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Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon | Rotten Tomatoes

  • ️Fri Mar 16 2007
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Critics Consensus

A smart mockumentary that presents a gory, funny, and obviously affectionate skewering of the slasher genre.

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Mark Holcomb Time Out Rated: 3/6 Sep 22, 2007 Full Review Nick Schager Lessons of Darkness Other than displaying a textbook awareness of its ancestors, Behind the Mask offers next to nothing Rated: C Aug 9, 2007 Full Review Steve Murray Atlanta Journal-Constitution A deconstructionist horror comedy that owes a debt to Scream and the 1992 Belgian film Man Bites Dog, Mask nevertheless has enough pitch-perfect wit to lay claim to its own patch of postmodern, movie-loving snarkiness. Rated: B Mar 22, 2007 Full Review Alan French Sunshine State Cineplex Behind the Mask strikes surprising thematic gold, while also worshipping the genre. Glosserman’s shell game approach leaves the audience with clear messages, all while providing enough easter eggs and homages to satisfy the hardcore genre fans. Rated: 8/10 Oct 2, 2022 Full Review Jason Adams My New Plaid Pants The film is more a comedy than a horror film, and a very very funny one at that Jul 2, 2021 Full Review Patrick King Cultured Vultures It's cool to see that he didn't chain himself to the limitations of the mockumentary format. I've actually never seen a film shot like this, so that's pretty cool. Oct 29, 2019 Full Review Read all reviews

David L It’s a different kind of slasher film, for sure. Completely different than anything else in the genre. So much more going on here than topless teen girls getting hacked up in the woods. Very original. I loved it. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/04/25 Full Review Tasha L To be honest I didn’t like it at first but the ending did not disappoint. Super underrated and a great film to watch. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 12/09/24 Full Review Jay H A clever "mockumentary" that follows a killer as he gets ready for his first slaughter. The writing is smart, and the performances are terrific. Personally, I wish the movie had more gore (hey, even if you are making a slasher comedy, the kills should be explicit), but that's just me. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 10/26/24 Full Review Riley A Pretty Groundbreaking for its time, I saw this when I was younger and whenever I think of original horror movies this one definitely hits the mark. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/02/24 Full Review Grimm R Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is an incredible mockumentary horror/comedy that follows a normal looking guy, Leslie Vernon who has an obsession with movie-style slashers like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger and decides to follow in their footsteps and invites a documentary filmmaker and her crew to follow him around as he constructs his own grisly legacy. Nathan Baesal as Leslie Vernon truly captures how I feel a serial killer would be like when preparing to kill someone. I can truly see Norman Bates in his appearance and his personality is like Billy & Stu from Scream but in one person and the performance from Baesal was just perfect. Angela Goethals in this movie is also amazing as she is the documentary host, Taylor and is the person following Leslie around for the whole movie and I feel like is underrated in the slasher fandom. The humor in this movie is sort of what you'd expect as its satire and is similar to Scream but a bit more satire and comedy which I felt like the balance in this movie was perfect, especially when it came to the raunchy horror slasher tropes. It was also interesting following Leslie through the documentary and seeing how he'd prepare to kill, his brain process, and just how committed he was to this. The satire tropes in this movie like switching from the documentary camera style to the horror slasher style I think was pretty great and also the twist towards the end which I find genius and well thought out as it had been built up since the beginning and the fakeout truly threw me off. I honestly didn't find anything in this movie that bothered me or anything like that because this movie was just a lot of fun, charming, has some gore, and just executes its premise and tone so perfectly. Behind the Mask gets an A++. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 04/07/24 Full Review Emilliano Jr S The concept is not entertaining. I only watched this because of Robert Englund & the spirit medium from Poltergeist. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 08/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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Synopsis Nice, normal-looking Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) has an obsession with movie-style slashers like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. Leslie decides to follow in the footsteps of his heroes, and, ever the self-promoter, invites a documentary filmmaker (Angela Goethals) and her crew to follow him around as he constructs his own grisly legacy.

Director

Scott Glosserman

Producer

Scott Glosserman

Screenwriter

Scott Glosserman, David J. Stieve

Distributor

Anchor Bay

Production Co

Code Entertainment, Glen Echo Entertainment

Rating

R (Language|Horror Violence|Brief Drug Use|Some Sexual Content)

Genre

Comedy, Horror, Mystery & Thriller

Original Language

English

Release Date (Theaters)

Mar 16, 2007, Limited

Release Date (Streaming)

May 21, 2017

Runtime

1h 32m

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