The Killer's Mask

We take our our we take this one holiday very seriously. Anyway, it's monster science all month, that's right. And so today, Robert, he wanted to talk about horror movies and masks. Yeah, I kind of. I just kept thinking about this recently, and I don't think there was one particular movie, uh that that that inspired it, because obviously I've been watching

slasher movies for a large proportion of my life. I imagine you have as well, and I and I don't imagine we have to explain this particular trope to anyone out there. You don't have to have seen a single slasher film to know it by heart. A mask murderer is on the prow and perhaps by the end of the film, you'll either discover the killer's identity or the nature of the disfiguration that forces them to wear that mask. Yeah, you discover it through this, this unmasking that tends to

happen at the end of the movie. And I think it's interesting that the unmasking or face reveal trope happens in horror movies. Now, okay, I'll frame it in two ways. One way is that it happens in horror movies that are also mysteries. This makes total sense to me. Imagine a slasher movie like the scream movies, where it turns out at the end of every movie that the killer is a character known to you and you've discovered Ah, it was this person all along, and the mask revealed

the face you know, the maskets pulled off. The face revealed tells you who it was. It conveys information. Yeah, this is the Scooby Doo trope exactly. It was old man grizzle Bums all along. But then there are tons of movies with masked killers that have unmasking moments, but the killer's mask is removed and it is not it's not a mystery, it's not a character like there's Halloween

and the Friday the Thirteen sequels. In movies like this, you already know who the killer is, or the killer is not a previously known character, and in these cases, I always wonder what purpose does the face reveal serve? It still tends to happen at the climax of the movie as if like this is all what it's all been leading up to. There's the face, but it's not like it reveals anything about who it was. It's just like, well,

that's what his face looks like. Yeah, I mean, in one level, is just kind of like the Fangoria magazine like gore ahound Ethos, right, you know, it's like you just you're building up to that point where you're seeing all this grizzly stuff, but you want reach like peak uh pete grotesque, and that's where it's going to occur

when that mask is pulled off, I guess. So. So it's this is of course all just a very well worn trope, but a trope that we keep utilizing in our our horror fiction because, let's face it, it works, it's fun, and I realized that it can it can be a little bit problematic when we start to dissect our love for pretend murder films, which essentially that's what

we're talking about, pretend murder movies. And I just want to warn people at the top of this episode that while we often talk about horror movies, monsters, ghosts, and so forth, we don't usually talk about real world serial killers and stuff, which can, arguably, at least to me, be a more disturbing subject matter. And so as a point of illustration of our topic today, we will be discussing a few real murderers from history. Just a fair warning if that sort of thing is likely to bother you.

You know, I think about the difference between loving fictional horror and loving, say, true cry. I am like, this is a big difference for me. I love monsters and murder, mystery horror and all that, but I do not really enjoy true crime at all, and I often find it unpleasant. I mean, I can think of a few counter examples, like I like the movie Zodiac, and I love the Charles Manson season of the podcast. You must remember this. Have you ever listened to that? Um? I have? I

think I've listened to a few episodes. Yes, it's just really good, but I have. I have not listened to the Charles Manson episodes. Well, if you haven't checked it out that here's a podcast recommendation you must remember. This with Karina Longworth is about Hollywood history and I really enjoy it. But in general, I really prefer my exposure to violence and murder to be fictional. And of course I know people who are exactly the other way around, right.

I know you probably do too, Robert, Like, they can't stomach even the mildest of monster movies, but they gobble up nonfiction crime books and podcasts about the most horrible kinds of real life murder and mayhem, which to me is more likely to make me feel just kind of depressed. Yeah, I don't know. I do know individuals who fall into

either CATA. I know individuals who like both. I mean, there are there are people who just really love both horror and true crime and we'll and we'll we'll take it, you know, all in however they can, they can get it. Um. You know. For my own part, I'm not as much into true crime right now, but I certainly went through a period of time in college in particular, where I was just like consuming everything I could get at the time, and there weren't as many options, especially online. We didn't

have true crime podcasts that back then. But you know, I was watching, uh, you know, any kind of forensic documentary I could get my hands on. I was, I was visiting some of the the early true crime websites and and and reading the you know some of those uh,

those those big thick detective manuals about homicide investigation. Now, one thing that we can come back to in a minute is, I bet when you were going through this true crime phase, you may have been surprised to not encounter much use of the mask in in real life

