A face masking app with added silliness
Price: Free (IAP)
Version: 1.3.18
Size: 73.3 MB
Platform: iPhone / iPad
Seller: NEOCORTEXT
When it comes to face swapping – the act of using a photo of yourself and having an app automagically replace or swap it with another individual’s face – it always seems that apps exist solely for one-upmanship.
It starts with a selfie
First, it was simply swapping between you and your buddy in the same image. Oh, the giggles. Next, it was time to get the celebrities involved, allowing you to swap yours with any host of famous people. Then, AR meant your face could be applied to these masks live and in-camera.
First stop, Britney
Now, well, it’s just gotten silly. Reface allows you to capture your likeness, and have it magically pasted into famous video clips. You can become movie stars, TV hosts, musicians, and even internet memes.
From Forrest Gump to K-Pop, from Game of Thrones to Beyonce – gender and race concerns have been fully jettisoned in favor of the absurd. With this futuristic technology, you can (sort of) be anyone!
Bradley Cooper now knows what he was missing
So, how does it work? No, not the technology – we imagine you’d have to sell your soul to the devil to understand that power. We’re talking about how to use the app. It’s really simple – you fire it up and add a face. The app scans your head and then allows you to select it for any number of transformations.
The main feed offers up some frequently updated options
The main (and most shareable) draw is the range of available film clips in the main feed. These take big franchises like Marvel, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Caribbean, and stitch your face onto the lead character in a number of famous scenes, ready to show the world.
It really is quite remarkable, terrifying, and creepy. The app manages to make your inanimate face capture move and contort in the same way as the video it’s been placed on top of. Welcome to the future.
Some clips certainly work better than others. This particular writer’s notoriously centered features really look a world apart when placed on top of the wide-eyed celebs found in the app. But then others may download the app only to see themselves (or their face at least) in the arms of Jack from Titantic, which works surprisingly well. The main feed changes frequently, particularly as you scroll down to include a variety of memes and clips, including those submitted by users.
The app allows you a decent handful of face swaps before it puts a 30-minute timer on refreshing your availability. If you really want to go all out you can sign up for Pro, which is a few $2.49 for the week, $3.99 for a month, or $24.99 annually, but we found the free tier plenty generous.
The bottom line? It really is a lot of fun, if rather pointless. Like most fun things.