Not much is known about the mysterious shockumentary, its origin is a complete blur, it has a legendary status now in Slovakia. All that is known is that it was filmed in 2000 by Nikolai Yaropolk, who vanished without a trace after completing it, only one thing is known about him, he had a morbid fascination with death and the macabre, interested in those who killed for real and what caused them to do it, and those who shared the same interest in freaks of nature. Director Alex Wesley discovered the raw footage from a friend who worked at a Slovakian TV station who found the tape by chance and sent it to him. Alex then showed the footage to his producer Philip Brocklehurst who at first thought they were scenes Alex had shot, only to be deeply disturbed to discover they were real scenes of dead bodies and real interviews with crazed minds. Both were compelled to get the shockumentary seen, but the footage was in rough shape, the director and producer started to restore the footage while also adding a soundtrack, narration and scenes with an insane doctor to explain the nature of the disturbing footage and fit the unnerving mood of the whole film. The film was restored in March, 2016 and is awaiting to be shown to the world, and shock audiences as Yaropolk no doubt intended.
Nikolai Yaropolk's Traces of Gore (2016) was clearly inspired by shockumentaries such as Faces of Death (1978), Traces of Death (1993) and Faces of Gore (1999).