murder exactly. And that's that's really the the question that that kind of led to this episode was just the question and the realization that when you look at you look at all of these masked psychopathic individuals in our fiction, and then you you look to real life, um, serial murders and true crime, and you really don't see that many masks. You do see a few notable, notable exceptions, which we will discuss here, but for the most part, the killer's mask seems to be an obsession of fiction

that is not as present in real life crime. And we will certainly explore some potential reasons for that later on in the episode. Now, I do want to mention one thing here. We we've we've been talking about true crime and uh in horror fiction. Uh kind of as if they are just too completely separate kingdoms. Of course, these kingdoms border each other and actually overlap. Uh It it becomes impossible to to really uh keep one away

from the other. You have horror movies that are very much inspired by real life murders, real life crime, and then, unfortunately, we also have the reverse, which will discuss just briefly as well, where you have real life crime that is inspired by horror fiction. Now, if we stick to fictional horror for a bit, you can think of some obvious reasons that it might make sense for a villain to wear a mask. Right, Yeah, let's roll through some of the just obvious reasons. First of all, this is the

Scooby Doo factor. Creates a sense of mystery who or what is underneath that mask. I gotta know, it makes a lot more sense for this to be the case in movies where there is actually a known character whose

identity is being concealed. When I was in in high school, a friend of mine collected these larger scale g I. Joe figures, not the like old school ones, but kind of like a you know, a new school version that was out, and he had one of Destro uh, and apparently the mask would come him off, but he refused to take the doll out of the box, which always

just I was like, how can you do that? Don't You've got to know, right, You've got to know what Destro's face looks like underneath that mask on this doll. And I never found out, so uh, And to my knowledge, he never opened the box. But there's there's this this even when we know that it's not vital to like the true identity of the character, there is something about the identity of the character wrapped up in whatever is being hidden from us. What do you think you're gonna

learn by seeing his face? I don't know. It's kind of it's it's almost something that's not put into words. I mean, it might be something again to this, like we are so dependent upon uh, the human face to understand intention and motivation. I mean, the face is a communications array, and if that and if the other individual's face is hidden from us, true communication cannot take place.

So I feel like part of the unmasking psychology is faced in that, like, like we're having a one sided facial conversation here, and you must remove that mask for this, for this understanding to be true. Well, in general, to be uncovered is to be vulnerable, and to be covered is to be guarded. Any way, right now, another advantage to having a mask killer in your fiction is, of course it sets up that potential big reveal we've been talking about, right, what's the identity of the killer, what's

the what's the monster's face? Look like? You're gonna build anticipation, especially if that is the trump, especially if that is what is expected. You go into that Friday thirteenth movie knowing that there's going to be a moment where you

get to see Jason Vorhees's face. There are also some very practical filmmaking concerns you can take into account here, right, oh yeah, because it's generally cheaper to just put a mask on your character than to do all of that crazy makeup special effects, you know, especially if you're using a generic mask like a hockey mask or a sack or a gas mask or some of Yeah, just something you find and uh and you might say, well, we'll heck, there's some really impressive like Tom Savini u um uh

makeup effects that are utilized to create Jason in many of those films right when them unmasking does occur. But if you think, if you think of it this way, it's like that's a that's a costly um makeup effect to roll out, and you can't just you know, film put it on once. If you're filming it multiple times, you're gonna have to put it on multiple times. It's gonna cost time and money. But if you have him just wear a hockey mask for most of the time,

then that just makes filming easier. And if you can't afford that fancy makeup at all to begin with, then there you go. That's that's the easiest step to take. Putting a mask on, I would say, also requires less of your actor, That's right. You don't have to really worry as much about your your the acting abilities of the actor, or you don't have to depend on them

having a particular uh, you know, unique face. So I'm thinking, on one hand, you don't have to have Christopher Lee, who who as you know, an accomplished horror actor, and you don't also don't have to worry about do I have a like a Robert Zadar, somebody who maybe you know, arguably is was not as great an actor as Christopher Lee, but definitely had a very interesting face. You don't have to have either of those. If you just have a

mask you can throw over the individual. No, you can basically just cast your stunt coordinator exactly, which I believe is generally what you see in some of these cases. You just have the stunt player or just somebody with a large frame perhaps playing the character. And then hey, you can use as many actors as you actually need. You can recast it every movie. You don't have to worry about getting into into, you know, deep contract negotiations

