Mechanized Death

Duration: 9:00

Year Published: 1961

Creator: Ohio State Highway Patrol

Complete Record: A purely artless gore film. “These are the sounds of excruciating agony,” the narrator says as a woman lies in a smashed car, hacking up blood. “This is not a dream, not a nightmare. This is real.” Numerous scenes of roadside carnage: a family is crushed by a truck, a mom is killed in a head-on collision, a girl is hurled to her death after her car is hit by a train. Two bland narrators barely vary their voices beyond a monotone as the endless procession of bloody-faced, limp corpses pass on the screen. “This boy thought he was pretty sharp,” says one narrator, as a jean-clad body is dragged from under a wrecked car. “It seems, however, he had too flippant an attitude. Sure, he knew the area real well, but not that well.” There is no film making style here; no plot, no drama, no clever editing. Just grainy handheld footage of accident scenes and incessant, droning, judgmental narration.