Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Scott Glosserman |
| Written by | Scott Glosserman David J. Stieve |
| Starring | Nathan Baesel Robert Englund |
| Music by | Gordy Haab |
| Cinematography | Jaron Presant |
| Editing by | Sean Presant |
| Distributed by | Anchor Bay Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | 2006 |
| Running time | 92 min |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is a 2006 horror film/mockumentary directed by Scott Glosserman. It stars Nathan Baesel as Vernon, as well as Robert Englund, who is better known for playing the legendary horror film icon Freddy Krueger. It follows a film crew documenting a slasher film killer who terrorizes the small town of Glen Echo, MD.
The film won the 2006 Audience Award at the Gen Art Film Festival in New York. It is to be released in theaters on March 16, 2007.
[edit] Plot Summary
In a brief prologue, we are shown a teenage girl (Kelly) finishing up her job at the restaurant she is employed at, throwing out the trash. She props a brick up against the door to keep it open. She hears a small sound and believes she sees a man in the bushes; she takes a few tentative steps toward him, the door snaps shut, she emits a small squeak of panic, and after finding the door lock, runs around to the front and reenters the building.
There is a short voice over, showing Camp Crystal Lake, Elm Street, and Haddonfield, and briefings on their legendary murderers; Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers. We are then shown Taylor Gentry (the one who has been doing the voice over) and she tells us about Leslie Vernon; the next name in terror.
At this, we hear another man yell 'Cut!' and the camera begins to move. Obviously, a documentary is being filmed. Taylor knocks on the door, yelling for Leslie, when she sees a branch move near the shed. She looks over there to find no one; and then, on the second floor of the house, she notices a curtain swing shut. She runs back up to the door, knocking louder, when Leslie appears behind her, laughing.
Leslie then lets Taylor and the film crew into his house, and begins to show them around; he introduces him to his two turtles (or, as he calls them, his sweeties) and then his gigantic book collection. Among these books are several magic books; David Copperfield and others. He offers to show Taylor a magic trick, and asks her for a deck of cards. She tells him that she doesn't have a deck, and he turns to one of the cameramen, once again asking for a deck of cards. The cameraman tells him that he doesn't have one, but Leslie tells him to check his front left pocket; and indeed, somehow, Leslie has slipped a deck of cards in there, and the team is impressed.
Leslie briefs them on the story behind him; how he murdered his mother and father and was apparently driven off a waterfall. This explains why he lives so far away from the town that he is hunting in; they can't know that he's still alive, he says.
Leslie then takes them out to show them them the next step of the process; picking a girl, who, as he says, must be a virgin. Parked outside of a high school, he briefs over the groups; the jocks, the stoners (who, he says, are easy to catch, so it's always good to pad the hunted with a few of them) and then, finally, the virgin. Leslie can apparently tell if a girl's a virgin or not just by observation; and after she notices him watching and glances back at the car, he excitedly tells them of the connection that they just made. He says that she is the definite 'survivor girl'.
However, Leslie soon reveals that the girl they were looking at was not who he was planning on hunting, she was just an example. He already has someone picked out; Kelly, who works at a restaurant nearby. He takes them by the restaurant to have a 'fly-by'; he has rigged up the brick she uses to prop open the door with a clear piece of fishing wire. He then tells Taylor exactly what Kelly will do; how when she notices him, she'd take a few steps toward him. He then hands her the fishing wire; telling her that he would do it himself, but since she was along, she could have the honor. This is the scene that we were shown at the very beginning of the movie.
After the success of the fly-by, Leslie gives the two cameramen a brief handshake, and when he turns to Taylor, says 'You get hugs' and gives her a quick hug. Taylor looks slightly pleased about this, but also a little unsettled. She asks him if there is any possibility that she could talk to Kelly; Leslie tells her that talking to Kelly is one of the most important things for her not to do.
Leslie then takes them down to visit his neighbor, Eugene. Eugene is a retired psycho-slasher, and essentially serves as his older, more experienced mentor. When he knocks on Eugene's door, he is greeted by Jamie (Eugene's wife) and she gives him a brief kiss on the cheek. She then tells him that Eugene is in 'the hole' and that she keeps forgetting to dig him up. Leslie goes out to 'the hole', which he says is a 'sensory deprivation chamber'; it's a metal tube buried underground, with a pipe coming up for air. He says that the tube is used for training to pretend to be dead, just like Yoga masters can slow their heartbeat to four times a minute. Leslie digs Eugene up, whose at first appears to be dead, shocking Taylor, but Leslie nudges him until he wakes up. Eugene asks if it's Tuesday; Leslie tells him it's Thursday, and is apparently surprised by the amount of time Eugene had spent underground.
