Traces of Death III, IV, & V Reviews: Navigating the Grisly Realms of Shockumentary Cinema from Brain Damage Films!
Back in December 2023, my Partner in Gore, Willow, and I started to review the legendary shockumentary series, Traces of Death. Because there are five of them, we broke it down into two sittings. The first being concentrated solely on part 1 and part 2 (see review of Traces of Death I & II here). If you didn’t read it or cannot be bothered to follow that link, I’ll repeat a couple of things here and there cause it’s important to understand some things about real death movies. For one, like the Death Scenes (see review here) and Rare: A Dead Person volumes (see reviews Rare: A Dead Person from Aroma Planning and Rare: A Dead Person 2 from Aroma Planning here),Traces of Death can be clear and honest that they are totally genuine.
As I’ve said before, throughout the history of VHS to DVD to downloading and streaming, many have gone on journeys seeking the holy grails of extreme films, real life snuff films. Do snuff films exist? Yeah, but are illegal to have, due to torture and such, however those seeking to peek at dead bodies, well, there’s a whole lucrative genre out there.
Some people love a good documentary of dead folks, y’know. Why do many watch the aftermath of an accident or some kind of homicidal act? In movies it all began with the Mondo flicks, then after the infamous snuff arrived to fake everyone out, Faces of Death did a clever thing, it combined some genuine death footage alongside staged, almost comical scenarios. Sheer entertainment but lasting in the memories of thousands of kids sneaking a look at a tape that they shouldn’t. It’s easier these days. With a couple of clicks on the web and you have everything you require. Yet a long time ago, Traces of Death etcetera, were out there, hard to get, but worth it.
In Gorezone issue 33 (2014) producer, Darrin Ramage states there was in that era around three to four hundred people around the world who shot footage of atrocities. “They would be at the right place at the right time.” thus selling their films to television networks, etcetera. This was way before smart phones and such. Of course, the news shows couldn’t show everything so shockumentaries picked up the graphic and brutal complete unedited footage. Darrin also states that sometimes Traces of Death would be used by firefighters and ambulance drivers to show training classes what to expect. In fact, shockumentaries have been shown in attempts to “scare straight” young offenders.
So, this is gonna be a long one — three volumes in one. Like part 2, Traces of Death III has a pumping death metal soundtrack to accompany us after the obligatory and excellent warning to those who may have wandered wicked paths quite by accident. “I am Brain Damage, producer of the first true shockumentary series,” Darrin reminds us and gives a few examples of what was before and what is to come — whilst stood between candles with his back to us. He’s taken over from Mr. Fox, the fella who talked us through part one and two. Then he hypes the music and the soundtrack CD (rightfully so, this is a banging collective of tunes from folks such as Mortician, Repulsion, Pungent Stench and many more. Wait ‘til volume 4, it gets better).
First up, there’s bodies laid all over the place, results of a mortar bomb in a Sarajevo marketplace. An unseen guy is poking the eye of a corpse. Perhaps it’s a dare. Then, as Brain Damage narrates, we have the remains of hikers who have fallen into a deep crevice.
In fact, it’s seven minutes in before the above-mentioned death metal begins its sonic attack, but we started to nod like bulldogs on speed. TOD 3 assaults the viewer with Middle East attacks, dead adults and kids, a parade of mutilations, gore, gunshot wounds, burns, extreme bodily destruction, and much more takes us forwards. Plus, the usual growly vomiting zombie vocalists over the throbbing tunes.
“The burning necklace, South Africa’s most vile cause of death!” we see the results. Brain Damage really puts passion into his voice, y’know. “Watch… the blood pump… out of the bullet hole in this man’s stomach… as the medic attempts to… revive him!” Yeah, he does a load of dramatic pauses in his sentences. There’s then a homeless guy sawn in half by a subway train, plus a geeza eating a live scorpion — he takes the stinger out first. Years later on YouTube, Food for Louie did the same thing, along with chomping decomposed turkey, battered roadkill, and live spiders. Yes, that young lad was something else (most of his vids have been removed nowadays). There’s a duo of muscle pumped men arm wrestling over angry scorpions with stingers included, and that is cool as fuck. “This is great!” applauded Willow.
The animal section arrives, something part two was lacking. Is it necessary? Look, I remember reading interviews with Jorg Buttgereit and Uwe Boll all about their infamous scenes (the Nekromantik rabbit, the crushed dogs from Seed) and they both said near enough the same — wake up! This shit happens. You can’t ignore it. Calamity of Snakes is a prime example but the deceased slithering mass were eaten afterwards. We now behold cockfighting, and the size of the crowd is as big as a wrestling event. Dog fighting has an even bigger turnout! Then we get cows blood gulped like beer, and dolphin hunters. It’s disgusting but must be seen to rub faces in the darkness of humanities superior stance over other lifeforms. At least there’s no burnt alive pig like the first one!
