If horror movies have taught us anything, it's that nothing terrifies quite like a great mask — a fact confirmed once again by the lunatic fiends of the Ethan Hawke-headlined home-invasion thriller The Purge, which came out this past weekend. But the art of a truly malevolent getup is hard to pull off. It comes down to simplicity of design, often mixed with a distinctly ragged, made-in-a-basement-by-filthy-hands appearance. These aren't superhero costumes; they're functional headgear for murderous boogeymen. Herewith, a selection of the genre's finest masks.
Jason (Friday the 13th): Jason Voorhees might have been slow to don his famous piece of sporting equipment (it took until Part 3 to make an appearance), but that didn't stop it from becoming the signature mask of all horror cinema, an article so basic and unforgettable that it remains, even thirty-two years later, the standard-bearer against which all other undead serial-killer costumes must be judged.
Michael Myers (Halloween): Nothing terrifies quite like the visage of William Shatner — at least, once it's been bleached, stretched out, and given some green hair, as was done to a Shatner Star Trek mask to create Michael Myers's face. As with Voorhees's hockey mask, Myers's look succeeds with a less-is-more approach, a vacancy that embodies the character's blank, irrational evil.
Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre): For psychos interested in letting victims know they mean business, it's best to follow the lead of Leatherface, whose mask informs fleeing men and women that, when he's done slaughtering them like cattle, he plans to literally wear their faces. It's a blunt but effective means of conveying intentions — as well as the underlying man-child craziness.
Lon Chaney (The Phantom of the Opera): Forget the versions made popular by the Broadway musical — the greatest Phantom of the Opera mask comes from the original 1925 Lon Chaney silent film, which has a translucency that gives the character a haunting vibe of otherworldly dread.
THE OBSCURE
Mrs. Tredoni (Alice, Sweet Alice): Like an adult Betty Boop come to demonic life, this mask from 1978's cult slasher mixes the translucency of Chaney's Phantomcostume with eerie baby-doll features and makeup. Top that with a yellow rain slicker, and you have one of the few female horror masks to make a lasting mark on the genre.
Scarecrow (Dark Night of the Scarecrow): Why bother with fanciful craftsmanship when a burlap bag will suffice? In Frank De Felitta's little-seen 1981 TV movie, a host of crimes are perpetrated by a pitchfork-wielding specter in a Scarecrow getup, his mask a model of straightforward elegance — grungy material, handmade quality, and large, dark holes for the nose and mouth to suggest the cavernous nothingness inside. Many have imitated since (most recently Batman Begins), but nothing bests this original.
Dr. Decker (Nightbreed): Director David Cronenberg donned this disguise for Clive Barker's 1990 flop, a look so strangely off-putting, it's as if its form and function are at odds with each other. If there are buttons in place of eyeholes, how does he see? And what's the point of a zipper at the mouth, since you'd assume he'd always want said hole open? And yet the impracticality is what makes it menacing.
THE NEW SCHOOL
Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs): A muzzle with teeth-like metal bars over its breathing hole, the mask worn by Hannibal Lecter as he's transported to new quarters in The Silence of the Lambs isn't his primary outfit. Yet by conveying the very nature of his malevolence — the man eats people, and thus must be kept from using his mouth — it remains one of the most memorable aspects of his persona (up there with the Chianti, at least).
Skin Mask Victim (The Devil's Rejects): Leave it to Rob Zombie to find a way to re-energize Leatherface's look. InThe Devil's Rejects, he makes the classic dead-skin mask feel, uh, vital again by having his film's villains affix it to a gagged woman against her will; she flees her motel-room confinement in a flailing frenzy, her hair protruding from the mask like a tangle of seaweed.
The Strangers (The Strangers): This trio of home-invasion pranksters covers all the bases: the economicalDark Night of the Scarecrow tattered-sackhead look for the man, the Alice, Sweet Alice-style china doll masks for the ladies. Together, they're the demented family-unit flipside to their prey (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman).
THE SOMEWHAT OVERRATED
Ghostface (Scream): Wes Craven's 1996 hit may have introduced self-consciousness to the horror mainstream, but there's no getting around the fact that the white-ghoul-in-black-hood look remains more memorable than actually scary. By the series' third, dreary installment, it was far less frightening than the sight of Jenny McCarthy acting.
source: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/horror-movie-masks
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