Behind the mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

A mockumentary about slashers/serial killers. It goes on the idea that Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers were real. It shows a behind the scenes of filmmakers making a documentary about a man named Leslie Vernon who claims he will be the next slasher in line. He was believed to be possessed by the devil when he was a child, so the town tied him up and threw him over a waterfall to drown him. Sadly for them he didn’t die. They interview the guy as he is getting ready for his big comeback if you will. This has some great comedy if you are a fan of the slasher genre. For instance him talking about how hard he works on his cardio and when asked why he says that he has to be able to run like a gazelle and not get tired and “plus there is that thing where you make it look like you are walking while everyone else is running their asses off, and I gotta stay with ‘em” absolute gold.

Everything is going fine until he actually starts going through with it and the documentary crew decide they can’ let him do this. Will they be able to stop him, or was it all part of his plan? It is all a pretty interesting setup with the first 2 acts being a documentary and the last act an actual thrasher movie. You could consider this in the same vein as Scream but I actually think I liked this one more. It has some nice cameos such as Robert Englund as the “Sam Loomis” type character and Kane Hodder as a resident of Elm St. It also has the old lady from Poltergeist as the librarian that explains the entire back story.

My rating 8.5 out of 10

Review by Elvis Lawson

Here is the trailer.

Freakshow

This is yet another David Michael Latt/Asylum production. This is a sort of remake of Tod Browning’s “Freaks” (1932). This is very low budget and it really shows in the lack of sets. Everything takes place on the same small circus set but that doesn’t really affect the story much. A group of outlaws plan on ripping off of traveling carnival. Then they decide to take it further by having the girl of the group try to seduce the owner so he gives up his secret money. Everything is not as it seems with him though. They soon find out how tight of a family the circus family is. There is not a lot in the way of story development and it seems a bit drawn out sometimes. I feel a bit more could have been added as well as some better dialogue. The use of some real circus sideshow “freaks” adds a nice touch. I loved the soundtrack which was all very old sounding records that seemed like something you might have heard at a carnival in the 20’s or 30’s. It really added a nice touch and gave a pretty eerie feeling to the slower parts of the movie.

As I stated before, the movie does move a bit slow in parts and what you know is coming seems to take a while to get there. With this said however I was not fully prepared for what happened in the last act. I was quite pleased (and a bit disturbed) by the last 10 minutes and it made the entire movie worthwhile in my opinion.

My rating 6 out of 10 (B-movie rating)

Review by Elvis Lawson