There are plenty of them bones in a cavern, hundreds of skulls, enough to build a macabre furniture set. Putrefied corpses in a church, people shot, El Salvador Death Squad victims — rows of naked dead (not a barn in sight — I hope that joke didn’t escape everyone). “This isn’t special effects, kids.” said Willow as a few children gawp at dead folks.
Traces of Death III has a mood lightening interlude with no deaths for a while as we have a montage of racing accidents. Then the more brutal “fatality!” pile ups occur. Back to the bodies we go, fly coated ones at that. There’s some Mondo movie style shit thrown in, ritualistic filing down of teeth, and the scarring of a girl’s breasts – this is like the tribal educational section.
A group of naked young boys are smiling; however, their smiles soon fade as they watch their friends go through a tribal old school circumcision. Ohhhh, it’s comical to see the change in mood, from the happy, “We’re gonna get out dick’s chopped — yaaayyyee!” to complete solemn fear. They get to keep their foreskins though. Willow grinned at my discomfort, but her smile faded (like the boys) as it’s the girl’s turn and a clit is razored off! Hang on! I had to watch ten little willies chopped, but Willow sees one clit slice. Sexism!
The rest of the volume has mandatory autopsy footage and more death squad parties, skulls, piles of hands, and bleeding heads. Music aside, we found part three the weakest entry so far. Whilst part one and two had a lot of shock and substance, part three does a good job of showcasing the darkness in the world, feels forced most of the time. We’ve collected so many of these titles, and we figured in the mid-90s, this would still have been fresh and jaw dropping. Regardless, this trilogy of terror is definitely the greatest ever. This volume has a lot of rare footage from various genocides, and the Algerian Civil War. Not pretty.
Let’s see if Traces of Death IV cuts it like the foreskins! A moody cemetery opener, all grainy footage and our man, BD is strolling around the graves. Ohhh yeah, the death metal returns. This time it’s Sinister, 187 Crew, Meshuggah, Dreadful Shadows, and many more loud buggers. Obligatory El Salvador stuff, gunshots, throat cuts, car accidents, and brain prodding. Unfortunately, BD’s narration isn’t as clear this time, it’s all spooky echo but sounds like he’s talking through a bag of guts. There’s a moose killing a man, then some fucking horrific leg infection and leprosy examples, eye tumours, and infected babies. In less than ten minutes, this chapter has annihilated part three! There follows photos of deformed stillborn babies in jars, this is incredible stuff.
George Wallace, a man who sometimes appears fleetingly in shockumentary films, appears, then the cover boy of the Executions video tape (also on DVD) who is shot multiple times and still breathing. Iraq people are blindfolded and blasted by a firing squad (this footage was smuggled out of the country) Terrorist victims on a yacht, entrails, charcoal corpses after an explosion, this is an onslaught of death! I don’t think anybody currently can comprehend the difficulty and hard work it would have taken to build these films. Nothing could be simply found on a site, as stated above, most was gathered from hundreds of sources worldwide. A library of horror.
Maggots, flies, and bugs teem over cadavers — nature’s own clean up crew, and there’s BD still sounding like he’s underwater: “This segment is just for the girls!” After loads of USA drawl chatter, it’s a pussy piercing. Then the lady shows off her other bits and jewellery, God her voice is dull, and she looks like she’s hanging her keys from her genitals.
Oh no, it’s one for the men now, Willow started chuckling. Balls piercing, lovely. Not as bad as the circumcising in volume three. The piercer isn’t wearing gloves, that’s more disturbing. Two rings either side of his cock, looks like a depressed elephant.
Fucking split cock! I would screenshot it for the review, but I have a duty of care, believe it or not. I don’t mind body mods. I know a few friends who do all sorts of shit, but this is extreme. I’m going to show them this and watch the winces.
After that glory it’s onto riot footage. This is pretty violent and doesn’t hold back one little bit. Next is what happens if you drive too fast (from the Signal 30 education film of the late ‘50s). A woman with a shattered jaw flopping looks like she’s singing the metal vocals. Some bloke fell thirty floors to his death, brains all over. I was alarmed by the fact his pants were around his ankles. One of those unexplained mysteries, even BD doesn’t comment on this. The goriest by far we have a motorbike accident where the rider was run over by several cars, and a head crushed by a train. Unrelenting carnage.
