For his girlfriend’s birthday, instead of buying her an engagement ring, Evan buys Jennifer an old decaying 19th Century plantation house out smack dab in the middle of nowhere.  The crumbling house comes with forty acres, stocked full of antiques, and its own little family cemetery that belonged to the previous owners.  That the house hadn’t been occupied in about fifty years or so, and that it was all available for a bargain basement price, should have clued Evan to the fact that this place had a right frightening, and bloody, history.

They discover that before long, though, don’t worry.  Evan removes a staff from the cemetery that was sticking up out of the ground.  Actually, it was a grave, and it was a ceremonial voodoo staff that was impaled into the crazed, hideously deformed, Leonard, a man saved from death by his French voodoo mama, and it was the only thing keeping the crazed killer dead and buried.  With the staff gone, he rises from his resting place, killing and ripping peoples’ faces off and wears them as a mask.  Thus, the title of the movie.

You’re probably thinking, “been there, done that”, well let me tell you…you’re right, but don’t completely dismiss Mask Maker.  This is a slasher movie that you’ve seen, probably, a thousand times or more.  Out of all those other movies that come to mind watching this one, such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, Scream, and especially The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mask Maker isn’t as good as some of those movies (or some of their sequels), but it is a lot better than some of them.  This was actually an enjoyable and diverting little cut’em up, which was a surprise considering it has the uninspired tagline of “Meet your maker”.

Terry Kiser, forever to be remembered as Bernie of Weekend at Bernie’s fame, plays an unstable local who helped dispose of Leonard all those years ago, and his performance is wonderfully unhinged and over the top.  Genre vet and fan favorite Michael Berryman displays some nice acting chops as another local who knows the town’s, and Leonard’s, dark past.  The principal cast of college kids gathering at a farmhouse for the weekend to be killed off is actually pretty good, too.  These actors can actually act.

Mask Maker doesn’t raise the bar or forge into new ground, but I think it does set a standard for low budget filmmaking, I think we horror fans can use it to issue a challenge to other filmmakers.  This is professional filmmaking, this is a good work, a quality production on a small budget.  Even the music rocks.  I think a lot of independent filmmakers can look to Mask Maker as an example of what can be accomplished.  It’s a good time.

4 out of 5
John Jason