BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON (2006) - Oct. 26, 2008
About a camera crew who follow around an aspiring horror movie villain (in this movie's universe, characters like Freddy and Jason are real people), this was a clever satire on horror movies, specifically slasher movies. The film does a really good job of skewering various horror movie cliches, while never becoming the overt comedy you suspect it might. The film does falter, however, in the third act, when it loses the documentary format altogether and becomes an all-out slasher movie. At this point the low budget, previously not a hindrance, becomes readily apparent, as does the director's talent (or lack thereof). While the documentary stuff looks good and is fairly well directed, the slasher movie stuff (in which they were obviously going for a much more overtly cinematic vibe) looks fake -- it kind of reminded me of the artificial cheesiness of Vince's films in Entourage; it's like they were trying to make it look like a real movie but couldn't quite pull it off. It's too bad -- if the whole movie had been as good as the first half, this easily would have been an instant classic. **1/2
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