Maskhead (2009)

Cast: Douglas Bell, Jerami Cruise and Lacey Fleming

Writer: Scott Swan

Directors: Scott Swan, Fred Vogel

I know with back to back TTP posts, it may seem like I'm really pushing them. But I tend to do back to back posts if I watch the films one after another whereas they're still fresh in my mind. Well here's another from Toe Tag Pictures and this one came out before "Sella Turcica" obviously. When I saw the trailer for this one years ago I thought "It kind of looks like August Underground, except filmed more cinematic". I'm not trying to under mind the people at TTP, But alot of what they put out, with the exception of "The Redsin Tower" and "Sella Turcica" have  similarities. Though "Maskhead" is much different from the "August Underground" series and "Murder Collection V.1". Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

The film is about a lesbian couple whom are hiring male and female porn actresses to act in their film, which is more on the fetish side. What these unsuspecting actors and actresses don't know is that they are targeted for the main actor of the film, a big mean mother named "Maskhead" who tortures and kills his victims in a fetish snuff manor. Which totally thwarts my opinion on this film being anything like "August Underground", it has it's similarity do to the snuff aspect but the characters here aren't just blatant psychopaths, this is their business and well business is good.

 The plot is what it is, I can't say its bad but I can't say it's good. This is the kind of idea that relies more on the execution and the writing rather than the idea of the plot. Anyone can hear the words fetish and gore and think something to be sick and either be intrigued by it or stay away from it. The execution of the film was shot out of chronology and though it pieces in at the end and you get what's going on, it may lose some or have many wondering what the hell is going on as it can feel like a badly edited project. So it's something you have to sit there and watch or else you may get lost.

The characters were kind of dull, the acting I felt added to the dullness of the characters and to be honest it was mostly the female characters of the film whose roles were a little over acted. I'm not to sure if it were to follow the small comical aspect of the film, like their commercials which were pretty funny and the "Maskhead" movie which is randomly shown which has a cool theme song. But I felt they over acted and tried too hard to be sexy and mysterious and just looked callow and silly. Not trying to say they're bad actresses, or their characters suck, just that it seems a little overdone at some points and it certainly didn't ruin the film. The Cowboy was funny and I think "Maskhead" himself looked pretty awesome.

The body count is so so,you don't get anything too memorable in my opinion until the final scene, which I thought was pretty cool. Again lack of budget left them constraint to possibly having more death and such, but the scenes are are stricken with are still rather tasty and realistic looking for a film of this budget. Though I felt the "August Underground" series had much more death to offer on a lower budget, which may be the case, this is a bigger production and many have to consider location values and so on. The gore you see is on point just don't expect a blood bath.


Overall, I enjoyed it and maybe my honesty sounds like I'm contradicting everything bad about the film, but certain films are for certain people and this one is in the bag for me. It's something I would surely recommend to those with similar tastes to mine cause I'm sure they'd get some joy from the shock value in this film. Although, it does give the viewer a sense of chaos while watching the film, but some viewers would probably get annoyed by it and just shut it off. I'm not trying to bash the folks at TTP whereas I am a fan and I feel they have tremendous potential, it's just this one left me a little high and dry and I kind of expected more. It's not the worst film ever cause it is dark and a bit on the sicko side, which I like, but out of the love of the macabre and cheesy (no disrespect intended) I can still manage to give it four Maskheads out of five.

4/5