with your with your slasher character. It's also great branding, great for Halloween costumes. Oh I see, so that's the I mean, that's the reason that Jason Vorhees so easily pops up on every street during Halloween, or certainly at every haunted attraction, um, you know, any haunted else, commercial haunted house you might go to, they will inevitably be somebody in a hockey mask. And then finally, it leaves

lots of room for the creepy and the uncanny. And this I think gets into the deeper history of of the the use of masks in humans civilization, in various cultures. Uh, the idea that the mask is an ancient, uh, performative tool that allows an individual to become something else. Yeah, and we see this in everything from drama to religious ceremonies. Um So what, Robert, what are some of your favorite

horror movie masks? Well, I have to say I've always been very partial to leather Face from the Texas Chainsaw Masker, especially for the first film. But but I I say, I love one and two and I and I and I really like I like three and four as well. And four. Yeah, I mean you got u you know Matthew McConaughey. I mean four is a bit wackadoodle, but you still have McConaughey in there doing his thing. I have what's the one with the aliens? Um? I don't

know about. There's illuminato in the fourth one. Maybe that's what I'm thinking about. Yeah, I don't think we've been blessed with an alien um uh plot in Texas Chancel Mask yet. Part three, though, had a Vigo Morrison in it, Vigo Mortenson. Yeah, yeah, so that's that was worthwhile. Three was pretty good. Yeah, But but you're into the mask, right, Yeah. The mask is the main factor here that we're talking

about here today. You know, he had this mask that was stitched together from from pieces of leather faces victims or perhaps the bodies that the leather the lead the chainsaw family is stealing out of the cemeteries. Um. And in that first film especially, you never see what is underneath it. You might wonder about it, but it's there's no reveal or anything. Eventually, Hollywood couldn't resist and they depicted leather Face unmasked in two thousand three. That's in

the remake. Yeah, and to Michael Bay remake. Yeah, And that was fun enough, you know, but it wasn't for me. It wasn't a says, I think it's the original film by by any means. I always like the implication that that it didn't matter, like you didn't there wasn't it wasn't set up for an unmasking, like maybe there wasn't even an identity under there. You know. It's like his identity was the mask made out of his crimes. Now, another favorite of mine Uh, and I understand this is

one of your favorites as well. Dr Philip K. Decker's Button Mask and Clive Barker's Night Breathe. Oh, this one is so good. This is probably this might be my favorite horror movie killer mask. Uh. So it is worn by David Cronenberg, or at least David Cronenberg plays the character that's wearing it. I don't know if that's actually him and all the scenes, because it seems like this is another case of like Cronenberg is great, but we really can't have him on set all the time or

like doing all these stunts. So let's just have the stunt guy play him, and then whenever he pulls it off, we'll get we'll get Dave on on set. If he said, if you haven't seen it, it's basically a sock over the head with buttons for eyes and a zipper mouth, but impeccably designed, like it's a highly stylized mask that actually makes no sense. Then I didn't even really think about this till yesterday. How did he see out of it?

It's almost like he didn't see like when he became the killer, he was like using some sort of like uh, you know, barkery six cents, you know, like he saw through murder or something. It's a very creepy mask, especially knowing that the person under it is supposed to be a soft spoken, floppy hair David Cronenberg, just imagining how that mask over the top of his head is pressing his hair down is one of one of the great sources of horror in that movie. Uh. Cronenberg, of course,

is usually known as a horror director. This movie makes me think he should take more acting roles. He is so unsettling in it. He was he was so good. Another one of my favorite horror movie masks is not worn by like a movie kill or but in the nineteen seventy three The Wickerman, which is one of my favorite horror movies, it's not explicitly a single killer with a mask, but the masks that the villagers wear for the celebration of their pagan religion are just awesome. There's

like rabbits and fish and bear masks. Uh, It's it's all there. And I keep thinking, one of these days, I'm gonna have a really good Wickerman party on May Day or something. Well. That really sets expectations very high for whatever you're gonna burn in your backyard. But the but the masks are great here because they highlight the continuity between horror movie masks and the traditional use of

masks in religious ceremonies. They just make that connection explicit. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's an explicit treatment of like, you know, pagan pagan practices and pagan belief systems in that movie. Yeah, excellent film. And again you're talking about the original, not the the remake, not not the one with the not the bees, though that one's worth watching for different reasons. Now, there are a lot of films where the masks, uh that the slasher wears are unimpressive or they're trying a

bit too hard. Um. And in some of these cases I haven't. I have admittedly not given the film a proper shake. Like I know there was that the Groundhog Day slasher movie that came out in the last year. Well, I don't know what you're talking about. Um, I can't remember the name of the film off hand. But the character wears like a baby mask. So it's like this kind of goofy looking baby mask, but then it's creepy

