Atomic Nerds

I’ve posted reviews of B-grade horror movies before here in a pale imitation of Correia’s viewing habits, but I can’t actually figure out if the latest one we watched was a B movie or not. Its initial releases were all on the “arty” film circuit, which would seem to place it as an art/indie film, which doesn’t really seem to fit, and after that it was straight to DVD and apparently a huge hit with the likes of Bloody Disgusting and, well, people like me, which would point more toward “B movie”. It feels way too smart to be a proper B movie, but not pretentious and generally serious-business enough to be an art film. Call it a slasher flick- that’s really what it is.

As a rule I’m fairly bored by slasher flicks. When they’re at their most effective they rely mostly on shock and sheer brutality, which is definitely not my preferred cup of tea when it comes to horror; I prefer psychological thrillers where there’s more tension involved in who the killer/threat is and what the motivation is than there is on exactly which unlikeable screecher dies next and which orifice is going to be violated with a chainsaw/cleaver/cactus next. At best, they’re fun when there’s real pleasure in watching the idiots die, things aren’t dragged out with a lot of pointless “trying to make you care about the characters”, and things are done with a reasonable degree of intelligence and self-awareness. That’s why I liked Hallowed Ground, and also why I liked Scream- the first one, not the interminable stretch of sequels in which they did everything the first movie was mocking the genre for, ad nauseam.

At first glance, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon comes across as a straight up mockumentary and deconstruction of slasher movies. The basic premise of the movie is that a student journalist is making a documentary about the men who make a specialty of supernatural terror sprees of small communities (such luminaries as Freddy, Jason, and Michael Meyers are treated as in-universe real), and she is on the trail of the man declaring himself to be the next up and comer in the field, Leslie Vernon. He introduces himself and his backstory- lynched by townsfolk for being evil as a child, plans to make his big debut as a killer on the anniversary of his death- in a purely matter of fact manner, and the first two-thirds of the movie or so consist of him introducing his philosophy, methods, and training to the film crew, from conditioning (“Do you have ANY IDEA how much cardio I have to do?”) to victim group selection, to mentoring, to how to give the impression of keeping up with your victim at an implacable walk when the victim is at a dead sprint. His “enjoy your work, and you’ll never work a day in your life” attitude is appealing and infectious, and very early manages to get the viewer firmly on his side; his enthusiasm and competence make him fun to watch and easy to cheer for despite what he’s technically talking about doing. The references are thick on the ground if you’re a fan of the genre, and there are some notable faces in bit parts, including one unadvertised one that had us both howling in delight.

If it had remained a plain and simple mockumentary, it would merely have been a fun deconstruction of a genre that’s easy to deconstruct and wouldn’t really be worth writing home about. It’s easy to make fun of the tropes and cliches of slasher movies, because nobody was ever really trying that hard to begin with- even the scariest and most effective ones aren’t exactly trying very hard to keep us deeply wrapped up in a complex story. What makes Behind the Mask a movie good enough for us to add to the DVD collection is that it manages to accomplish something Scream never managed- being an intelligent deconstruction of slasher movies and being an actual, effective slasher movie at the same time. A great deal of the movie’s strength lies in the acting, unusually enough for such movies, especially by the slasher-star, Nathan Baesel. I really hope to see more of him- he managed to switch from comical to genuinely unnerving and back again in an eyeblink when the scene called for it, and had a serious athleticism that made him physically scary as well as just well-armed. Angela Goethals as the lead documentarian did a good job as well of pulling off some fairly subtle conflicted states, and was by any measure but cleavage more interesting and likeable than the standard scream queen.

We’re buying this one. Highly recommended if this is your genre, and maybe worth a look even if it’s not.

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