Mask Maker

IMDb
When a young deformed boy witnesses his mothers death, he comes back to take revenge on anyone who dares enter his property.


Horror Society

Lafayette, Louisiana is continuing to develop an indie film makingscene, 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, amanor 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. Thestumbling 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 Halloweenseries, 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).

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