Maybe there was a reason that you...
[body passing gas]
I have never heard
a deceased body pass gas.
My name is Evie Vargas,
and I am a funeral director and embalmer.
I have been in the funeral industry for 10 years
and wouldn't have it any other way.
Today, we are going to be looking at
dead-body scenes in movies and TV
and judge how realistic they are.
One, two, three.
Whoa.
Angel lust.
So, angel lust is a term that I was not familiar with
until I saw this clip.
Angel lust is a postmortem erection that happens to men
that have been executed by hanging.
I have never seen this before.
Even if angel lust is real,
the deceased in the clip
does not seem to be deceased by hanging.
I just think it's a bit disrespectful.
It really wants that shock value from the audience.
Well, I'd love to,
but I've got a dead body in the car with me.
Just a glass of wine. 15 minutes.
The dead guy won't mind.
Do me a favor, keep it out of the sun.
Yeah, sure.
That is not common practice,
to leave a body in a car,
in the hearse, anywhere.
The person that is driving the deceased
is in possession of that body
and is responsible for whatever happens
at this point forward.
This will definitely get on the news,
and you can ruin your business.
Usually it's just a regular van.
There's no refrigeration.
[body gurgling]
They make these noises. The air comes out.
It's like [growling].
So, I have heard that noise,
but it's not consistent to how it actually sounds.
It's more of like a growling.
It's just air passing through the vocal chords.
It doesn't last long.
It will scare you when it does happen.
[growling]
Nate's imitation is actually accurate
to how it actually sounds in real life.
The table that Nate is on
is a porcelain embalming table.
That is where the embalming process takes place.
There is running water constantly running on the table.
That drain allows for the water,
blood, and other fluid to drain into the sewer.
What I find to be unrealistic
is that he is not wearing gloves.
Doesn't have a disposable mask on, or even a shield.
You have to treat every decedent
as if they are contagious
and use personal protective equipment.
I would rate this scene 3 out of 10,
just because he left the body.
You don't do that.
Chris: Holy s---, look at that!
Georgie: What?
Chris: He was clean-shaven. He's got a f---ing beard now.
It looks like the deceased is wrapped in plastic.
But this also looks like
it can be skin slip,
where the skin slips off of the body.
The eyes are not consistent with decomposed body.
When someone dies, the pressure in their eyes will decrease.
The color of the eye would become cloudy.
Oh, look at his fingernails!
It is a common misconception that hair
and nails continue to grow.
Skin becomes dehydrated and gives the illusion
that the hair is longer and that the nails are longer
when in fact it's just the skin shrinking.
This actually looks like degloving.
That happens where the entire skin of the hand
just peels off.
Water would accelerate decomposition.
And the body doesn't look like it was submerged in water.
You would not be able to identify the remains.
It would be bloated.
And it just depends how long the person was in the water.
I'm gonna f---ing puke!
It can be a strong smell for certain people.
They can't handle the smell of decomposition.
I use a respirator where you can barely smell.
But sometimes it's so strong that even that,
it's, like, it's very overpowering.
The deceased in this clip does not look real at all.
I would rate this clip a 2 out of 10.
Yes, yes, I knew it!
Thank you, Bernie, thank you!
Some bodies experience rigor mortis.
He doesn't seem to be experiencing that.
Rigor mortis is the stiffening of joints
and muscles within the deceased human body.
His body seems to be very pliable.
What I'm thinking is, just to try to justify this scene,
is they are unknowingly breaking the rigor.
Breaking the rigor isn't necessarily
breaking bones or breaking anything,
it's just flexing the arms, flexing the legs,
flexing the head, and loosening it up
where you can move the body
in any way that the embalmer wants.
Who's your boss? Come on, let's go.
Whoa!
They're moving him so much.
If he has contents in his stomach, they may come up.
5 out of 10.
Just because he is dead
does not mean he will necessarily lose color.
It just depends on his cause of death
and other environmental factors.
I do not cut the clothes.
The family more than likely
wants those articles of clothing back.
The embalmer in this scene is utilizing wax
with a spatula, which is consistent.
So, to fill in that area of missing tissue,
you would want to build up that area with wax
and then cosmetize over it.
Eliot: His mouth.
That is an S-curve needle and wax ligature
that I use in the embalming room.
This is exactly how I would do it.
What he is about to do is suture the mouth closed,
and he is utilizing
the muscular suture.
There isn't necessarily a sound that happens
when you suture the mouth closed,
so I think this is just a bit exaggerated.
He does tie the suture in a knot.
I do a bow.
Now the eyes.
And those are eye caps.
To make sure that
the eye is set in place,
it does have ridges on the top to grip the eyelid.
You would not be able to see this at all.
You wouldn't even know that someone
has this under their eyelids.
Sometimes we do put a massage cream
to make sure that the eye does not dehydrate.
I would rate this scene a
8 out of 10.
The only inconsistency I find
is the order in which he is closing the mouth
and putting in the eye caps.
No, don't! [gasps]
So, each body would be placed
in their own body bag.
I've never seen a clear body bag.
The bag would probably be black, white.
It's not a see-through bag at all.
Bodies are transported from hospitals, from people's homes.
There needs to be some discretion there.
Madison: Nice legs over here.
A great set of guns.
The way the bodies are just
kind of just laying there and thrown there,
there is a lot more respect and dignity
that goes into placing the dismembered bodies
into the body bags.
They definitely would not be piled in that manner.
