So I couldn't help myself; after buying Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon yesterday I went home, started watching the extras, and then got sucked in and watched the entire movie again. And again I must pull out my wobbly soapbox and cry to you, the masses, WATCH THIS MOVIE.
I was even watching it with an eye on the level of violence or gore for those of you who don't like that sort of thing and realized, this time around, that the film is stupid-light when it comes to any of that; there's hardly any blood spilled, really. A large portion of the violence happens either off-screen or without blood. There's just one moment that flaunts this assertion, but it's more silly than disturbing.
And what struck me this time, and I'd somehow forgotten since watching it last time, is that the film is more a comedy than a horror film, and a very very funny one at that. Of course, it's comedy that aims directly for my slasher-movie-loving, post-modern-horror-paper-writing heart, but it's hardly something that only someone who's studied Carol Clover would get.
I might even argue that the claim made on the back of the DVD's box - I'm blanking on who said it and I don't have the DVD on me right now - that BtM is more clever than Scream is true. I do love Scream, and I have to watch it again - it's been years - before I feel comfortable saying that for reals, but there is something so smart about the way this film insinuates itself into reality at the same time it creates a reality in which Fred, Jay, and Mike are real people, and then flits back and forth between film and video and horror and comedy and it makes for something that constantly keeps you off balance so it earns that final thirty minutes where the tone shifts pretty radically in one direction.
I was wowed anew by how really really wonderful Nathan Baesel is here - there are a lot of ads on the DVD for the other slasher-movie-throwback coming out this year, Hatchet, in which they claim that Hatchet's villain Victor Crowley (that is the perfect name) is the new slasher-killer to add to the pantheon, but I would add Leslie Vernon a thousand times to that elite short-list before Crowley. There's a scene in BtM, after the film has switched from mostly-behind-the-scenes video-footage into filmstock when we see Baesel's face in killing-mode after having his mask pushed off, and everything we've come to see in Leslie before this moment - all that humor, that sense of fun - is wiped utterly away from his face, and his expression is far scarier than the mask covering it up. It's one of several moments that I find really, truly scary in the film.
I don't want to oversell the film as super-scary though; it does have some really unsettling pieces, made even moreso by Baesel's acting, but more than being straight-up horror its just a load of fun and really smart in the way it plays with the conventions. If you're even a casual horror-movie watcher I could see you enjoying the heck outta this movie. Give it a chance! And no, nobody's paying me to say this. I just LOVE this movie.
.
I was even watching it with an eye on the level of violence or gore for those of you who don't like that sort of thing and realized, this time around, that the film is stupid-light when it comes to any of that; there's hardly any blood spilled, really. A large portion of the violence happens either off-screen or without blood. There's just one moment that flaunts this assertion, but it's more silly than disturbing.
And what struck me this time, and I'd somehow forgotten since watching it last time, is that the film is more a comedy than a horror film, and a very very funny one at that. Of course, it's comedy that aims directly for my slasher-movie-loving, post-modern-horror-paper-writing heart, but it's hardly something that only someone who's studied Carol Clover would get.
I might even argue that the claim made on the back of the DVD's box - I'm blanking on who said it and I don't have the DVD on me right now - that BtM is more clever than Scream is true. I do love Scream, and I have to watch it again - it's been years - before I feel comfortable saying that for reals, but there is something so smart about the way this film insinuates itself into reality at the same time it creates a reality in which Fred, Jay, and Mike are real people, and then flits back and forth between film and video and horror and comedy and it makes for something that constantly keeps you off balance so it earns that final thirty minutes where the tone shifts pretty radically in one direction.
I was wowed anew by how really really wonderful Nathan Baesel is here - there are a lot of ads on the DVD for the other slasher-movie-throwback coming out this year, Hatchet, in which they claim that Hatchet's villain Victor Crowley (that is the perfect name) is the new slasher-killer to add to the pantheon, but I would add Leslie Vernon a thousand times to that elite short-list before Crowley. There's a scene in BtM, after the film has switched from mostly-behind-the-scenes video-footage into filmstock when we see Baesel's face in killing-mode after having his mask pushed off, and everything we've come to see in Leslie before this moment - all that humor, that sense of fun - is wiped utterly away from his face, and his expression is far scarier than the mask covering it up. It's one of several moments that I find really, truly scary in the film.I don't want to oversell the film as super-scary though; it does have some really unsettling pieces, made even moreso by Baesel's acting, but more than being straight-up horror its just a load of fun and really smart in the way it plays with the conventions. If you're even a casual horror-movie watcher I could see you enjoying the heck outta this movie. Give it a chance! And no, nobody's paying me to say this. I just LOVE this movie.
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6 comments:
I'll watch it if you watch Sophie Scholl. Maybe. No promises.
I just added Sophie Scholl to my queue, JD! So there!
Actually I'd wanted to see SS (what an apt acronym!) when it came out but promptly forgot about it, so I owe you gratitude for reminding me the film existed.
Dang lol. This actually have me the idea to make a bargain, so once you see it, I'll see it, okay?
Oh, and how much on the Horror scale is it?
Oh, and I noticed a while ago you saw Dear Frankie, and by grades it's better than Hostel Part II. I never would have expected you to say that to be honest, lol.
I have more rounded interests then this blog sometimes lets on - I talk about horror a lot and it is the genre I'll geek out before any other (unless one considers Jake Gyllenhaal movies a genre unto themselves), but I have room in my heart for good-natured weepies like Dear Frankie too. And I LOVE Emily Mortimer, and Gerard Butler was playing THE PERFECT MAN... how could I not enjoy the heck out of it? I cried like a baby, I did.
Anyhoo, as for Behind the Mask... by "horror scale" I'm assuming you mean like 1-10 how scary is it? But these things vary - what I, as an old pro horror-buff, find scary is different from what someone who doesn't like horror movies would find scary. Half my friends are WUSSES and refuse to even go to scary movies with me - thank god the boyfriend loves it as much as I do or I'd be going alone most of the time. Anyway, if we say, on this scale, that a 1 = Ice Spiders and a 10 = say, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, then I'd say Behind the Mask is only like a 5 or 6. That's just scare-wise, mind you; it has a lot else going on besides just trying to scare you.
I'm not really a fan of horror movie, but I am also scared somewhat more difficultly than most. I think I'm more scared by psychological terror than bloods and guts, and that's a reason I love Sophie Scholl (what a comparison!). It's horror in one of the most terrible ways: humanly, almost in the ways of Pan's Labyrinth. And Julia Jentsch makes it all the more effective, one of the greatest performances of all-time I say. Hopefully when you see it you agree. And if you don't, I might not like you anymore...
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