because he's wearing the baby mask. Oh that reminds me of one of the creepiest masks in movies, which is not a horror movie, but in Terry Gilliam's Brazil the baby mask that terror carrogator. Yeah. Yeah, well I think it's Michael Palin, Michael Palin's character in that. But yeah, he is. He is acting as an interrogator and torturing our hero. Uh so, I guess it is kind of a horror ish scene and that that is a terrible mask, right, terrifying indeed. But you know, so sometimes mask I feel

like they're trying a little bit too hard. I was. I was never a big fan of the mask that are are the mask or masks that are utilizing the Saw films, because he seems to have just a lot of gimmicks. He has too many gimmicks, you know. He has the traps, he has like a theatrical Robiwars. There's a pig mask. There's also the creepy puppet, a lot of stuff. I'm just biased against the Saw movies in general,

Like I don't get down with the whole torture thing. Yeah. Well, I will say though that again, I've only seen like the first one, and I did read that They later established that there's some sort of connection between the pig masks and the Chinese zodiac. So so kudos for like somehow working that in. I was not aware of that.

Angle doesn't really tempt me to watch the films though, well you know they're there are a number of slasher films where they did just like pick out a mask, an existing mask, like it's the like it's a like a coal miner's mask, right, or it's a gas mask or something something that that that already exists. Let's claim it and make it part of our slasher movie motif. Right. So you've got Jason in the Thirteenth Movies just wears a hockey mask. Uh, the in My Bloody Valentine, it's

just sort of like a miner's gas mask. That's a that's a classic of the kind of as an early slasher film. And then of course just like grabbing a mask off the racks of the Halloween Store. Yeah, the Screen movies classic example of that, the ghost face mask. I do have this. I have wondered about this, and I looked around. I couldn't find an example of anybody doing this. But why do we not have any horror movies where the slasher wears a Greek tragedy mask, because

so many of these are just mega creepy looking. If I recall correctly, there is a scene in Scream Too that uses the Greek tragic chorus masks. But I think maybe it's that the killer is just in the normal ghost face mask from the screen movies and is blending in among a crowd of Greek masks. They're like trying to do a murder during a play rehearsal. It's not a very smart strategy. Well, as far as I know there, I think there's a there's a huge area of opportunity here,

you know, not so much for ghost face killer. I guess this would be like Greek face killer. Alright, Well, we're gonna take a break and when we come back, we will we'll get in more to the real life killers and why we don't really see that many masks utilized in their crimes. Thank alright, we're back. All right. So we've been discussing how masks are extremely common in horror movies horror stories about fictional killers, but this doesn't

appear to reflect reality so much. Yeah, when you start looking around for examples of of especially serial murderers who used a mask during the commission of their crimes. You do not find that many cases. And we looked around, um and I we even employed um the the true crime expertise of our of our colleague, Scott Benjamin on this as well. Scott knows what's up. Yeah, and uh and he helped us with a few of these examples that will will mention here. But but but let's lay

some ground rules here. So we're gonna be looking for actual masks serial killers or spree killers. Uh. And and we're discounting any kind of mass that was used purely as a disguise, like a fake beard, false hair, etcetera. Um. And also we have we're gonna require that the mask be used during the commission of the crime itself, because

that's what we see in these slasher movies. Right. It's not that Jason goes home afterwards and where's the hockey mask and his den It's not that, uh, you know, it's not that he's wearing the hockey mask to blend in during a hockey game. He is using it, uh for some varied effect during the crime itself. The most notable example, and imagine this is the one that a

lot of you are thinking of is the Zodiac Killer. Now, this was not the case during all of the Zodiac Killers crimes, right, just some of them, right uh now, to remind everybody who we're talking about, this was the Northern California serial killer who was at if during the

sixties and seventies. Identity as of this recording still unknown, but specifically the September nineteen sixty nine attack at Lake Barry Essa, he wore a black executioner type hood with clip on sunglasses over the eyeholes and a Zodiac symbol branded bib uh. Kind of an awkward sounding mask really, and and if you you look on mine you can

see illustrations of this. It does look a little bit goofy, a little bit awkward, but also frightening, and that seems to have probably been the the effect, one of the effects that he was going after. It seems like he might have been trying this out, experimenting with it as a means of intimidating targets during daytime attacks, but other attacks didn't did not involve the mask. And then there's the less famous but still very well known Phantom Killer

