Can anyone picture Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers rigging little touches like? Why go to all the trouble if they just want to kill everyone? Well, apparently, they have more in mind.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon shows us the method to the madness. What we've longed believed were contrived formulas was actually elaborate, carefully plotted plans. The killers spend weeks, even months following their intended targets, cataloging every behavior, so when the night of horror arrives, they foresee every possible action and plan everything accordingly. Those of you who consider Jason a mindless brute are mistaken.
Presented as a fake documentary shot by grad students, Behind the Mask introduces us to Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel), a young man who looks at Freddy, Jason, and Mike not as psychos but idols. He wants his name to be just as infamous and feared. To gain notoriety, he invites Taylor (Angela Goethals) and her cameramen Doug (Ben Pace) and Todd (Britain Spellings) to observe his preparations as he reveals the history and role of slashers in the world.
Behind the Mask has a lot of fun with the conventions of the slasher genre. Leslie explains his plans less like a demented psychopath and more like a charming prankster putting together a haunted house for Halloween. He nails windows shut, rigs axes and other tools to break after one use, and elaborates on the Freudian subtext inherent in these plots. We meet his mentor Eugene (Scott Wilson), an old pro to the slasher game who talks about Jason, Mike, and Freddy like they were drinking buddies.
Leslie even makes friends with the camera crew, and why shouldn’t they like him? He’s charming, articulate, intelligent, and funny. Besides, there is an unspoken assumption among Taylor and the others: Leslie can’t be serious. He’s not really going to kill a bunch of teenagers. Is he?
There are a few hints of the darkness beneath the surface. Leslie gets angry and physical when the crew tries to speak with his intended target, and they're warned by Leslie's "Ahab," Doc Halloran (Robert Englund made up to look Dr. Loomis from Halloween) that Leslie is not who he says he is.
When the moment of truth arrives, the movie ditches the documentary format, ironic because it occurs when Taylor decides they can’t stand by and be objective anymore, and Behind the Mask becomes an effective horror piece in its own right.
Leslie explained how his night will unfold, and we expect it to play out like a laundry list of genre clichés. Instead, the film subverts our expectations, turning all our assumptions on their head, and we realize exactly what we have walked into.
Behind the Mask has a lot of fun with the conventions of the slasher genre. Leslie explains his plans less like a demented psychopath and more like a charming prankster putting together a haunted house for Halloween. He nails windows shut, rigs axes and other tools to break after one use, and elaborates on the Freudian subtext inherent in these plots. We meet his mentor Eugene (Scott Wilson), an old pro to the slasher game who talks about Jason, Mike, and Freddy like they were drinking buddies.
Leslie even makes friends with the camera crew, and why shouldn’t they like him? He’s charming, articulate, intelligent, and funny. Besides, there is an unspoken assumption among Taylor and the others: Leslie can’t be serious. He’s not really going to kill a bunch of teenagers. Is he?
There are a few hints of the darkness beneath the surface. Leslie gets angry and physical when the crew tries to speak with his intended target, and they're warned by Leslie's "Ahab," Doc Halloran (Robert Englund made up to look Dr. Loomis from Halloween) that Leslie is not who he says he is.
When the moment of truth arrives, the movie ditches the documentary format, ironic because it occurs when Taylor decides they can’t stand by and be objective anymore, and Behind the Mask becomes an effective horror piece in its own right.
Leslie explained how his night will unfold, and we expect it to play out like a laundry list of genre clichés. Instead, the film subverts our expectations, turning all our assumptions on their head, and we realize exactly what we have walked into.
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