Charli xcx horror Faces of Death to close EIFF Midnight Madness
Daniel Goldhaber’s meta slasher retooling 70s cult classic Faces of Death will close Edinburgh Film Festival’s late-night horror strand. It stars Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery and the prolific Charli xcx
Edinburgh International Film Festival’s late-night horror strand, Midnight Madness, is coming together nicely. Earlier in the week, we were told that the world premiere of Chee Keong Cheung’s GoPro-shot action thriller Bad Day at the Office, which stars John Hannah as an office drone having the workday from hell, would open Midnight Madness. Today it’s been revealed that Daniel Goldhaber’s meta reworking of the 1978 gorefest Faces of Death will close it.
The cult original was a mondo-style portmanteau horror that purported to be real footage of horrible incidents from around the world. It was presented by a fellow named Dr Francis B. Gröss, who’d claimed to have gathered together the found footage, which included the likes of autopsies, alligator attacks and police raids gone wrong. While some of the footage was genuine documentary footage, the most outrageous clips were fiction.
Bad Day at the Office, courtesy of Action Xtreme
Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei, the excellent filmmakers behind Cam and How to Blow Up a Pipeline, have reportedly breathed new life into this hokey IP. Goldhaber directs and Mazzei co-writes this meta story about a content moderator for a TikTok-like app who starts to suspect the crazy footage she’s been assessing for her work might be the work of a copycat serial killer who’s trying to recreate the brutal deaths from the original 1978 horror. Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira stars as Margot, the content moderator. Stranger Things star Dacre Montgomery and pop superstar Charli xcx are also among the cast.
“Midnight Madness is all about bold voices, movies that take risks and filmmakers who embrace provocation,” says EIFF director Paul Ridd. “It is perfect that we close off this year's selection with such a stylish and ingenious movie from director Daniel Goldhaber and co-screenwriter Isa Mazzei. These two have quietly been making some of the most exciting, edgiest movies of the past decade, and with Faces of Death they have crafted a reboot that is fresh, modern and full of ideas. It is also a total blast to watch with an audience. We are thrilled.”
Watch this space for news of the full EIFF programme, which is announced on 1 July.
The 2026 Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place 13-19 Aug at venues across Edinburgh