*Here be some spoilers.
Director: Griff Furst.
Writer: Eric Miller and Griff Furst.
Tagline: “Dying is the easy part.”
Lafayette, Louisiana is continuing to develop an indie film making scene, with Active Entertainment and Bullet Films debuting one of their first slashers this year. The title is Mask Maker, previously Maskerade and this horror title released on DVD April 12th, 2011. Set in a farm, a manor house holds unimagined voodoo curses and one killer with a serious identity problem. He compensates for a disfigured face with the peeled grimaces of others. Not for the squeamish, Mask Maker’s best qualities are its hoodoo mythos, the excellent acting, and some brutal scenes of gore.
A young child is accidentally cut along the top of the skull and soon, an infection sets into the wound. Nothing will heal this injury, until his mother turns to the supernatural, through a voodoo spell. The stumbling block comes about when her spells demand animal and later human sacrifice. This does not make the local townsfolk happy, but when the son is now “devil-touched” (Mask), there is no way of undoing the spell, nor the curse. The voodoo mythos, in which the writing is set, creates for much of the tension, while some young twenty-somethings courageously raise their characters above simple horror film fodder.
The main characters and couple, Jennifer (Nikki Deloach) and Evan (Stephen Colleti), are well performed and their burgeoning romance is believable. Other minor characters like Annette (Anabella Casanova), Mike (Ross Britz), Hillary (Mariah Bonner) and Ken (A.J. Allegra) are given enough scream time to develop an angle or two, while some characters are reduced to stereotypes e.g. the horny bimbo. As well, flashbacks help develop the character of the killer, named Leonard and Jonathan Breck (Jeepers Creepers) develops the looming physicality of his character, to bloody effect. Each of the actors puts their best into the role, despite the limits of their stereotypes, until only one character remains.
Those not surviving into the sequel are quickly dispatched in gruesome ways e.g. by pitchfork, by axe, or slashed by knife. Special effects guru Blane Granstaff creates a gorehound’s delight, with nothing visually held back for the faint of heart. This is truly a horror film for those who can stomach believable blood effects.
Returning to the mythos, curses never end and while this is a horror genred film, the ending is one of tragedy. There are no happy endings here, with Bullet Films possibly teasing a sequel, or the film simply gives viewer’s what they want – more gore. With ten films already made for the Halloween series, it is obvious that there is a devout viewing audience of the slasher film and Mask Maker is deserving of a sequel, as long as it delves more deeply into Leonard’s semi-tortured past.
Before ending, a couple film elements stood out as being a little strange, in the conclusion. Actor Jason London is in the title credits, but his actual screen time is less than five minutes and his appearance is much like a cameo. He seems to be included into Mask Maker for star appeal, but his acting credits are not really tested with the 3-5 lines that he evokes. Also, how did the killer tear through a dozen emergency workers to catch up with one of the female protagonists in the closing minutes? Plot holes are few in Mask Maker, but these film elements stood out, near the conclusion.
Mask Maker has been released on DVD by Active Entertainment already and this film is for those who love the horror sub-genre of slasher films, or the film can be enjoyed by the legions of gorehounds out there. Full of brutal interactions between a devil possessed, killing freak and several bewildered victims, this film proudly puts its foot in the macabre. The foot prints left behind are dripping wet and very bloody.
Overall: 6.75 out of 10 (good acting, good mythos, did not step out of themold very much of the slasher, a strange ending and in the end, entertaining).
Mask Maker can be found on Facebook:
The Mask Maker Homepage:
Mask Maker’s Official Website
Mask Maker at Active Entertainment:
Mask Maker at Active
Plot holes galore! But first, other than the actors , the main 6, the film is just pedestrian with a few good gore scenes with the vics faces pulled off by the killer. Getting tired with dimming the film stock -too cliche now. I found puzzling that they parked so far from the house, where was the electrician's vehicle and no one came looking for him? No one hears the girl screaming in the barn? When the killer kills one of the victims in the celler the other guy upstairs doesn't hear him? Come on, there has been so many horror movies made- does the director not realize these mis-takes? Very rookie. The killer had to be burned to be totally destroyed so why was he buried without being burned
You want to see professionally made really good horror go see Triangle and Frayed. I give this movie a D
Thanks for your comments and I agree with your points on the plot holes. I don't believe this film is deserving of a D.
The only horror films that I will consistently give fails involve overuse of dubbing, keeping the screen in darkness e.g. 2009's Hunger, or poor use of camera. If I cannot get through thirty minutes, then the film gets a fail and most plot holes can be overlooked if the director manages to get the pacing correct. I think that Furst got that mostly right here.
Thanks David for you intelligent comments. You pointed out many accurate problems with the film.
-Mike
http://www.28dayslateranalysis.com
Does anyone know who sang the song when they meet there friends at the house??