2 gibbles out of 5

Director: Scott Glosserman

Horror fans are actually pretty easy to please.  Mainstream fans will go for any tripe most of the time as long as it fulfills certain trope quotas.  Underground fans seem touchier, but they love having their egos fluffed.  If you make an underground film but give some nods to the classics of the genre, someone will sing your praises.

Now that’s certainly a generalization – every horror fan has seen (or can recognize) things like Evil Dead, or the Elm Street series and etcetera – so you can’t exactly slap poo on the screen and tie a Jason mask to it and expect it to be loved, but I do believe that there’s this huge gray area between good and bad film that can be easily swayed toward ‘good’ with well-timed fan service.

Enter “Behind the Mask.”  I’ve read about it and heard about it.  You could say that, perhaps, that’s what killed it for me, but I’m pretty good at maintaining expectations usually so I don’t think so.  So.  The synopsis bit: A news crew is following Leslie Vernon, who has been training to be the next to inherit the slasher crown from Jason, or Freddie, or Mike.  In the movie world, these killers are real, and Leslie (documentary style) walks us through the intense training and focus required to create a legend.  He makes it clear that this is a serious pursuit, and if the documentarians are to follow, they have to be completely on board with his goal of luring teens to a cabin and killing them one by one.

The majority of the film is shot documentary style, with “this is how it will look when done” moments shot movie style.  As with “The Last Broadcast” there’s a line that’s crossed where it’s required to ditch the documentary style and shoot it like a straight film, after which all of the rules Leslie has discussed are put into action.

The film just rubbed me the wrong way.  Perhaps I was expecting horror with comedy and instead got comedy with horror.  The performances are off, I think – the news crew treads a too-close line between smart and stupid to feel one way or another about them, and while I understand Nathan Baesal’s high-energy, generally positive portrayal of Leslie as a purposeful juxtaposition with his slasher personae, there’s not enough focus on the difference – and his slasher moments are shot in a hammy style – to make it work.  Reading other reviews there are apparently a ton of hidden references to obscurities that I’m not catching, which is great, but there’s that easy-to-please concept – oh, so we both saw the same obscure film and that makes us automatic friends.

If it sounds like I hate the movie, I didn’t.  I just disliked how easily it coasts by.  The examination of the genesis of a slasher is interesting and handled funnily, but beyond a couple insightful flashes, this is territory that has been covered before in the much more polished Scream.  As this is more than a decade after that, repeating the same lessons in a similar way just doesn’t cut it.  Yes, we can remake films and concepts eternally and have them get better: the recent ‘Cabin in the Woods’ has proven that the self-examination style can work if it’s done through and through, instead of skimming the surface of references like Behind the Mask.

While the gag-style shooting didn’t work for me, it is at least consistent.  I didn’t find there to be any surprises in Behind the Mask in terms of plotting or presentation, Nathan Baesal as Leslie Vernon is energetic enough to make his scenes redeeming.  For me, I kept hoping the movie would build up to more than it is, but it’s little more than a good idea shot acceptably enough by a horror geek during the internet age.  If you’re in the right mood, perhaps it will work for you.

While he does indeed don one, let us here notice that there is no mask. Now you don't need to read the review.

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