CORTLAND, N.Y. — Local plumber and barfly Randy Kunzelman became borderline irate after a family member told him most of the horrific footage featured in the original “Faces of Death” was staged by the filmmakers, several mulleted sources report.
“When my niece Dani casually mentioned to me, ‘You know most of ‘Faces of Death’ was fake, right?’ I coulda slapped my brother for raising his child like that,” Kunzelman said, adding she always was the weird one. “No way in hell that stuff’s fake. I saw it on VHS when I was 11 years old, and it pretty much scarred me for life. For 42 years I’ve avoided going to the zoo because I didn’t want to look at the monkeys and think of that brain scene. Now it’s all of a sudden it’s fake? What, next you’re gonna tell me the narrator’s name isn’t really Francis B. Gröss or something? Get outta here.”
Randy Kunzelman’s nephew and bearer of bad news Danny Kunzelman could see that the news of the snuff film being mostly staged had a profound effect on his uncle.
“I’ve never seen a grown man act like that. He got bright red, started sweating, and I saw tears in his eyes as he called me a liar and a disgrace to the family. It was tough,” the 22-year-old explained. “It was sort of like when an older sibling tells you Santa isn’t real for the first time. I could tell he was angry, sad, and confused all at once. It was nearly as bad as when my dad told him professional wrestling was scripted, I don’t think he visited us for a whole year after that. Poor guy.”
Horror connoisseur and contributor to Fangoria magazine Frank Emge noted how other films have duped entire generations.
“Much like the subject matter of ‘Faces of Death,’ reality can be a hard thing to accept sometimes,” Emge said. “If you have spent the last 40 years talking about seeing a snuff film as a child and then then you have the rug ripped out from under you it’s hard to accept. A whole generation of kids became basement-dwelling couch potatoes because ‘the Blair Witch Project’ scared them so much, to the point where they never wanted to go play in the woods. Even though the material is fake, these deceptive filmmakers have blood on their hands. Or at least corn syrup on their hands.”
At press time, Kunzelman had finally mustered up the courage to visit a zoo, only to be quickly scared off after seeing a man photographing a grizzly bear.