Fans of Mandy, The Terminator, and The Mask, will find a lot of fun elements within Armando Fonseca and Kapel Furman’s new film, Skull: The Mask. The film begins in the year 1944 wherein we are first introduced to the titular mask. Here we join a group Nazi’s in South America as they hunt for the Mask of Anhangá, a powerful supernatural artefact. They intend to use it in one of their dastardly military experiments, but it all goes wrong and they are all massacred. The story then jumps forwards in time to today, when the mask is rediscovered after its host’s resurrection goes on a cross-city rampage to take down the ancestor of the only person able to stop the mask.
If the above synopsis sounds a little confused, it is, because Skull: The Mask is confusing. Whether it’s a case of something getting lost in the translation of the subtitles, or just a incoherent script, but the result is a film that is rather tricky to follow. A prime example is that the artefact is just a mask, and yet suddenly there is a body inside it, and it’s going on a murder spree. Events and characters jump in and out, and at times it’s hard to follow and understand who our leads are. Are we meant to side with the mask, or the people it’s attacking?
As muddled as the script is, the film is at least visually dynamic. Most of the film is set in the real-world, which is shot in a fairly naturalistic way. But there are several instances of action taking place inside what we’re going to call the ‘mask realm’, that are stunning. Here we meet the Skull, all bathed in red and shot in a stop-motion fashion. They’re such psychedelic moments, ones that wouldn’t look remotely out of place in Mandy, that they pack a punch of a shock factor. Sadly, these moments are fleeting and serve to tease the audience with how mad the film could be. The only time the ‘real-world’ setting jumps to life is during a neon and blood-soaked nightclub.
One thing that Skull: The Mask most certainly isn’t lacking in, is gore. The Mask’s signature move is to remove the heart and viscera from its victims, so there are some pretty gnarly corpses to be seen. Our directors don’t hold back on the method’s of dispatch, and the blood-thirsty will have a ball watching the Mask rampage across the city. It really is a supernatural death-dealing Terminator, with laser focus, murdering indiscriminately anyone, or anything that gets in its way.
A gore-filled film that suffers with an incoherent plot, Skull: The Mask offers some nice visual flourishes, but not a great deal of substance.
Skull: The Mask was reviewed at Arrow Video FrightFest 2020. Skull will be available to watch on Shudder from 27th May 2021.
Skull: The Mask
Summary
A confusing plot weighs down some interesting visual techniques, and turns what could have been the Brazilian Mandy into a frustrating jumble.
