Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

DVD Release

You know, one of the things I used to hate about some horror reviews was the ridiculous amount of psycho-babble many felt the need to subject readers to. Was it a good or bad film? Who fucking knows! You weren’t really sure because you barely understood what the fuck was being said. What does a horror fan care about a film’s socio-political subtext and its similarity to Machiavelli’s The Prince when they just want to have a few beers and have some fun?

Truth is there are times when a critic must dig deeper and offer up a more profound critique of cinema than, “This rocks!” or “This kicked so much ass!” but in the case of Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon…well folks…THIS ROCKS! THIS KICKED SO MUCH ASS! That’s right I’m going to blue collar up this review and give it to you all straight! Behind The Mask is an outstanding work of genre genius; a true masterpiece of originality. We so rarely see such seminal work in the genre these days so it’s refreshing to witness such an inspired film.

When one hears the word “deconstruction” most fans automatically think Scream and for good reason, Scream was a wildly inventive slasher film that thoroughly deconstructed the slasher sub-genre while offering up some incredibly witty self-referential nudges and winks only true horror fans could appreciate. While many goremongers and mainstream horror haters talk shit about Scream, the film will be around and discussed long after we’re dead and gone.

Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon will no doubt join Scream in the ranks of “Must See” and “Must Own” recommendations. I fully expect to see Leslie Vernon masks anytime now because that’s just how incredibly influential I feel this film is.

A college documentary film crew, lead by Taylor (Angela Goethals), is invited to be the first to break the coverage of a new serial killer legend in the works. His name is Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) and he plans to slaughter his way to the top alongside such greats as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. He plans to set in motion a scenario so ingenious the world will be in awe of Vernon but first he must allow the film crew to understand his motivations and the heavy burden of being in “the business of fear.”

Leslie has “returned” to his childhood home of Glen Echo in order to wreak havoc on the townsfolk for the great injustice they visited upon him after throwing the boy over a waterfall for murdering his abusive parents. What better place for Leslie to make his mark on the business!

The documentary crew follows Leslie through a stake outs, a preliminary strike and even encounter Leslie’s “Ahab;” a symbol of “all that is good.” This particular “Ahab” is Doc Halloran (Robert Englund), Leslie’s psychologist, and he’s determined to stop Leslie from going through with his heinous machinations of immortality!

As the night the planned slaughter is to take place, the documentary crew begins to doubt their involvement with Leslie and his bloody revenge. Will they be able to warn the high school kids (including “The Survivor Girl”) partying in Leslie’s abandoned farmhouse of their impending doom before it’s too late? When bits and pieces of Leslie’s plan don’t add up, the crew suspects Leslie had a different plan in mind all along but what could it be?!

Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is a fantastic film from start to finish. It was intelligent and challenging, something so obviously missing from much of today’s genre fare. This is the kind of film we expect to see every time we sit down in front of the DVD player only this time…WE ACTUALLY GOT IT! Director/writer Scott Glosserman and co-writer David J. Stieve have painted a mature, humorous picture of the sub-genre exactly as it would be if it were reality including red herring’s created with CG, door jam bricks tied with fishing line and weapons rigged to fail. I couldn’t stop laughing when Leslie mentions the “Survivor Girl” reaching for a weapon is an analogy for her “reaching for his manhood.”

Clever stuff indeed.

I cannot stress how wonderful the acting in this film was. Everything from the dialogue to the hilarious bits of comedic timing was all perfectly “executed” and spot on. Some of the dialogue flowed so well it occasionally felt ad-libbed. I was truly impressed most of all with Nathan Baesel’s performance. He’s warm, personable, funny and absolutely bonkers when the mask is on and he’s stalking his prey! By the time the last quarter of the film swings around you’ll be shocked and impressed how serious Nathan takes his character.

Bottomline, this film must be seen to be believed and must be purchased to be appreciated for years to come. Horror fans tired of the same old clichés, weak camcorder frat horror and movies for little girls will find Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon an intelligent, ambitious film destined for greatness.