six string of killings and tech arcana. This was a lover's lane attack or wore a white mask with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth. And this was actually the basis for the horror film The Town That Dreaded Sundown. I think very loosely based. Yes, But but but that just description may summon, you know, the memories of that VHS tape cover for that VHS tape which

had that that killer on the front. Well, when I think about movies with a white sack over the head, I obviously go to Friday the Thirteenth, Part two, before Jason took on the hockey mask. That's right, That's something that it's easy to forget if you're if you're not like a hardcore Friday of their Teeth fan, Right, is that he didn't get the hockey mask till which movie, the third one? The third one? So he takes it from a character character has just got a hockey mask.

Oh wow, if he'd been a baseball umpire, we'd have a totally different franchise on our hands, wouldn't we That would be quite odd. Now we've already mentioned Texas Chainsaw Masker, and of course, uh the real life case that partially inspired this movie. As well as is the book The Silence of the Lambs, the character of Buffalo Bill and that, but and also Alfred Hitchcox psycho the character Norman Bates.

The the real life case that had some degree of inspiration and all of these was that of ed Geen, who lived nineteen o six through four, who committed at least two murders and mutilated the bodies of corpses that he pilfered from graveyards and two masks, uh were found in his possession that were made from the skin of two female heads, and these were found in his house by police. But there's no indication at least so far as I've seen, that he ever wore these in the

commission of his crimes. Wow, I mean at least during the murders. I mean, obviously a lot of what this guy was doing it can be considered a crime right now.

In another case that was recommended to us by Scott Benjamin, who again is well versed in all of this, uh, he points out that during the late nineties early two thousands, there was a German serial killer man by the name of Martin Ney, who wore a black mask and black clothing and of in the commission of his crimes, and it sounds like it was perhaps a disguise, perhaps camouflage, because he committed his crimes at night, but also as

a means of intimidating his young victims. So in the real cases of mask wearing we've seen here with like the Zodiac and with Martine, it sounds like an important factor is the idea that the mask would make the victim more afraid because, like the the killer is playing some kind of power game. Right, especially important or possibly important in that Zodiac attack, because again, daylight attack against more than one victim um a psychological advantage. Now, beyond

these cases we've discussed here, you really don't find a lot. Now, I know some of you will find some tidbit you want to send in it. Certainly, feel free to send that into us if there's a case that, uh, that you think should be added to this, uh, this this pile. But but still for the most part, there are very few masks that are utilized. You look at some of

these other cases. For instance, John Wayne Gaycy famously dressed as a clown at fundraising events, parades, and children's parties, but he didn't wear the get up as part of his crimes, and even if he had wouldn't have been a mask. Now there's also the case of mass shooter James Egan Holmes, who wore a gas mask during the two thousand twelve Aurora shootings, But in this case, he was attempting to use tear gas canisters during his attack as well, So there seems to be a you know,

particular reason in that case. And beyond this, you'll find a few rare cases here and there of an individual uh murder taking place committed by someone in say Halloween mask, but certainly the majority of cereal and mass homicides UH seem to be unmasked acts. This incongruity between fictional killers and real killers makes me think that, uh, that the mask must be playing some important psychological role in the in what horror fiction does. Because masks are not that common.

It can't just be that this is in hired by the way the real events went down, right, And likewise, we're not we're not pointing this out to say, oh, look, horror movies are getting it wrong, man, you know, Like, no, we're not saying that horror movies should be more like real crimes. In fact, I do not really want them to be like real crimes, right. I agree with with

that sentiment very much so. But so at this point, let's stop and just consider the reasons based on these accounts, one might actually wear a mask during a murder um and we can consider where these examples line up, so to hide one's identity, to intimidate, to augment one's identity, or to become someone else protective purposes like the gas mask or one that doesn't really come up in any of these cases, but one could conceivably wear it, wear

a mask just because it's cold outside, like I'm thinking a ski mask or something. And with the with the zodiac example, we seem to see an attempt at the first three, right, but identity protection might well fall behind augmentation again. Think of the zodiac some but also just

that intimidation factor again. Broad daylight attack on two individuals and it's thought that he he may have you know, he may have wished to benefit from some sort of a shock uh feature in his attack, but he was also assuming in identity, right, I means yeah, because he had the zodiac symbol, and this seems to fall in line with the identity that he projected in his letters to the media. Now let's stopped to think though about the various reasons not to wear a mask during your crimes.