Taylor and Leslie sit nearby as Eugene and Jamie get dinner ready. They speak for a while about the motivations behind serial killing; this is brought on after Taylor lets loose a fairly blunt statement about 'murdering people', which seems to embarrass Leslie and he explains to Eugene that 'she's not entirely on board about... why we do what we do.' Eugene then explains that the motivation is that in order to preserve what you have on earth, you need a balance of good and evil; because if there is no evil, then there will be no good to combat it. They are serving as all the evil in humanity.
Later in the evening, Leslie is discussing with Eugene his first planned kill; Leslie plans to kill one of Kelly's close friends, but Eugene quickly discourages him, saying that doing that would turn up the heat far too fast. Leslie then has a short train of thought which leads him to the idea of killing a librarian that Kelly is friends with, and Eugene approves.
After a period of time, Leslie, Taylor, and the cameramen pull up to the library, and Leslie shows them a clipping of an article about Kelly's great-uncle being convicted of raping his mother. Taylor comments that the picture looks just like Kelly; Leslie responds that he computer-generated it. They manage to sneak inside after Leslie uses a set of lockpicks on a side door, and Leslie, using his incredible stealth and agility, slips the article into a place where Kelly will see it, and replaces the microfiche of the newspaper with a new one with his article in it.
Everything goes precisely as Leslie planned it; Kelly sees the article, and brings it up to the librarian to try and find the rest of it. However, we also see something unplanned; a mysterious car pulls up to the library. Kelly asks the librarian about the story behind Leslie Vernon; she tells her that he was a bastard son (the son of the man who raped his mother, whom Kelly believes to be her great-uncle) and that his parents abused him to no end. She tells him that Vernon eventually snapped and killed both his mother and father; and when the police caught up to him, they threw him off the waterfall, and the body was never recovered, since the turtles had probably picked it clean.
At this instant, Leslie shows up and murders the librarian, and Kelly shrieks. We are then given our first view of Doctor Halloran, the man who was in the car, and he shoots Leslie. Leslie then lunges off to the side, and Halloran runs up to Kelly, protecting her. We see Leslie once more, and Halloran shoots at him twice, but misses both times.
We then see Leslie meeting up with Eugene again, and he is extremely excited, telling him that 'he has an Ahab'. Jamie is as excited as Leslie is, but Eugene, while obviously pleased, isn't quite that happy. Eugene asks him about the gunshot wound; Leslie replies that it was fine, he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Taylor then asks what an Ahab is; Leslie explains that an Ahab is the symbol of 'all that is good', and is a crucial part to his plan.
The next day, Taylor visits Kelly's restaurant, apparently wanting to ask her a question, even though Leslie has instructed her not to. When she is there, it turns out that Doctor Halloran is there too; he comes up and asks them why they are following Kelly. She avoids his question, but stumbles a little. Halloran informs them that 'Leslie is not the man you think he is'; apparently, Leslie originally lived in Nevada, and he's going by a fake name. Kelly then appears, but Taylor leaves before talking to her, obviously unnerved.
When she gets outside, Leslie is leaning against her van; obviously he's noticed her. He slams her up against the van, warning her that she cannot ruin this for him; that this means everything to him, and he's not going to let someone get in the way. At this moment, we begin to see the darker side of Leslie; before now, he's appeared as a nice, fairly likable fellow.
Taylor knows that things are going to get heavy soon, but she continues to stay with Leslie and get the full story. He seems pleased about this, and shows her and the crew around his 'allegedly ancestral home'. Apparently, the kids in the town dare each other to stay the night in this old house on the anniversary of his death; thus, he makes it his hunting ground. He first tells us about how he has rigged all of the exits; nailing the bottom floor's windows shut (since no one ever seems to try and smash them) and making the second floor exits impossible to climb down from. He explains his entire plan, starting from the first two murders upstairs, and then flicking the lights off (he has rigged up a remote to work the main switch). When the lights are off, he says that one of the jocks and his girl will go downstairs to get the power back on; and that the guy will try and score, and when he does, Leslie will appear out of the shadows and murder him, letting the girl go upstairs to cause a panic. He then details the rest of the murders, along with the arrival of Doctor Halloran. He expects Kelly to go into the shed to grab a weapon, all of which he has sabotaged. He says he can only hope that she doesn't get lucky on the first swing; but after the end, he expects her to go free.
