Death Scenes

Death Scenes is a 1989 American mondo film starring Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey and directed and produced by Nick Bougas.¹

Satanist Anton Lavey hosts this morbid mondo documentary about death.

The film was followed by two sequels, Death Scenes 2 from 1992² and Death Scenes 3 from 1993.³

Death Scenes 2 provides an inside look at the history of death, particularly war between the United States and other foreign conflicts. A short introduction of the horrors of war begins with the ideological findings from Ernst Friedrich. Friedrich was a German pacifist who wrote and published a book called War Against War. To illustrate his point of view on war, Friedrich displayed hundreds of disturbing photographs which fully revealed the horrors of World War I.

Next the film settles in a more national concern dealing with death: the mafia and urban gang violence. Going back to the 1920s and into the present day, some notable mentions in this chapter include Murder, Inc. from the 1940s and 50s. Photos of the murders taken place at the gang-run barber shop is shown, including the body of Albert Anastasia. Another national historic event talked about in the film is acts of political violence, briefly mentioning the 1950 assassination attempt of President Harry S. Truman and the 1954 US Capitol shooting.

The film goes into the "restless sixties", showing the graphic assassination of John F. Kennedy, both in pictures and in the Zapruder film.