Coroner’s Corner

by John Bikowski
illustration by Eric Johnson

Excuse me, is that my spleen on your shoe?

I just saw an edition of Hard Copy that showed bank video footage capturing the on-screen shooting of a female psychopath. We constantly see people gunned down in movies today and most of us barely crack a yawn. However, when we know the gun, the bullets, and the spine being shattered are real, we tend to stop and say, “Hello!!”

Recently, Peter Benchley’s over-hyped The Beast aired on TV. It was about a giant squid (i.e. Jaws with tentacles) that kills everybody. Yet, most of the people I know chose to discuss When Animals Attack, a documentary on real animals that kill everybody. I’m sure there’s a message here somewhere. Does watching real fatalities and pain help us gain more insight into our own fears? Or are we simply sick bastards who find other people’s misery highly entertaining? I’ll admit that I have seen all of the Faces of Death videos… I’m not proud.

In case you are not familiar with the Mondo-styled Faces series, I’ll clue you in to some of the “real” atrocities. If Daniel Webster hadn’t beaten me to it, I would’ve written a dictionary, and in it my definition of “dumb-ass” would be someone who knows which episode a particular scene comes from. So don’t ask me. Narrated by the morose Dr. Francis B. Gröss (yeah, right buddy), each documentary is filled with death scenes just like those car accident films they showed you in Drivers’ Ed. You’ll also find autopsy and operation footage that just might make your partially-digested pizza seek the carpet. Most notable are the short passages they try to pass off as genuine footage of on-screen gore that only a true mental midget would be suckered into believing. One episode has some poor schmuck parachuting out of control into a gator farm where he is subsequently eaten (very messily) alive. The producers want you to believe some bystander with a camcorder followed the victim’s flight all the way to the end for some close-ups of gators chewing sausage with sneakers slapped on. Another episode chronicles a teenager’s 50-ft. bungee jump off a 45-ft. building. We are supposed to accept that the sack of sweet potatoes hitting the ground is actually a human dumb enough to bungee from a roof. The way the scene plays out, it would have required several carefully edited camera angles. Are we really supposed to believe these crudely-acted shorts are impromptu filming? Give me a break.

Then, while you’re waiting for some idiotic comment from Bob Saget, they sucker-punch you in the groin with some shocking and obviously real footage. One scene that stuck with me was of a guy who falls onto subway tracks and gets pinned between the train and the concrete. His waistline’s compacted to fill the two-inch gap between metal and rock. From the midsection up this guy’s still alive! Bloated and nasty looking… but alive! Unfortunately, the train acts like a giant tourniquet so when they remove it, his entire innards evacuate his carcass and he dies. So, if you have a compulsion for revulsion, don’t admit it. Instead, run out and rent some of these Faces of Death videos. Perhaps you can edit some footage into your family picnic video and really blow their minds.

Well, happy yakking for now…