"I made a choice to provide a counterbalance to all those things that we hold good and pure. You chose journalism."
BEHIND THE MASK is a MAN BITES DOG style mockumentary set in the fictional town of Glen Echo, about a documentary crew following local legend Leslie Vernon as he prepares to make his big, breakthrough debut as a slasher villain, set vaguely against the backdrop of a world where all of the major slasher icons actually exist. Where SCREAM casually comments on the tropes and traditions of slasher movies, BEHIND THE MASK roots itself in them, studying and deconstructing them with a critical but absolutely loving eye.
It is sharp-witted, smart, funny, sometimes hilariously specific in its genre deconstruction, but it really hinges on that lead performance by Nathan Baesel. Leslie is so funny, charming, and likable that he lulls you into forgetting he's actually planning to do all of the things he's planning to do. This is an incredibly smart horror movie, even on basically no budget, but his performance takes it to another level. It is so hard to craft a killer so likable he can make you forget that he’s a killer, and this is one of the only movies to truly convincingly do that.
BEHIND THE MASK is as much about the filmmaking process, how to subvert expectations and embrace tradition at the same time, as it is about the audience and the notion of an unspoken participation in what we’re seeing. There is so much to it and yet it is simply on the surface so fun and funny and endlessly rewatchable. For me, where the movie moves into "brilliant" territory is when the mood of the entire film shifts on its axis as the doc crew come to that same realization, that Leslie is actually going to kill people, and that they are the only ones who know his plans and have a hope of stopping him. It is so satisfyingly captivating, balanced in tone, and just a huge personal favorite.