AllMovie

Famed Satanist Anton Lavey hosts this morbidly fascinating mondo documentary about violent death. The film is unusual for being presented entirely as a series of still photographs taken from the notebooks of a Los Angeles crime photographer of the 1930s and '40s. Lavey's dry, witty narration is never as vulgar as that in similar series such as Faces of Death or Traces of Death, and serves as an informative counterpoint to the images presented. Unfortunately, later films in the series went the more traditional mondo route, loaded with tiresome war-atrocity footage and gory video clips. Director Nick Bougas went the more traditional route with the interesting Death in Hollywood (1990).