Journalist Taylor Gentry and her crew follow Leslie Vernon, aspiring slasher killer, as he prepares to embark on his first killing spree. Every step is documented from stalking and terrorizing his potential final girl to his intense physical training to the planning of every stage of the night of the spree. They even get to meet his aged mentor, a retired killer himself. When the night of the spree comes, Taylor and the crew have to decide if they will stand by and document the carnage or do something to stop his reign of terror and death.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is one of the best meta horror films yet it's still underappreciated. It has everything: a unique world, relatable well drawn characters, laugh out loud humor, and accurate analysis and breakdown of the slasher genre. The world within the film has all the famous horror film slasher killers like Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, and Michael Myers as real people terrorizing real cities and victims. Leslie’s mentor Eugene is implied to be Billy from Black Christmas with comments about a singular sprees in the 60’s and 70’s and disappearing with no plans to return. His jealousy and admiration is palpable at the change the newer slashers made to the genre and at Leslie as he embarks on his own slasher journey.
Leslie Vernon has studied their stories, analyzed them, and found the best way to create his mythology. A local urban legend says thatTwenty years ago, an angry mob took a boy they claimed was possessed by evil. He is thrown over a waterfall. Now, the boy returns to bring vengeance upon the town’s youth. He has planned everything down to the letter and is eager to follow through, already harassing his potential final girl for weeks at her work and ramping up his cardio to catch up with victims while not appearing winded. You might think he would be creepy, but he proves to be a funny, likeable guy. As he gets to know the documentary crew, they become friends and start to become invested in his journey.
The documentary crew follows him through his planning and training phase to actually enacting his plan, step by step. First, Taylor questions him extensively and wants him to explain his motivation, but he refuses, prompting her to find her own answer as they cover his journey. Then they start helping him terrorize his potential final girl, planting evidence for her to find, and documenting his first encounter with his Ahab, essentially Dr. Loomis from Halloween. When they try to interview his final girl, Leslie shows them a bit of how dangerous he can be. Once the fateful night comes, Taylor and the crew change their minds and try to stop Leslie since he's explained every step to them. This is the amazing moment where it goes from mockumentary style to third person. Now, Taylor and the crew are in the slasher film they helped create with some clues, but Leslie also planned for the possibility that they would interfere.
Leslie goes from friendly and affable to a silent, brutal masked killer. He refuses to speak to them and mechanically dispatches his victims one by one. The crew adds to the slasher's story and mythology/ Taylor finds herself the post-modern final girl, chosen by Leslie before anything even started and shown everything in the process. She has to decide if she will take the mantle of final girl, lose her innocence, and get her revenge or if she will just be another in a long list of victims. Either way, she is adding to this slasher's notoriety and mythology, just like he wanted. Leslie knows he might not survive the night, but he will still achieve slasher killer status.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon takes every slasher convention, discusses them at length, and manufactures them. It critiques some of the exploitative elements, lays out the changes from the subgenre's origins, and provides apt (mostly Freudian) analysis of slasher films and final girls. While all of this is wonderrul, the film is also full of relatable characters and tons of laugh out loud moments. If you haven't seen this film, I highly recommend it. It made very little money in its original theatrical run and now has a cult following, but I would love to eventually see a sequel made to analyze and skewer all of those conventions.
My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins
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