One of my big delightful surprise films of last year was a small indie film by the name of “Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon“. As a matter of fact, I liked it so much, I put it at #100 on my top 100 all time favorite/best movies list. A few months ago I had the opportunity to interview director Scot Glosserman on the NowLive network and asked him about the possibility of a sequel. He suggested that he’d very much like to do one.
Today, more stuff is coming out… and it looks like a Behind the Mask 2 could be on the horizon. The good folks at moviehole give us this:
Penner David J.Stieve tells Icons of Fright, “Obviously the focus of that or the metaphor involved there, as it happened with Nathan as an actor or Scott as a director, or me as a writer, it’s how do you handle that ‘freshman phenom/rookie of the year’ type thing!” Stieve poses. “That’s the symbolism at play; how does Leslie handle his success? And of course you have the whole genre-specific constructions and conventions of a horror sequel. There’s specific conventions involved with every killer that comes back. How the town reacts, who the people are that survive, and who fills what role coming around again…so there are all these very specific genre expectations for a sequel that are ripe for the picking but there’s obviously the metaphor of how does Leslie as the ‘artist’ handle his fame, does he handle it well, does he burn out too quick, keep himself in check, does he do it right? There’s a very rich soil to till from a storytelling standpoint.
This is terrific news. Here’s the thing. Every once in a while some little film like this comes out that has a fantastic CONCEPT, and the concept is enough to make you enjoy the film. That’s great… and for certain Behind the Mask had a WONDERFUL concept. HOWEVER… the thing that really endeared me to the film wasn’t the concept…. but the character.
Leslie Vernon ended up being one ofthe best characters I’ve seen on screen in a long time. You just can’t help but love him… and ultimately be scared to death of him at the same time. Any chance for us to visit that character again is one I’d welcome with open arms.
Oh, and I know like 99% of you haven’t seen Behind the Mask yet… so go hit Blockbuster or add it to your netflix que. You can send me a “thank you” email later.
