Horror Mockumentaries

Creep

Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon

When I was researching mockumentaries recently, I came across a surprising amount of horror mockumentaries. Found footage is typically the route most of these films take, as many “real-life” horror films do not end with the camera person making it out alive. Blair Witch Project really sparked this sub genre of the sub genre, in its shaky, anxiety-inducing manner that mostly disappointed this critic. Then there’s the Paranormal Activity series, with its more practical use of home videos and rigged cameras, all of which found unique ways to shake up the found footage genre. Some of my favorite found footage films come from the V/H/S series, where tapes with frightening footage are always discovered by someone else, who also miraculously had a camera on them. Originally I planned to watch Peter Greenaway’s oft-recommended sci-fi mockumentary The Falls as one of my films tonight but it’s a whopping four hours long so I will be saving that for another time… Tonight’s films went above and beyond the format of this genre, and travelled down new avenues of terror—where your limits are tested and the concept of reality gets a little fuzzy. Creep was an unsuspecting thriller that really kept me guessing. Creep follows a cameraman named Aaron who’s been hired to film a day in the life of Josef (Mark Duplass). Josef claims that he is dying, and wishes to capture his essence on film for the child his wife is pregnant with to see. Throughout the day, Josef becomes increasingly more strange, and more unpredictable. The entire nature of this film is unpredictable. I spent the first half of this movie cringing, mostly, so I thought I was in for a goofy slasher where the jokes didn’t really land. The cringe, as it would turn out, ultimately paid off because it disarmed me and left me completely unprepared for what came next. If I gave anything else about this movie away I’d ruin all of the fun, but it really did exceed my expectations. It was full of twists and turns and Mark Duplass was excellent, in a complete 180* from his character in Safety Not Guaranteed. While some of the jokes didn’t really hit the way they thought they did, the funniest part of this movie is the fact that I feel like we all know weird dudes like one in Creep. Josef, who keeps doing aggressive and sus shit and then says “I have a weird sense of humor, man”, who has daddy issues and kinda odd quirks but is also kinda nice? Yeah that guy definitely goes to your gym, or works in your office, or tried to hit you up on Tinder. What Creep lacked in humor it made up for in its tense, twisted story, and I loved to be pleasantly surprised. Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon I have zero notes for, truly. It really was the night of unexpected chills and Behind the Mask brought chills, thrills, and a kind of humor that went beyond self-aware, into self-analyzing and self-editorializing. In a post-Voorhees, Myers, and Krueger world, Leslie Vernon is a man with a passion and dedication for killing, not out of impulse or habit but out of a desire to be one of the greats. He’s watched the experts and has meticulously crafted a scheme to kill a group of high schoolers, one of which he believes to be his “survivor girl”: the term for the girl who makes it out alive (though the correct term is actually final girl). Vernon has asked a group of documentary film students to catalogue his career and life-making killing spree—offering an inside look into the mind and the process of a serial killer. What’s great, and terrifying, about this movie is that Leslie is totally a normie. He’s charming, intelligent, lowkey hot… and far more socially-competent than Josef from Creep. Paying homage to the killers and the films that came before Leslie added to the lore of this movie’s villain, and was a really fun idea to play with. After years of hearing about this movie and seeing it on various lists, I had made no assumptions about it, but when I pressed play and saw “and Robert Englund” on the credits, I was sold. The constant referencing and picking apart of the horror genre was hilarious, but yet very well-studied. While movies like Scream are known for their incessant referencing, Leslie Vernon talking about his methods leaned into this concept even further and felt uncanny, as each mention of phallic symbolism and its importance in horror films sent me right back to my feminist film theory classes. I liked that Vernon was an intellectual, not in the Hannibal Lecter way but in the douchey film bro way. And I say “like” in a douchey film bro way, not in a “I’m actually into murderers” way. This is once again, another film that I cannot reveal anymore about, but if you’re a horror fan than Behind the Mask was made for you, and similarly to Creep, I’ll warn you not to let your guard down. [But with Behind the Mask, make sure you stick around for the credits!!] This marks the end of my month of spooky double features, but fear not, dear readers, there will be more scary movies in the future because a horror whore like myself simply cannot resist. Happy Halloween and creep it real, my friends. 🎃🎃🎃