Review of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) by Alec B — 06 Jul 2012

This movie is not intended to be engrossing as it is shot in documentary style and makes many references & inside jokes that the intended audience is obviously supposed to get. Given this style, it is therefore explicitly intended to be thought-of and observed rather than be engrossing.

In that respect I wonder what the intention of this is as it constantly seems to derive comedy from sarcasm and self-righteously making fun of horror or slasher conventions. Leslie constantly, and with an incredibly obnoxious matter-of-fact sarcasm of an immature college roommate, informs the documentary makers of how he will enact his murderous rampage in a stereotypical fashion and in this sense the movie in in a perpetual state of "winking at its audience".

In this sense, you will enjoy this movie if the primary reason you enjoy horror movies is to laugh and make fun of them as this movie will give you characters in which to pretentiously identify with as if these observations are somehow profound and founded.

The only interesting twist is inevitably, despite knowing the stereotypical conventions, the characters are unable to avoid their demise so you could go the potential extra mile and possibly make an argument that this movie is actually in opposition to all the viewers who like to dismiss these movies because of convention because in the end they had no choice but to make the decisions they made and still met their demise despite "knowing how the story goes".

At any rate, I found this movie to be relying too much on its sense of self-importance and lame attempt at profoundness. But as I said, if the only reason you enjoy movies is to laugh at them and derive a sense of superiority, then you will no doubt love this one.