We take the best boy parts,
we attach them to Kyle's head,
and we build the perfect boyfriend.
I find that a lot of movies
want to imitate livor mortis,
which is the purplish-bluish-reddish color
that the skin turns when blood pools
to the dependent parts of the body.
So when a body is laying down,
the blood would pool to the back of the head,
leaving that skin color.
So a lot of movies like to show that bluish color
to show the audience that, OK, this person is dead.
And they're like, "All right, we know."
That's not the case for every person that dies, though.
Not every person turns that bluish color, reddish color.
I would rate this scene a 1 out of 10.
There are cameras.
There is security.
Bodies are not unattended.
Then maybe, just maybe there was a reason that you ...
[body passing gas]
I have never heard
a deceased body pass gas.
I know that the stomach
can accumulate a lot of gas and will distend.
Gas can accumulate in the abdomen,
and it is relieved
by suctioning out, or aspirating,
the abdominal and chest cavities.
Once you aspirate and use the trocar
to alleviate all of that gas
so it has somewhere to go.
I can't say for every single body
that they accumulate gas in their stomachs,
but some do.
So, I don't know how long he's been in the water.
I would assume several days.
If that's true,
this body is not consistent
with a person that has been in the water
for several days.
It would not be a sight to see.
A bloated body would look
several times larger
than its actual size.
The features may look distorted
and not be easily identifiable.
You may have skin.
It just all depends.
It's the temperature of the water,
how long you've been in the water,
how advanced decomposition.
Did this person drown or not?
Were they thrown in the water?
So I would find that to be unrealistic.
The way the body looks,
I'm assuming that he has been in the water
for several days,
and I just don't find that it's realistic
and it's decomposed enough to be true.
I would rate this scene a
1 out of 10.
Zelda: Ah, that's very nice.
The makeup in this scene is vibrant. It pops.
It's not necessarily
what families want to see
when they are viewing their loved one.
Usually when a family comes into the funeral home,
they provide a photo.
I try to get as close to that photo as possible.
Leave my judgments and my preference out of it.
Zelda: What's this?
The eyes tend to open up
because the person does not have the ability
to keep their eyes closed anymore.
Also, if the eyelid dehydrates a bit
it can retract and not come together fully.
The makeup in this scene
is consistent with mortuary makeup.
I do have several of these pots at the funeral home.
It relies on the cold skin to blend,
unlike drugstore makeup that relies on
the warmth of the skin to blend evenly.
I also use this palette.
It basically has all the colors that you can mix.
You can make it lighter, you can make it darker.
I'll put a piece of plastic barrier
so that none of the cosmetics gets on the clothes.
You two could've been the king and queen of the golf club,
so you could.
The talking to the deceased,
I kind of do that sometimes when I need help
or I'm struggling with something,
I'm like, "Come on, help me out here."
So I feel like that's very common.
Zelda: Oh, good grief.
I have never seen a person come back to life.
Last year, this 20-year-old woman
was pronounced dead by paramedics.
The embalmer was getting ready
to embalm her.
And when he unzipped the body bag,
he saw that her eyes were open
and she was still breathing.
I don't think a lot of people know that as an embalmer,
we still have a duty
to make sure that the deceased is dead.
So we check for a pulse,
check if the person's breathing,
and then we go about the embalming process.
If I were to cut off a head,
dust would not come out of the neck.
If it was after embalming and I did this,
embalming fluid may come out of the arteries.
I never really thought of that before.
A 4 out of 10.
Man: Stage of the embalming process.
Those suspended jars in the room
are gravity injector bottles or flasks.
This is early embalming techniques
and can actually still be used today.
It just is a longer process,
because they depend on gravity
to inject the fluid throughout the body.
Inside of the abdomen is a trocar,
and that is used today to suction out liquids
from the chest cavity and the abdominal cavity.
It is also used to inject preservative fluid,
preservative cavity fluid.
The clothing is removed.
Towels are used to cover the private areas.
Because we do have to assess the body
and make sure there aren't any incisions.
The body is examined from head to toe.
We try to still give respect to the body
and cover those areas.
Embalming the deceased where they died,
like this man on his bed,
is consistent with those times.
I rate this scene a 9 out of 10.
I find this scene to be very close
to early embalming techniques.
This is consistent with what I would do.
I do the hair when the deceased is in the casket.
At this point,
the body has been disinfected, has been embalmed.
She isn't using gloves,
and I don't use gloves
when I am styling hair.
The rubber in the gloves just,
it doesn't give me
the control over the hair that I want.
In movies they always say that they
look like they're sleeping.
She doesn't look like she's sleeping.
She looks dead.
My goal personally is to make them look
like they are sleeping
because that gives the family
that peace of mind that they are OK
and they don't have to worry about them.
[casket crashes]
The casket should be sturdy on the church truck,
which is basically a cart that transports the casket.
If the body falls in that manner
and the head moves
and kind of grazes against the pillow
or the side of the casket,
the makeup can rub off.
It would have to be reapplied.
So, as an embalmer, embalmers can embalm a body
to be firm, very firm,
or to be more pliable.
It just depends on the funeral home, their style,
how they want to present the body.
A casket falling in the manner that it fell
and the way the body moved seems to be real.
Personally, that has never happened to me.
My favorite movie that involves
the funeral industry is "My Girl."
I saw the movie when I was 6 years old,
and since that age I always knew
I wanted to be a funeral director.