Reasons that I can think, uh, you know, must have presented themselves to these individuals who attempted to use mass in their in their crimes. First of all, it's highly conspicuous if you're standing around a park, uh, dressed in a black hood with a with a crazy symbol on your chest. Uh, people are gonna probably take notice. Also, it's it's gonna be it's liable to limit your senses, especially your vision. You're gonna you're gonna have a hard

time seeing what you're doing. It's also liable to be a bit uncomfortable, and it's a calling card which might be desirable uh to you. But also they can certainly play against you. For instance, UH looked at a rare case of an individual. This is a spree killer named Daniel Gonzalez from two thousand four who committed at least one murder while wearing a hockey mask inspired by Jason Vorhees. But the mask in this case ended up with the victims DNA on it and was used in his conviction.

I think an important point and to think keep in mind and all of this too, though, is when you look at the modus operandi of so many serial and mask killers. Serial killers especially often work by surprise and subterfuge. In either case, it often makes far more sense not to look like a monster or a weirdo, but rather to look exactly like yourself or or like a normal human at least even if you disguise yourself slightly in

some fashion. Yeah, they're probably just trying to look like anybody. Yeah. Ultimately, wearing a mask is not a careful thing to do. And being careful that's that's ah, that's part in martial to organize serial killers, especially people like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, rather than of course a disorganized serial killers that are going to be more uh you know, impulse based. So what is this masking incongruity between real serial killers in the killers of horror fiction? Tell us, Well, I

think we're onto something. Uh. First of all, we just mass traditions, Like we've long used mass to tell stories. So if we tell stories about fantastic killers, uh, in our horror movies, we're gonna use masks again. Like it's just two it's just it's just such a part, a rich part of our history. But I think ultimately has far It has far less to do with with with actual serial killers and what they're doing, and far more to do with how we're processing the idea that the

human beings are capable of these crimes. Yeah, what we think about them, what they represent in our fiction, not what real murderers are actually like. Now that note's take another break, and when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit about executioners, mobs, high priests, and uh, and of course the Purge movies. Thank thank alright, we're back now. Joe, you're a big Purge fan. I am not.

I've never seen a Purge movie. I have to admit that I have not either, but I did really enjoy the Rick and Morty episode that has a Purge planet and it sounds like an unsustainable planet. Yeah. Well, the Purge concept, for anyone was not familiar, as the whole idea is like one night a year where all crimes are legal, mainly murder. That's what the horror movies mostly interested in, but conceivably other crimes are also legal. I'm

not exactly sure how the legislation works. So yeah, you have to wonder why do people focus on murder when they could just focus on trying to steal as much money as possible. Yeah, or ignore environmental regulations. I don't know, There's so many things you could do, right, I guess there's like that's the one night of the year the company does all the polluting. We store it up all year and then they just dump. Well, we've had four Purge movies thus far, well one parody Purge movie on

top of that, it's not related. And then there's a Purge TV show coming out. Maybe the Purge TV show, we'll get into white collar Purge crimes. Oh man, one can. One can only hope. But in these movies and in the the other things they've inspired, like the Rick and Morty that you see this idea that people are taken to the streets and jumping into each other's homes wearing masks,

often really well designed masks. They're often very impressive and creative. Uh. And in Rick and Morty they kind of present this idea that people have been working all year on their Purge masks, you know, like they're going to a science fiction convention. Oh, is their cosplay. Yeah, except there purging right, But you knows is there's the fantastic side to all of this. But but certainly we do see masks worn

by protesters, terrorists, mob participants. You can be anonymous when you wear these masks and these hoods or what have you. And there's also that in imidation factor. Just think of you know, groups like the klu Klux Klan, etcetera. Yeah, there's the idea that that putting on a mask can bring out are the worst of us, the worst part of humanity can escape when your identity is hidden. Yeah. And this this gets into a number of different psychological effects,

some that we've talked on the show about. For instance, in clothed cognition um. This has com up on the podcast a couple of times. The roles and attributes associated with a particular uniform or costume influence the self reflection of the individual and their choices their actions. And this can be as simple as you dress like a doctor and someone hands you a clipboard and you start feeling you feel a little smarter, a little more confident. Yeah. You you can give people a sense of authority by

addressing them in a certain way. Address people in Uh, in like a military uniform, you might be able to make them feel more powerful and aggressive and authoritative. Right. It's kind of a reminder that when we dress in costumes for Halloween. Uh, you know, we're we're playing with the deeper magic of the human condition. A past episode of stuffable in your mind. My Halloween costume made me do it. Uh. We go into this a little bit

