[Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon]
Plot:On the surface Leslie Vernon seems like your average, small-town, nice guy. He has goals, ambition and aspirations to follow in the footsteps of his long-time heroes Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees and be the world's next great psycho-slasher A true self-promoter, Leslie gives documentary filmmaker Taylor Gentry and her crew exclusive access to his life as he plans and executes his next great reign of terror over the sleepy town of Glen Echo, all the while deconstructing the conventions and archetypes of the horror genre for them.

Cast: Robert Englund, Zelda Rubinstein, Scott Wilson, Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals, Kate Lang Johnson, Britain Spellings, Ben Pace, Bridgett Newton.

My Thoughts:Clever idea yet poorly done.

Review:Movies like "Behind The Mask The Rise Of Leslie Vernon" don't come along too often. Which is a bad and a good thing. Bad because it showed a certain level of creativity in it's storyline. But good because the film was soo poorly written, acted, and executed that it's a relief movies with great base idea's aren't screwed up this badly too often. "Behind The Mask" follows a serial slasher named Leslie Vernon, who gives the cmera crew of a smalltown called Glen Echo....an inside look into the plans, strategies, and preparations which go into his next big slaughter.

Yes, this film is part cheesy slasher movie and part serial-killer documentary. A clever and unique idea no less, however....it's problems arise when it gets one half of the equation right and the other half so very wrong. For starters, a film like this needs really good dialogue and alot of entertainment value to survive. While the character of Leslie Vernon, played by Nathan Baesel is an interesting and funny guy early on, his schtick gets annoying around the middle of the film. As does his relationship with the camera crew consisting of two men and one woman. A film like this is really gold, but "Behind The Mask" is an example of what happens when a good idea gets hooked to the wrong writer and a bunch of bad actors are tossed in to further ruin things.

Baesel's character does a fantastic job of breaking down the slasher genre in the film, i.e. showing the camera crew his intended targets, why he's targeting them, and when and where he plans to strike them specifically....but this runs throughout the entire film, and by the time act three rolls around it's a very tired schtick. Baesel is a decent actor, but he's made to look like a bad one when the script he has to work with is pretty shoddy at best. His supporting cast, despite cameo's by genre vet's Robert Englund and Zelda Rubenstein...is very weak. Especially considering Englund, who plays Vernon's arch-nemesis in the film, and Rubenstein who plays a Librarian...have very limited screentime in the picture.

Most of the screentime is given to Baesel and other unknown actors which is most of the problem here. This film could've really prospered with a Debbie Rochon, Tony Todd, or Erin Brown in it. Instead, it crashed and burned partly because the acting was laughably bad in 90% of the picture, and when bad actors have a bad script to work with well....you get the picture. One also has to wonder how this film even earned an R rating considering the blood and gore is kept to a minimum and we get alot of off-screen slicing, dicing, and bloodshed is only heard and not seen most of the time.

My guess is the sexual innuendo in a few scenes, and profanity is what gained it an R rating, but for a slasher movie to skimp on blood, gore, and then put out a low body count to boot is just a recipe for disaster. There is one silver lining to this otherwise dark cloud though...which is Leslie's outfit, which is pretty badass honestly, it's just too bad that he wasn't turned into a serious slasher instead of a running joke as he is in this picture. To make matters worse, one of the films featured twists is that Leslie's last name turns out to be false. Ooooooh....who didn't see that coming? What's even more confusing is...why was that even written in as an actual twist? You can have the slasher doc of Leslie Vernon, I'll take a documentary detailing the killing methods of Jason, Freddy, Chucky, and or Michael Myers any day.

Positives:Leslie Vernon sports a cool looking costume.

Negatives:Bad acting, a lack of blood, gore, and entertainment value. A terrible script.

Overall:Extremely disappointing.





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