Deconstruction of masks in slasher films

Masks in Horror-Slasher films

For our film opening we wanted to include a mask for the killer to hide his identity to further exaggerate the mystery as the narrative of the film follows to unravel who the killer is. It also links in with the title of our film which is faceless, which follows the idea of having a killer who's face is hidden and unknown. In order to get the right mask I did research into typical slasher masks to come up with our own ideas for one.

Scream:

I began my research looking into iconic masks in slasher movies and thought Scream's infamous ghost mask was a good place to start. Scream is part of the horror genre with a  sub genre of slasher and mystery. This mask did well at hiding the killer's face with the hidden identity and further enhancing the mystery of who the killer is, with the added effect of the cloak and costume. The colours of the mask are a simple black and white, giving the impression of a ghost. The idea of the ghost theme within the killer's costume in Scream, creates a fear reaction from the characters as well as the audience as ghosts are a feared supernatural being, despite it not being part of the supernatural genre.  This de-humanizes the killer and makes them seem more like a monster than a person, this creates a bigger shock when the killer is revealed towards the end of the movie as the audience has no longer associated them with a person. If we wanted to recreate this look it would be hard to mould the mask face into this exact shape, however I thought it was unique in using a 'supernatural being' (a ghost) for the mask to stimulate fear from the killer's victims.

The Purge:

In the 2013 film; The purge which is a thriller-horror. The killers used simple 'face' masks to hide their identity. The use of having a face that looks human symbolizing the idea that anyone could be under there, and is meant to unsettle the audience as the face has exaggerated features with intense creepy grins. This demonizes the killer as it portrays them as wicked and threatening. This would be an easy mask to recreate for our own film opening as there are many mask templates online that we can buy and paint over to create our own unique mask from the inspiration of this.

Texas Chain Saw Massacre
 

In the Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1972), the killer wears a leather mask which has been stitched together. Although it doesn't look as if it has been stitched together 'professionally' this creates more of a reaction as it has been roughly put together to create a more goory effect as we fear the character more who's mask looks disturbing. We thought this might be a good mask to get inspiration from as it wouldn't take much skill in order to put it together as all we would need to do is stitch up two parts of the material and messily cut out eye holes. We were thinking instead of using leather to use a potato sack to recreate the rough effect of it.

Batman Begins:

After my research into Texas Chain Saw Massacre with the idea of using a potatoe sack to create a rough, and clumsily put together mask to create a disturbing effect I looked into movies where this mask idea has been used. In Batman Begins (2005) one of the villains wears a mask created through using a sack. It has been cut in odd places and then stitched roughly together with no order to it. The mouth has been sown shut. After this research as a group we decided to go with the idea of using a sack to create the mask as it is cheap and still effective in hiding the killer's identity as well as fearful.