Review: Faceless

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2021
Images from the Internet

Faceless
Directed by Marcel Sarmiento
Blackbear Studios; Producer Capital Fund; Indican Pictures
97 minutes, 2021
www.indicanpictures.com/new-releases/faceless

Imagine taking a bowl and throwing in the 800 lb. gorilla of face changing movies, Face/Off (1997) and then add in some elements of Old Boy (I prefer the 2003 Chan-Wook Park version, but if you want to keep with the overemoting theme of Face/Off, we can go with the 2013 U.S. remake), stir it vigorously, and you end up with something different than either of them.

After a short prologue showing a low-life gambling addict who is betting on a dog fight under a highway, we meet the protagonist of the story, George (Brendan Sexton III, who has made lots of films, but I recognize him from 2010’s The Runaways), who wakes in the hospital having had a complete face transplant and no memory of how he got there. The operation during the credits and the gauze removal was painful to watch (scalpels and needles are an admitted weak spot for me).

With a Coen Brothers’ languid pace and artistic flair, the film has a dark, almost sepia tone, and a disorienting feel as George tries to figure out who he is, both in the past and now with a new and scarred face that even his parents repel at, giving the audience a taste of his new life and mood.

When a mysterious masked man in a bunny hug – I mean a hoodie – starts popping up in a threatening manner, it seems to be subtly implying that George, a man in a human mask, is meeting a man in a full blanched-out teddy bear mask. Is this real or is it a trick of his mind, possibly the original owner of his new countenance? Or, as his boss askes, “Are you sure it’s not your meds fuckin’ with you?” Is he and the audience being gaslit?

What is obvious and explained early is that pre-face replacement George was a man of questionable actions, and the new George has to reckon with it, much like Geena Davis’s character in The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) or the titular mystery man in The Bourne Identity (2002; especially in the better 1980 Robert Ludlum novel).

Just who is the mysterious tall, willowy, and beautiful redheaded woman, Sophie (Alex Essoe, who has recently been Wendy in 2019’s Doctor Sleep, and a regular in 2020’s Netflix mini-series “The Haunting of Bly Manor”)? He doesn’t remember her, but she certainly knows him. The bigger question is if she’s connected to George or the original face owner? Or perhaps both?

As is a common theme in these memory loss kinds of pictures, there are flashes of remembrances that make no sense to either the character or the audience due to context, but I have learned to wait it out, because it all tends to come clear by the end as the past and the present come colliding together, usually violently (I am halfway through at this point; yes, I write as I watch).

The gore is brief but graphic, and the scar make-up is incredibly well done. As a sidebar, I must add that with the twisted scar around George’s mouth and bruises around the eyes, he looks a bit like the medical staff in the infamous “Eyeof the Beholder”  episode of “The Twilight Zone” (1960, with Donna Douglas). One of my pet peeves on a lot of action shows, be it film or tv, is that when someone is hurt, they will have a really nasty cut (usually on the brow), and the next “day” it is just a line, and then it’s gone in less than a cinematic week; “Young Wallander” comes to mind as an example. So not realistic, but cheaper on the make-up budget. Here, George gets some bruises, and they are there for the duration, as the main part of the film (post-hospital) takes place over a few days. Not only that, but with wear and tear…and punches, etc., as time goes by he actually looks worse for wear than he did at the beginning. Kudos and thank you to the relatively large make-up crew who did such a smash-up job (pun intended).

Meanwhile, George is having issues with his family and the two thugs out to get their money owed to him in his previous life. As is common in these thriller kinds of films (i.e., non-supernatural), there’s crime, double crosses, and plot twists, all working together to that explosive ending I mentioned earlier. All I can say about the conclusion, though, is that I would have loved a postscript on one year later.

The film does get a bit confusing on who is who and the whys here and there, but generally it keeps the interest, especially by the half-way point. Luckily, the beauty of the visuals kept drawing me in. My one real quibble is that the sound is sometimes either too low or mumbled for my decrepit ears (too many live Ramones [etc.] concerts in my youth).

Whatever the weak points are, they are well overshadowed by the artistic merit that was put into the final work. Overall, its feel reminded me of Blood Simple (1984), a film that I felt had some issues but liked, and it ended up becoming considered as a classic. This has that kind of hallmark, leaning in that direction.

The film is full of bubbling under actors, with lots of credits in both films and television series, sometimes as semi-regulars. In other words, even though this is a solidly independent feature, the cast is strong without any of the usual acting foibles associated with this kind of budgeted film. Combined with director Sarmiento’s skills, this is a strong contender.

The film is available in digital formats, as well as DVD as of March 2, 2021.