Maskhead (2009) by Scott Swan and Fred Vogel

Director: Scott Swan, Fred Vogel

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Exploitation

Plot:

Using a modeling group as a front, two women decide to embark on a side project making snuff films of their oblivious and sexed-up costars, unaware of their true intentions, feeding their victims to a hulking, masked maniac who derives gruesome pleasure in their dismemberment.

Review:

Overall, this is a wholly enjoyable and exciting effort with a lot to like about it. The main focus of this one is the creation of the kind of sleazy, adult-entertainment environment where it makes the exploitation of women feel quite natural and expected. The modeling gigs and the different interviews looking at the girls and guys auditioning to be in the adult entertainment industry offer the kind of grimy, hardcore sex environment that would make it perfectly believable that they would get away with their content as much as they do. With the blissfully unaware victims thinking they’re going to get a specific vibe offering the kind of depraved, raunchy attitude, which is matched nicely by the torture aesthetic. Seeing the killer arrive in their scene and begin butchering and torturing the clueless victim until they’re left broken, dismembered, and in pieces leaves quite an impression here, with it all turning the depraved directors on even further.

While that all works incredibly well, the repetitive nature and one-note presentation do run into issues. It uses the same template and format for everything, of someone running afoul of a member of their entourage and realizing too late that their words have come back to haunt them, as the encounter brings them into contact with their secret weapon of the hulking, bandaged killer, turning on them and mutilating their body in the snuff video shoot. That works initially with the whole thing being a great way to introduce the secret organization that’s in play and how that builds from the first encounters, but once it becomes apparent that’s how the whole thing operates, the one-note approach is a bit detrimental. The approach is more of a series of skits loosely tied together with the main characters and tends to aimlessly go through the scenes without much thought to a throughline here, which is what holds this down overall.

Overview: ***/5

A solid enough and somewhat enjoyable genre effort, this one has enough to like so long as the main issue in its one-note storyline isn’t that much of a detriment. Those with an appreciation for this approach or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.