and uh, and we've discussed them among different studies. There's one study about how masked children take more candy than unmasked children. That was a nine study. Yeah, there are a few studies along these lines, and whether correctly or not, people have long associated masks with like impunity to do evil. Like in medieval Catholic France, there was this thing called the Feast of Fools that I was reading about. It was a feast that was celebrated by by members of

the church. That was originally, I think, a more liturgically grounded observance of inversions, as in Jesus saying the first she'll be last, and the last she'll be first. But I think over time it developed into something with a reputation for mischief, like people disguise their identities with masks, costumes, or faces covered in mud or dung, and there would

be wild partying, gambling. Mockery of authority is often taking place within the church itself, so you'd go in the church and gamble and make fun of the bishop or something. It's also associated with the quote boy Bishop tradition, where you'd take some random boy, dress him up like the bishop, and he'd get to be in charge for the day.

So I might say, you know, the old bishop smells like doo doo, Go take a bath um and this This seemed to go on through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, despite a lot of attempts by the Church to eliminate it, or to at least eliminate the wilder aspects of the feast and make it more pious and apparently Pope Innocent.

The third tried to ban masks, reasoning that it was the masking which allowed people to engage in the sinful misbehavior which they would not engage in if their faces were visible, though of course, there was another element here in that the masking often had people not just hiding their own identity but assuming another, like you could put on a crusader mask or a Lady in waiting mask

or a jester mask. Interesting. I'm also reminded of the tradition and in various alpine regions where you'd have the crampus costumes come out closer to Christmas and they would go on these rampages. And that has of course been a that's been an area of concern where people would say, Oh, the cramp the crampuses are getting a little out of hand. We need a crack down on the crampuses. They're scaring the children a little bit too much. They're getting too

into it. Crampus knocked is over the line this year. Um, you know, I I've I've neglected to mention, of course, the the V for Vendetta masks that the Guy Fox

mass that were embraced by the organization anonymous. If I guess you can kind of a loose organization and non centralized organization, well do you mean the idea that, But potentially a mask can help with d individuation where you come to believe, you know, I'm not this individual person with individual responsibilities, but I'm sort of like a feature of a group, right. And it's also kind of reminder of just how disconnected the mask can become from the

original thing. Like we we kind of don't think about it with with Jason Vorhees, like we don't think, oh, man, it's a movie about hockey. We just know that's Jason's mask. And likewise, if you see a video, like a grainy video on YouTube and somebody's wearing the Guy Fox mask, we don't go, oh, guy Fox, or we don't think oh v for Vendetta, that was a great Alan Moore. Uh, comic book, the graphic novels amazing. Now we think, oh,

it's the it's the anonymous organization. Now. One thing you have to wonder is when you see people behaving badly in groups, is it because the group provides anonymity or for some other reason associated with being in a group, Like is anonymity alone enough to get people to break social taboos? I was looking at one study on this. I don't think it looks like a particularly good study. It's a small sample size, it's kind of a strange

test condition. But for what it's worth, given these caveats, Uh, this was the nineteen seventies and the Journal of Social Psychology. But is this one by Vorhees Jay at All? No, this is by Mathis and Guest called anonymity and group anti social behavior. They got twenty six people, sixteen men and ten women from a personality course at Western Illinois University UH and they tried to get them to judge how willing they would be to engage in what they

called anti social behavior. The actual reality of this was carrying a sign through the college cafeteria reading masturbation is fun um under four conditions, which would be alone, undisguised, alone disguised, in a group undisguised, and in a group disguised. And the subjects were basically they were more willing to carry the sign. They would do it for less money if they could do it, if they could do it in a group, and if they could do it disguised.

