Mask of Murder

source: The Face

I'll be totally honest with you: No, it's not the best film in the World. Yes the music score is really annoying. Yes the whole visual aspect is pretty colorless and dull, not to mention the badly made gore sequences. But for my part, I liked seeing the trio of actors (Taylor/Perrine/Lee) make their best and save it from being a total mess. Which is quite remarkable considering the poor premise of this would-be slasher movie. Sure it's not a great thriller, but it's still a decent time-passing show. I also liked its flaws amazingly enough: it's SO MUCH an 80s film, you could swear going back in time just by viewing it. Watch it for the actors if anything.

Director Arne Mattsson is most famous for his 1958 thriller "Mannequin in Red" which allegedly was a role-model movie for the giallo that emerged from Italy during the sixties. Being a gigantic fan of gialli, I really wanted to watch "Mannequin in Red" but – alas – I only found this "Mask of Murder" instead. The first thing that becomes quite obvious here is that Mattsson was quite a lazy and patriotic Swede… The events are supposed to take place in a winterly Canadian village, but everyone drives around in Volvo cars with Swedish license places and I'm pretty sure I also spotted a couple of Swedish signposts as well. The only thing missing to make it abundantly clear that filming took place in Sweden is an Ikea warehouse in the background or guest appearances from the ABBA band members! Secondly, I presume this movie is supposed to be a whodunit/mystery thriller, yet the identity of the killer as well as his motivations are pretty obvious straight from the first murder, so all that remains is a goofy giallo-lite flick with the almighty Christopher Lee in yet another inferior supportive role. The police are hunting down a misogynist and masked killer who slices the throats of his female victims with a razor. He's a dumb killer, I may add, because he allows himself to get caught rather easily. During the arrest, Lt. Bob McLaine shoots the suspect much against the will of his superior Chief Lt. Jonathan Rich (Lee) who also gets injured during the conflict. By the way, did you know the Canadian police use machine guns?!? A few days later, Lt. McLaine painfully discovers that his wife Maria lies about going on holiday to Bermuda in order to spend time with her lover – and her husband's colleague – Ray Cooper. Poor Bob emotionally cracks and at the same time the misogynous killer with his hideous mask and razor starts murdering again. Oh gee, I wonder who he is! The regretful thing about "Mask of Murder" is that plot and the denouement hold quite a lot of potential, so in case Arne Mattsson and his crew would have bothered to uphold the mystery and create suspense just a little bit more, this honestly could have been a nice 80s horror sleeper. Now "Mask of Murder" mainly comes across as a lazy effort. Even the killer's mask is an uninspired and ugly piece of scenery in spite of its significant role in the plot. Was it that hard to come up with a slightly more creative mask?

Being a big fan of thrillers in general, I actually went into this film with some expectations in spite of all the bad things I'd heard about it; and that was a mistake as Mask of Murder, while perhaps not quite as bad as I'd heard, is definitely a bad film that doesn't make the best of its positive elements. The plot is actually a decent base for a film, in spite of not being very original, and focuses on a serial killer who butchers women. The main bulk of the plot focuses on an investigation into the killings. The film kind of feels something like an inept Giallo as we have several Giallo trademarks without much intrigue to string it all together. The reason why, I would assume, many people tune into this film is almost certainly down to the fact that Christopher Lee is billed as the main star; but this is actually a bit of a rip off as he doesn't have a great deal of screen time and he isn't put to very good use in the time he does have. The killer himself fails to generate a great deal of intrigue and the way that the investigation plays out is largely laughable (and not in good way). Director Arne Mattsson fails to give the film much in the way of atmosphere and overall it's a largely lacklustre affair. Still, at least the film does have a plot and it never becomes completely boring - though that might owe more to the fact that it isn't very long rather than the execution.

While I agree with nearly all of what chrisie says in her review here, I don't think it's one of the worst films I've ever seen. But maybe that says something more about me than it does the film... There was a plot here, not much of one but lot of grade-Z films don't have that subtle little thing. Plus there was a kinda twisted motive for the copycat killer that made some logical sense. Again, not a feature of some bad films I've seen. The acting was pretty standard and Chris Lee could have phoned his role in, Rod Taylor played his usual 'tough straight guy' part and Valerie Perrine was...er...Valerie Perrine again...nice eye candy but little else. Main fault really is this type of film had been done many times before and done far better. Still, it passed the time and I resisted the urge to fast-forward, which is always a good sign. And by the way, I don't think it was his wife's knickers that Rod Taylor was sniffing, looked more like her nightie to me. Not that most men would blame him for having a sniff of the knicks....we're strange, complicated creatures we men! In this instance I assume the idea that he was smelling his wife's perfume on her nightie to show the viewers this was the only way he could get close to her anymore? Then again, maybe he's just a pervert..... N.B. My referring to another review by Chrisie in which she mentions the knicker sniffing may be confusing since that review has been deleted for some unknown reason.

Moviecut—The Face

source: The Face

source: Mask of Murder

Director Arne Mattsson is most famous for his 1958 thriller "Mannequin in Red" which allegedly was a role-model movie for the giallo that emerged from Italy during the sixties. Being a gigantic fan of gialli, I really wanted to watch "Mannequin in Red" but – alas – I only found this "Mask of Murder" instead. The first thing that becomes quite obvious here is that Mattsson was quite a lazy and patriotic Swede… The events are supposed to take place in a winterly Canadian village, but everyone drives around in Volvo cars with Swedish license places and I'm pretty sure I also spotted a couple of Swedish signposts as well. The only thing missing to make it abundantly clear that filming took place in Sweden is an Ikea warehouse in the background or guest appearances from the ABBA band members! Secondly, I presume this movie is supposed to be a whodunit/mystery thriller, yet the identity of the killer as well as his motivations are pretty obvious straight from the first murder, so all that remains is a goofy giallo-lite flick with the almighty Christopher Lee in yet another inferior supportive role. The police are hunting down a misogynist and masked killer who slices the throats of his female victims with a razor. He's a dumb killer, I may add, because he allows himself to get caught rather easily. During the arrest, Lt. Bob McLaine shoots the suspect much against the will of his superior Chief Lt. Jonathan Rich (Lee) who also gets injured during the conflict. By the way, did you know the Canadian police use machine guns?!? A few days later, Lt. McLaine painfully discovers that his wife Maria lies about going on holiday to Bermuda in order to spend time with her lover – and her husband's colleague – Ray Cooper. Poor Bob emotionally cracks and at the same time the misogynous killer with his hideous mask and razor starts murdering again. Oh gee, I wonder who he is! The regretful thing about "Mask of Murder" is that plot and the denouement hold quite a lot of potential, so in case Arne Mattsson and his crew would have bothered to uphold the mystery and create suspense just a little bit more, this honestly could have been a nice 80s horror sleeper. Now "Mask of Murder" mainly comes across as a lazy effort. Even the killer's mask is an uninspired and ugly piece of scenery in spite of its significant role in the plot. Was it that hard to come up with a slightly more creative mask?

I'll be totally honest with you: No, it's not the best film in the World. Yes the music score is really annoying. Yes the whole visual aspect is pretty colorless and dull, not to mention the badly made gore sequences. But for my part, I liked seeing the trio of actors (Taylor/Perrine/Lee) make their best and save it from being a total mess. Which is quite remarkable considering the poor premise of this would-be slasher movie. Sure it's not a great thriller, but it's still a decent time-passing show. I also liked its flaws amazingly enough: it's SO MUCH an 80s film, you could swear going back in time just by viewing it. Watch it for the actors if anything.