Death IV (1996)
  • The 1972 assassination attempt of George Wallace
  • The 1992 Agdam Massacre, which was a massacre of Azerbaijanian civilians by Armenian militants during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
  • Executions of Kurdish civilians during the Anfal Genocide
  • A terrorist attack on a yacht perpetrated by the PLO in Cyprus in 1985.
  • The Amiriyah shelter bombing
  • The 1968 execution Of Nguyễn Văn Lém
  • Riots in Seoul, South Korea in 1994 and 1987.
  • Riots in Moscow, Russia, in 1993
  • Bosnian soldiers caught in sniper crossfire during the Bosnian War
  • The 1984 Kent and Dollar Farm massacres
  • A 1986 stabbing attack in East Jerusalem, where a Palestinian terrorist is shot in the head by Israeli soldiers after they witnessed him stab a Jewish resident to death in the town square.
  • A mortar attack in Bosnia that killed six people waiting for water in 1993.
  • A mortar attack in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) that killed 16 civilians in line for water and bread on May 27, 1992.
  • Villager killings during the 1984 elections in El Salvador

Another piece of notable footage in the fourth volume is a moose killing a man in Anchorage, Alaska on January 9, 1995.

Towards the start of the film graphic photographs of birth aberrations are shown.

There is also footage of traffic accidents from the graphic driving education film, Signal 30.

Traces of Death V (2000)

The last volume starts with three police chases. The first was in Los Angeles, California, in June 1996. The second was in Los Angeles as well, but it took place in June 1995. The third took place in Whittier, California in September 1995.

All were televised live by helicopter pilot Bob Tur.

Soundtrack

The original soundtrack were provided by J. R. Bookwalter and Matthew Jason Walsh (a.k.a. T.O.D.).[1] Later in Traces of Death 2, featuring some various death metal and grindcore band artists.

Home media

In 2003, a box set of the entire series was released on DVD by Brain Damage Films.[2]

Controversy

The original Traces of Death has run into controversy worldwide due to its graphic content. In 1997, Amy Hochberg, a woman living in Coaldale, Pennsylvania rented the film from a video store and was so disgusted by the film's content that she considered keeping the tape as to avoid children from procuring it from the store. She also contacted multiple animal rights groups after witnessing a scene in the film wherein a pig is experimented on with a blowtorch. She also lodged a complaint with the video store she had rented it from, as she thought the film was simply "911 calls with a little more".[3]

In 2003, a DVD boxset of the film and its sequels were confiscated by Australian Customs, after being deemed to "contravene Regulation 4A(1A)(a) of the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations."[4]

Banning in the UK

In 2005, the British Board of Film Classification refused to give the first film an age certificate, effectively banning it. The BBFC considered the film to have "no journalistic, educational or other justifying context for the images shown", while also suggesting that the film could potentially breach UK law under the Obscene Publications Act.[5]

See also

References
  1. "J.R. BOOKWALTER: Director/Producer/Editor". Tempe Entertainment.
  2. "Traces of Death Box Set - Volumes 1-5 (2003)". Brain Damage Films. Retrieved 17 February 2018.
  3. Laylo, Bob (March 4, 1997). "HORROR VIDEOTAPE GOES TOO FAR FOR VIEWER * MOVIE RENTAL IN LANSFORD SPURS WOMAN TO BRING COMPLAINT TO ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE". The Morning Call. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  4. "Films: T #3 | Censor". Refused-Classification.com. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  5. "Traces of Death". BBFC. 22 June 2005. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
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