On the day leading up to the murders, we are shown Leslie making apple cider out of his grinding machine. When Taylor asks him what the machine is for, he explains that 'right now, you put apples out here and juice comes out the bottom.' She replies sarcastically, and then asks him what it will be for tonight. 'Tonight,' he explains, 'this is going to hurt someone.'
We then see him putting on a gel all over his face; he explains that it will help stop lacerations from bleeding, it'll keep his eyes from swelling up, and that he's also mixed it with a rather handy flame-retardant. A couple hours before all the murders, we see him in a rather exposed emotional state, almost crying- 'This is like Christmas to me. I'm... I'm so happy.' Taylor moves to put her arm around his shoulder, but she hesitates for a long time, eventually just taking his hands in hers. He collects himself, telling them that he's going to look around for one last time.
From that, we cut to the beginning of the murders. He is shown rolling into a window, a sparkplug in his hand, explaining that 'he doesn't feel like getting run over tonight.' He then waits for a couple to come upstairs and start having sex, as he predicted that they would, and after they begin, he goes in and slaughters them, which is not shown. Taylor can hear the carnage and is obviously frightened; and when Leslie finishes the two off, he comes back to find her scared and attempts to comfort her. He looks into her face for a while and then makes her and the cameramen go outside, back to the van. He says that she has that 'we can't stand here and let this happen' expression on her face, and that since he'll probably never see the three of the newspeople again, that he'd like to say his goodbyes now. He gives a quick hug to both of the cameramen, and then Taylor, and he looks at her and puts his hands up to her face. She is obviously upset about all of it, and she takes his hands in hers; and after he leaves to go back to the murders, she says exactly what he predicted. 'We can't stand here and let this happen.' She orders the cameramen to put their stuff away, they're going back in and warning everyone. At this point, the movie stops being filmed from the point of the two cameramen and plays out like a regular film.
Taylor rushes in to find that Leslie has already murdered the jock downstairs; desperately, she finds Kelly; who is upstairs, having sex. She is clearly not a virgin, and Taylor thinks that this could make the situation a lot worse. She forces Kelly downstairs; and when the two look out the window, Leslie sees them both. Kelly, scared, eventually tries to escape through a window, ignoring Taylor's shouts not to. She tries to grab one of the branches Leslie rigged, falls, and dies.
Leslie's plan is going almost exactly as he predicted; but the news team attempts to stop him. One of the cameramen tries to run, breaking Leslie's earlier stated rule of 'no one is allowed out alive besides survivor girl', but he trips and falls backwards. When Leslie catches up to him, the cameraman makes him take his mask off, and pleads for a little while, but Leslie kills him nonetheless.
After a while, and after the appearance of Doctor Halloran (who, after a brief struggle, Leslie slashes and knocks out) only Taylor is left on her feet and alive. She runs out to the shed and picks up a weapon, then hunts for Leslie. After a short chase, she swings the axe she picked up and he falls backwards, apparently dead, and the head of the axe falls off the handle, making it useless. She turns away for a few seconds, and when she turns back, he's gone.
She continues to look for him, entering the shed where the cider machine was, where Leslie swings down and attacks her, choking her. She manages to roll him under the cider-crusher, trapping his head. She rips off his mask, and he reveals to her that she was actually the survivor girl the whole time, and although she has a look of regret, she twists the crusher one more time, and Leslie appears to be dead. Taylor then sets the shed on fire, hoping to destroy him for good, and when she gets back out, Halloran and a cameraman are still alive.
In the final title sequence, Leslie's body is being brought in to the autopsy expert; and in the last few seconds, Leslie sits straight up, still alive, most probably saved by the flame retardant gel, as he would otherwise have burned to death in the fire.
[edit] Trivia and Movie Connections
- The Last House on the Left
- -The librarian is a Collingwood.
- The Shining
- -In The Shining, Daniel's nickname is Doc, and the chef Halloran, both of whom have the 'shining' and is where Doc Halloran's name comes from.
- Halloween
- -The Rabbit in Red Lounge is on Main Street in Glen Echo.
- Friday the 13th
- -The abandoned camp. 'nuff said.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- -There's a bottle of 'Stay Awake' on Leslie's mantle, the same medicine used in the Nightmare series.
- Hellraiser
- -There's a Hellraiser keepsake in Eugene's house.
- Only one animal was killed during production.
- Kane Hodder makes a brief appearance as a man on Elm Street who slams his door shut when Taylor attempts to inquire about "his old neighbor Frederick."
[edit] Links
 |
This article about a 2000s horror film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
