Masks

I think I would need two reviews. One of them honest and positive, where I would speak about Masks as one of the most interesting horror movies of the year, and the other would be negative in order to discourage about 95% of random users, because few people will be able to appreciate this; Masks is very far from the idea of an average modern genre movie that most viewers expect. But it’s not flawless by any means, if we look at it from a classic point of view, we will see overacting in pretty much all the actors, a script full of logical gaffes (the situation with the mobile phone is specially funny), breakneck editing in the faster scenes… In short, if you want perfect filmmaking in terms of “craft”, better look elsewhere. But none of this changes the fact that, as far as I’m concerned, Masks is good horror, though made under rather semi-amateur conditions, but by a competent and ambitious creator who avoids the beaten path; a creator who refuses to do what others have done a thousand times before. So we have a fairly ambitious story of art-horror drama mixed with the trashiness of old Euro-horror (Italy, Western Germany). The music is perfect – the recurring simple motif is brilliant – the gore is perfect, the atmosphere and the visuals are great (at times it feels like old Giallo, or even Argento’s Suspiria). For me, a very pleasant surprise, but I would recommend it only to a very narrow group of viewers (fans of 1970s Euro-horror). Here I can understand rubbish and five stars. For me, 8/10. (03.11.2012)