A small-town serial killer with a curious penchant for self-promotion unleashes a blood-soaked frenzy of terror in his violent effort to become the best-known slasher in horror history. On the surface, Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) is just your average, everyday guy whose lofty dreams for the future drive him to excel at his chosen profession. But Leslie's chosen career path is a far cry from that of your typical middle-class wage earner; his ultimate goal is to follow in the footsteps of his
mentor, notorious serial killer Eugene (Scott Wilson). He's not shy about his malevolent ambitions either. In fact, in order to better document his impending murder spree, Leslie has offered budding filmmaker Taylor Gentry (Angela Goethals) and her dedicated crew unprecedented access to his life as he sets into motion a plan designed make to make the formidable feats of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers look like a mere warm-up for the homicidal hysteria that's about to unfold. Along the way, Leslie will even be so cordial as to teach Taylor and her crew the tricks of the trade while candidly deconstructing the many myths and archetypes of his murderous occupation. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A deconstructionist horror comedy that owes a debt to Scream and the 1992 Belgian film Man Bites Dog, Mask nevertheless has enough pitch-perfect wit to lay claim to its own patch of postmodern, movie-loving snarkiness.
The script's laughs are too widely spaced. Even before the plot takes a third-act turn into the land of kill-by-the-numbers slasher movies, the jokes drip when they should be gushing.
If Scott Glosserman's witty slasher spoof had celebrities, it would probably be a success like Scream or Scary Movie. As an indie, it's more apt to be a cult fave. Either way, it's a must for those who like thrills laced with humor.
There is a lot of cleverness at work here, especially when the movie switches from the Blair Witch-style shaky camera to more accomplished and atmospheric low-budget lensing.
The dialogue has wit, and the rug gets pulled out from under us and the characters in several short, sharp jolts. At a certain point, Behind the Mask loses the tatty digital-video and immerses us in cinema.
A rather funny "Scream"-like cross between a mockumentary and a direct-to-video slasher movie, "Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon" is custom-made for horror fans, but it isn't remotely scary and people that aren't already steeped in the lore of t
Any self-respecting horror/slasher fan should seek out Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon if you're in the mood for something that gives it a fresh, exciting spin.
Though it takes a couple of very minor tumbles along the way, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is one of the best, most original horror spoofs to come down the movie macabre pipeline in a very long time.
Behind the Mask isn't a bad movie, but it is a decidedly minor one, a short pumped up to feature length that impales itself on its own hook: After you've explained all the tricks, it's impossible to have your act perceived as genuine magic.
Nice guy-next-door invites film crew over to document the fulfillment of his own little personal dream: to one-up Freddy Kruegar, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. Is he kidding? Those guys are unstoppable killing machines. That's the comic part. But he's not kidding. And that's horror.
Smug self-satisfaction is what one takes away from this glib, unfunny mockumentary that might have been fertile territory for Christopher Guest to lampoon, but the filmmakers misunderstand that just because you namedrop what your target that doesn't necessarily mean you are above it. Nathan Baesal as Leslie is a
preening Jim Carrey clone that projects absolutely no menace and is rarely humorous. When Leslie is instructing his interviewers on "industry terms" like a "survivor girl", we are vexed by the perceived " hipster smartness" of the film. Once the film segues into a splatter flick, Leslie has already established himself as a camera-ready buffoon and none of what transpires is spine-tingling, it's just transparent and yawn-inducing. One of the worst films I've seen during this October marathon.
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