Traces of Death IV is alongside part two as the strongest thus so far. Its soundtrack is the best as well. A lot of concentration on bomb results and a load more death squad footage, accompanied by the gothic beauty of Dreadful Shadows, very powerful. Lest we forget the clip that had us both scream out, “Oh my God!” in unison — a man with elephantiasis of his balls. Look up what the disease is if you don’t know. This poor fella uses his bollocks as a table and a beanbag, seriously.
Traces of Death V, the final chapter in the series shows the ideas were dying, the ability to gather impactful merciless footage was dimming as the internet loomed and swelled. Sites like Rotten, Ogrish, and later of course, Nothing Toxic (my old fav) were arriving. It must have been harder than ever to sort this one out for the ghouls waiting with gritted teeth.
BD walks the cemetery again, “This is… by far… the most blood-soaked footage… ever shown!” There are brains on the road, another bike accident, and a quasi-metal techno tune playing. His head is squished, face looking like a flat faced dog. Then a dead child with his throat open. More road kills, feels like one of the Rare compilations. “I think this guy enjoyed his death.” BD quips as we see a smiling corpse, similar to something Dr. Van Gore would say in the Faces of Gore movies.
Police brutality, hostages, autopsies, so far okay, feels like we’ve seen it all, but it’s new, still fine. All good things must end — backyard wrestling footage, lots of it, throughout. Admittingly, some isn’t bad, but a majority is slow, plodding, spoilt brat kids hiding in the woods with mattresses, so their parents don’t find out and give them real pain. It’s pathetic but was the bridge between the dying days of ECW and the rise of IWA and CZW (yeah, we’re huge fans of Deathmatch and hardcore rasslin’, Severed Cinema has loads of reviews on the subject throughout). Willow hadn’t seen backtard (yes, I spelt it as I feel it) shit, and I was reminded just how sad these dickheads were — an insult to hardcore. “If you’re gonna do it, hit him properly!” yelled Willow, “A two year old could do better!”
Thankfully we go to bloated pungent corpses and road chaos, and show stopping footage of foetuses in jars. Oh, the joys of leprosy again. For an intermission, BD explains how he travelled the globe seeking people more deranged than himself — body suspension, lots of it for about fifteen minutes. This was probably stunning at the time but Bizarre magazine covered far more. Tattooed men and women have loads of objects stuck in them, like watching Strangeland.
They interview some guy who pierces, does branding, whatever, and he talks — lots! Intercutting near enough each sentence with, “…y’know…” I kept repeating him every time and Willow wanted to punch him, “…til his spikes pop out!” It all began interesting, then dragged. This could have, y’ know, been maybe six or seven minutes shorter, y’know. The back-to-back tug of war between two men shows how tough skin can be. There’s a couple of smug looking pricks hanging from the ceiling — oh wow, back to the rich kids trying to wrestle again! Then a Japanese businessman eating a plate of shit. How edgy.
Traces of Death V, even the music, aside from Bile and Pelvic Meatloaf, doesn’t pull up trees. Time filling, strained, nothing more can be said. It put us in a bad mood. We had planned to watch a couple of zombie movies, but we were at that time bored of dead things thanks to part five. At this point in the series, perhaps a best of compilation which included a scattering of choice new cuts would have been far juicier. Nevertheless, Traces of Death bowed out quietly in the year 2000. Darrin and his Brain Damage company has survived to this day, releasing low budget indie flicks and making a few of their own. Our two reviews are taken from the complete boxset with nothing extra on the menus but who needs any?
For the students and professors of real death, the complete TOD collection is a must and absolute given. Nothing exists quite like it. Faces of Death will probably always be seen as the giant honestly due to the controversy around part one, however Traces buries that lot six feet under without a pause.
Traces of Death III
Directed by: Darrin Ramage
Written by: Darrin Ramage
Produced by: Darrin Ramage
Music by: Gorefest, Pungent Stench, Hypocrisy, Mortician
Cast: Darrin Ramage, Otzi, Frank Tempest
Year: 1995
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour, Black & White
Runtime: 1h 25min
Traces of Death IV
Directed by: Darrin Ramage
Written by: Darrin Ramage
Produced by: Darrin Ramage
Music by: Meshuggah, End of Green, Dreadful Shadows, Dismember
Cast: Darrin Ramage, George Wallace, Nguyen Van Lem, a moose
Year: 1996
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour, Black & White
Runtime: 1h 8min
Traces of Death V
Directed by: Darrin Ramage
Written by: Darrin Ramage
Produced by: Darrin Ramage
Music by: Bile, Pelvic Meatloaf, Wolfpac
Cast: Darrin Ramage, Reginald Denny, Backyard Wrestlers, Daniel V Jones
Year: 2000
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour, Black & White
Runtime: 1h 27min
Distributor: Brain Damage Films