The Faceless Man (Movie Review)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

PLOT: A cancer survivor haunted by the image of a faceless monster also has to deal with a serial killer, vigilante bikers, a cursed house, and drug-dealing mobsters.

REVIEW: Early on in THE FACELESS MAN, there's a scene in which a group of friends are being shown around a rental house by the property owner, who keeps making inappropriate jokes about having gangbangs in various rooms. The people who have rented this place from him make it clear that they don't find his gangbang references amusing at all, but he persists, he keeps talking about gangbangs while acknowledging that these people don't get his sense of humor. That's basically what the experience of watching this movie was like for me. I felt like that group of friends dealing with the homeowner who has the odd sense of humor; I realized that this movie was telling some kind of joke, but I wasn't sure why, and I didn't get it.

This is writer/director James Di Martino's feature debut after he spent a few years making short films, and it kind of feels like it's a bunch of short films that were all blended together. The movie throws a bunch of ideas at the wall to see what sticks, and not much actually does. THE FACELESS MAN is a scatterbrained movie that keeps tossing in new plot elements – mobsters on the hunt for a batch of cocaine that the group of friends happens to have in their possession, a problem solver with a vulgar nickname, vigilante bikers, an axe-wielding serial killer, spiked tea, a supposedly cursed house, rape, and of course the monster that the film is named after.

At first it seems like the faceless man exists only in the mind of lead character Emily (Sophie Thurling), who is introduced while undergoing cancer treatment and arguing with her politician father Harrison Beckman (Brendan Bacon), who she believes only pretends to care about her well-being because it looks good for him. The film begins with a 9 minute conversation between Emily and Harrison, a scene that goes on painfully long and started to make me think that this was going to be some kind of arty movie packed with attempts to emulate Quentin Tarantino. That's not really how it turned out – but if you thought the bad Tarantino knock-offs were twenty years behind us, watch for the scene here that manages to lift from RESERVOIR DOGS and PULP FICTION at the same time, all while a character makes a sandwich.

Emily keeps seeing the faceless man and keeps spewing strange substances from her mouth, so you might think this is all some sort of hallucination she's having. But then other characters start seeing the faceless man… And if this were a simple story about this creature tormenting Emily and her friends, it probably would have been a lot more entertaining. As it is, the faceless man is just one weird element in the mix with a lot of other weird, random stuff. 

The story is disjointed, the score is oddly jarring, the movie goes on for way too long at 105 minutes, and I was never able to like or care about any of the characters… But there are some bright spots I can point out: Thurling does a good job in the role of Emily, Daniel Reader has a fun screen presence as problem solver Barry the C***, and Roger Ward of MAD MAX and TURKEY SHOOT makes an entertaining appearance as a character called King Dougie.

The movie Thurling, Barry, and King Dougie are in just didn't work for me on any level. I didn't find its sense of humor to be amusing, and the horror wasn't satisfying – I couldn't tell you what's going on with the supernatural parts of this movie, it didn't make any sense to me. 

I can tell you that if you find the word "gangbang" or the phrase "a good town with good people" to be hilarious, you'll have a lot more fun watching THE FACELESS MAN than I did.

The movie is currently making the festival rounds and seeking international distribution.