Birth of a Killer

An odd indie movie made its way into my DVD player not long ago, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. It's part fake documentary, part slasher film; part comedy, part horror. It pre-supposes that Jason, Freddy, and Michael -- the titans of modern slashers -- are all real people, and puts a group of student documentary filmmakers with a young man on his quest to follow in their footsteps and become the newest silent, ruthless mass murderer.

If you're a fan of horror movies, particularly any featuring the charaters I just mentioned, then you're really going to appreciate this movie. It's a very shrewd piece of filmmaking. It's somewhat reminiscent of Scream in the way it lovingly dissects the conventions of slasher movies, though in my opinion, it is far more effective in the way it does so. Scream still tried to be scary, and that was all well and good. This movie goes a different direction, and tries to be clever and funny.

Our would-be silent killer is very forthcoming about all the preparation and effort that goes into his work. "You have no idea how much cardio I have to do. It's ridiculous." We learn from a retired veteran who has taken the young man under his wing, we see all the set-up required at the location of the planned massacre, we see all the taunting of the intended heroine in the nights leading up to the Big Event, and we get great psychological dissection of the imagery in these kinds of films. Brilliant stuff, and very often laugh out loud funny.

A cast of very skilled unknowns is juiced with appearances by actors instantly familiar to people who've seen their share of horror movies. There's Scott Wilson from The Exorcist III, Zelda Rubinstein from Poltergeist, and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, in a great send-up of a character plucked right from the original Halloween.

Still, the movie falls down a bit in the final act, when it switches completely out of documentary mode and follows the victims in the mode of a true slasher movie. Oh, it's all very well done, and at least as effective as the somewhat lackluster stuff that has come from big budget studios in the last few years. But it's not what made this movie special. It's all too familiar to be scary, so it's unfortunate the movie didn't stick with what it was doing so well to that point -- being different, and being funny.

Nevertheless, I found the movie very entertaining. I rate it a B+.