Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
Jason, Freddy, Myers. We All Need Someone To Look Up To.
Tomorrow, at the time of writing this, is a Friday the 13th - and in October at that! Obviously there’s only one option as to what I could possibly watch. Only one slasher movie that could possibly be appropriate. Yeah that’s right, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon! That dear folks, is what we call a misdirection!
This movie is a mockumentary. What that generally means for folks who aren’t aware is that it’s a fake documentary essentially. We have a crew of folks looking to make a documentary on just what it is that makes those crazy serial killers like Michael, Jason, or Freddy tick and do what they do. Luckily enough, they actually find one whose okay with them tagging along. His goal is to find his own way, and he’s gotten some tutoring and pointers from one of the old types. Plenty of research has gone into his task, and he’s looking to cue in the crew on what he’s doing and how he plans on doing it. It’s not just a simple job of telling them though, they have to really be along for the ride to figure it out for themselves. One could wonder just how far the crew will go?
The actors here are great - and you’ll even recognize some named folks in there. Now, although you might get all excited about seeing Zelda or Englund in here - I have to warn you a little bit. The movie is full of references to the genre, and one of these is a bit of lines feeling “forced” - something I point out here because these big named actors that you know can do crazy good jobs feel a little bit wooden or perhaps stereotypical. I wouldn’t call it bad acting, knowing that they can do amazing elsewhere just tells me that it’s an intentional choice for them to deliver things in the way they did - which would still technically indicate good acting. Some of the folks in here do a wonderful job, even getting a wonderful job of delivering thoughts or feelings with simple looks. Sometimes it’ll feel a bit less than stellar though, even though again I don’t feel like it’s unintentional at all.
The characters are pretty decent. The documentary angle allows there to be plenty of room for the main killer to get background to build him up. Motivations, even if they still might be foggy to some, are there and tie plenty into various elements of the movie to come. The crew gets to have a little chemistry with the killer as they spend time with him, and there is a bit of a relationship formed between them thanks to the presentation of the documentary section. Not every character has a hug role of course - most yhe side “kids” that would be the prey really don’t do much or have much to them - heck, even the crew itself doesn’t really have a lot to them as far as depth, but there’s some development in there and for the most part they do manage to feel like people and not just stereotypes like the prey does.
A mockumentary that even has turtles!
So this right here is a thinking persons slasher. I say that, and it’s not entirely wrong, but what it really is is more akin to a love letter to slashers that acknowledges a lot of the the tropes and plays of the genre. This means that, perhaps not surprisingly, the people who will most likely have the most fun with this is the ones that are already a fan of the genre and it’s quirks, as well as horror in general with the plenty of references to horror in general - including cameos by folks like Englund, Zelda, and even a bit of Hodder himself. Largely they don’t have a huge impact on the plot, but it’s the little easter eggs that will help further it into that “appreciated by fans” category. That said, the bits of dissection of the genre. The conversation about why a killer would do it and the fun twists and turns as things go on is where the thinking folks will enjoy it more - because, regardless of how surface level or dismissive it might seem it does in fact have some level of explanation. It’s a bit like someone explaining all the symbolism and tropes of the genre - so in a way it’s also a great way of kind of showing some of the elaborate parts of slashers to folks who aren’t aware of them.
Let’s talk about the slashing part of slashers though, shall we? Violence is largely kept to a minimum here - really, when the movie switches from mockumentary to actual “movie” in the final act is the only real portion where you’ll be getting any violence. What’s there is pretty decently done, but the desire for this one is more oriented towards the plan and it’s execution at that point then it is showing horribly grizzly deaths. That being said, it used pretty much every single thing it sets up across the move in a splendid way, and somewhat shows you how this type of event or movie could be a much more plausible thing than what some people would say it is. Now, part of that angle is a bit of the entertainment movie aspect sure - but in this day and age when people love watching Marvel movies and we’ve lived through various shining examples of human intelligence when things go wrong - dare I say nothing in a horror move strikes me as far fetched when it comes to a low IQ situation regardless of if a killer already stacked the odds in their favor before hand or not. There is a little bit of skin in there to appeal to the classic genre fan.
In the group I watched the movie with, the one who grew up with the older horror movies - you know, the Fridays, the Nightmares, the Halloweens - enjoyed this the most. Overall, folks enjoyed it as far as I can tell - it being my second time watching it, it’s probably straight to the point to say I don’t dislike the movie. It might not be as interesting as something like Scream - which has a similar way of playing with expectations and twists on the known and expected - but it might be a little more enjoyable to folks who are fans of the old stuff that’s getting thrown in there as all the easter eggs.It’s also fun to see the documentary angle get used for something outside a generic found footage type of film. Like I mentioned a few different times, there’s plenty of thinking parts to go after about symbolism and the genre and how it all goes down.
Do you see the hidden image in the picture?
It’s a fun little change of pace. It’s not the most energetic movie as far as slashers go - you don’t really get a ton of kills and action until later on into it. It’s still fun for the collection of easter eggs and the different way of approaching things - although won’t pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and prevent them from knowing whats going to happen - can be a refresher especially coming off a ton of the classic slasher movies. Horror levels are a little bit lower than the comedy and thriller elements this time around, but overall it’s a pretty well put together movie that I feel like does what it set out to do.