Katy J Negus. BA Hons. CG Arts & Animation: January 2012

Review on Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

The film's style is in the form of a mockumentary, a film that plays out like a documentary. It takes its slasher elements from various horror films, as told by Rob Humanick in a review. 'A self-aware parody of the slasher genre that approaches the material as if such infamous movie icons as Micheal Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Vorhees were all actually real, the film posits escapist horror conventions onto the culturally reflective tactics of reality television.' (Humanick, 2007) The film is still based on the usual serial killer horror, but this time its viewed from the killers point of view as well as making fun of the common slasher horror style, which is quoted by Christopher Null in a review. 'Director Scott Glosserman milks the horror genre for all it's worth, making fun of the usual hiding places, useless defensive tactics, and poor decision making abilities of the usual killer fodder characters. Throughout it all he explains to the camera crew how his kind of people work, why the closet is a safe place to hide, for example.' (Null, 2007)

Leslie Vernon

Towards the end of the film it starts to lose the documentary form and turns into a traditional slasher horror which is explained by Jay Seaver in a review. 'Additionally, the tonal shift for the film's last act is just beautifully handled. In the Q&A afterward, Glosserman put the shift at Taylor's line of "we're done filming; now we're editing"; you could also say things change when Leslie dons the mask. After that, the film becomes less about deconstruction and more about decapitation, although in a pretty unique way - we have already had a walk-through, so we know to a certain extent how Vernon is planning to move bodies around, appear around a corner, or the like, so the shocks come from how things don't seem to go according to plan, and whether that will benefit Vernon or the other characters. It's tense, with a couple of good twists, pretty decent kills, and darkly comic moments. The bits where the characters seem to be too consciously sticking to horror movie conventions are fewer and farther between, but do seem a little more foolish when suddenly you know your own life is on the line.' (Seaver, 2006)

Rating;

List of Illustrations

Figure 1. Glosserman, Scott Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon [Poster] At: http://www.impawards.com/2007/behind_the_mask_ver2.html (Accessed on: 16.01.12)

Figure 2. Glosserman, Scott Leslie Vernon [Screen cap] At:http://liberaldead.com/blog/before-the-mask-the-return-of-leslie-vernon-gets-investors/ (Accessed on: 16.01.12)

Bibliography

Humanick, Rob (2007) Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/behind-the-mask-the-rise-of-leslie-vernon/2761 (Accessed on: 16.01.12)

Null, Christopher (2007) Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/2006/behind-the-mask-the-rise-of-leslie-vernon/ (Accessed on: 16.01.12)

Seaver, Jay (2006) Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=13974&reviewer=371 (Accessed on: 16.01.12)