Faces of Death

Margot Romero, a content moderator for Kino, a TikTok-like platform, is responsible for filtering out any content that is offensive or violent. During her shift, she comes across an eerily real decapitation execution video on the site. Although she initially disregards them as staged with potentially hyper-realistic practical effects, her concerns grow when another video depicting death via electric chair pops up on the site. She reaches out for second opinions, but is quickly dismissed, which is seemingly attributed to her past involvement in a trend that accidentally resulted in the brutal death of her sister on a train track. At home, Margot's roommate Ryan gives her a lipstick knife.

Arthur Spevak tracks down influencer Samantha, injects her with fentanyl, and kidnaps her. Margot is increasingly alarmed by the appearance of another graphic video involving a gruesome scalping, but she's shut down once more. Meanwhile, Arthur kidnaps a local news anchor and his son. Margot turns to Reddit to determine whether the murders are real or staged. The videos she posts on Reddit quickly skyrocket in popularity.

Arthur kills the news anchor in a shoot-out setup. On Reddit, Margot discovers the original Faces of Death film and notices similarities to the murder videos posted on Kino. Ryan explains the film's purported infamy as a "real" array of snuff deaths, yet reveals that it was all fake, which may coincide with the modern renditions being uploaded. Disturbed and wanting clearer proof, she gives her boss Josh concert tickets and offers to take his shift so she can download the available raw footage onto her hard drive, view the uploader's metadata, and upload it to Reddit. Under a throwaway account, Arthur replies with a malicious link to Margot's post and acquires her IP address.

The next day, Margot is fired by Kino for breaking company policy after accidentally leaving a bag of stimulants on Josh's desk. Despite constant resistance, she continues her pursuit in hopes of avenging her sister's death and restoring her own public status. Later, Arthur breaks into their apartment, kills Ryan, then drugs and kidnaps Margot.

Margot awakes in a caged basement and is able to free herself with the lipstick knife she left in her coat pocket. She saves Samantha, who urges her to leave the property immediately, but Margot stays behind to steal Arthur's hard drive for the raw footage, which shows him unmasked. Samantha manages to break free, but is shot by Arthur with a scoped rifle. Margot flees into the woods and returns with a police escort in hopes of saving Samantha, but Arthur manipulates them into believing she trespassed on his property, and she is detained.

At a hospital, Margot receives Narcan and is sent a text demanding she return with the drive or Samantha and the other boy will be murdered. At his place, Arthur holds Margot at gunpoint, explaining the world's desensitization to violence alongside the attentive desire for remade content in a newer age, which spurred his murder spree. In the garage, Arthur reveals the severed heads of the two victims strewn atop mannequins and orders Margot to inject herself with fentanyl. Minutes later, Margot repeatedly stabs Arthur with her lipstick knife, and a lengthy, bloody scuffle ensues between the two. Margot manages to survive, having recorded the entire confrontation on a hidden body camera. Arthur watches the last lines of Faces of Death as he bleeds out. On his computer, Margot uploads the footage to Kino and laughs in celebratory victory as it passes through the site's moderation, though finds herself disturbed that the comments on the video are callous and glib, not taking the situation seriously.