So both conditions seemed to make people more willing to do this action that they were calling anti social behavior. But as I've said, I don't know, this study seems a little iffy to me. I love the experiment, though more delightful experiments I've seen. Well, they said anonymity apparently they thought was an explanation for group anti social behavior. Now, there, of course, a ton of different mass traditions throughout the world a lot of times involving groups wearing the masks,

and we can't mention all of them here. Maybe we'll come back and do it in an episode in the future they will explore more of them. But I ran across an interesting one from the Philippines though, a Catholic Holy Weak tradition called Marionis festival. And in this you see a number of different masks worn, um, people taking on various roles from you know, the Passion of the Christ, the Crucifixion, and so forth. But in part of it you see masked executioners of chasing the Figure of Longeness

through the streets. This, of course, is the the figure that's supposed to have actually driven the spear into Christ's side. But in this uh, this mask though, Uh, he's depicted as a cyclops. Yeah. And then when they and then when they finally catch him, uh, they execute him after

he testifies to Christ's power. That seems like a weird version somehow has something to do in my mind with like the mine ads, uh, you know, taking on their their skins and costumes in a way, disguising their identities when they behave in a frenzy as a mob now we should also point out that executioners have worn the mass as well to protect their identity and or to invoke some key narrative point in the proceedings right, divine justice,

the faceless actions of the state, etcetera. And sometimes these are mere hoods. But you can also find examples of medieval masks that incorporate iron or made of iron that the executioner would wear. I want to come back to this in a minute with reference to Jason Vorhees. Okay, well, let's head back to Jason Vorhees territory at this point. So I think a lot of what we've talked about here gives us the emma we need to understand what's

going on, sometimes intentionally, but more often I think accidentally. Uh. In the creation of slasher films. I mean, that's one of the wonderful things about about horror movies and b movies, I think, is that oftentimes, uh, the creators don't even realize like the potent symbols and UH and narrative elements that they're playing with. Well, yeah, I mean sometimes people

ask like ask me, why do you like horror movies? Like, with the implication being that horror movies are mostly bad, which I agree they are, and the most movies of all kinds I think are bad. Um, but they're mostly bad.

They're stupid and all that. And I agree that most horror movies are bad and stupid, but they're they're very psychologically interesting and culturally interesting in a way that not all say, bad dramas or other types that are bad comedies are horror movies, I feel like are almost always, even when they're not very well made narratives, they are

revealing about the the creatures and the cultures that made them. Yeah, and and about this, you know what is a widely viewed and often communally viewed slasher film but a public mask ritual. I mean, it's it's especially easy to think about this when we attend again these haunted attractions that feature actors dressed up as these various masked murderer characters.

You know, especially uh a Jason Vories or Michael Myers or leather Face, you know something where the mask is is a found item essentially, or it's easily acquired at the grocery store. Um. I I wonder if they connect with these deeper traditions. Uh so, you know, yeah, crazy realistic monster, makeup, special effects. They're cool and all, but there's something about the mask itself. You know, this is not merely a human, but a human playing a part, taking on a role, and perhaps the authority of a

primal force, even the authority of a divine force. Yeah, I think there's something to that, because you know, honestly, don't we see this in the evolution of the way we we depict Jason Vorhees mask on VHS and DVD covers. Well, if you look at the evolution of Friday thirteenth, you know, VHS box art or posters for the films, the first few movies just emphasized murder. They're just like, okay, there's

slaughter going on. But starting somewhere after Jason puts on the familiar hockey mask and we get to see the hockey mask repeated, the mask becomes the focus of the franchise, right. It stops being about how many people will he kill this time? It starts being about the mask, And often

the mask is like glowing or something. Yeah. Like, there's some especially on some of the VHS covers I was looking at, and the ones I remember from my childhood seeing on the shelves there's like there's a glowing light behind the mask shining through the mask. Holes in the hockey mask are all like they're they're like Spielberg shafts of light. You know. Yeah, it's like it's like God is speaking to us through Jason Vorhees, Like it's this. There's something to this, man, I mean, it gets this

in a minute. And it's strange given how few supernatural elements there are in Friday the Thirteenth, right, I mean, there are supernatural elements to present themselves. Yes, he's essentially this undead creature. Eventually, but part six he becomes basically a zombie. Right, But there's not a lot of divine supernatural elements here, at least not on the surface. But then look at those VHS covers. Look at the divine light shining or the demonic light shining through that mask.

I think that that also that in contemplating real life serial killers, we we like the idea of dehumanizing them in our fiction because surely they don't look like everyone else. I mean, and surely especially they don't look like they can't look like me, But so we have to obscure

them with a mask. They're transformed by the mask and underneath that mask, then they're they're surely going to be some sort of fleshly monstrosity or deformity that denotes inner distortion as well, because of course that's the the other old trope, right. Uh, that just goes goes back through most of human history, that that the outer distortion represents

inner distortion. Yeah. As much as we love monsters in in fiction and myth, I mean, one of the sad things about the idea of a monster, like the roots of that word, going back to this superstition that people with abnormal physical appearances reflect some kind of sinfulness or curse or monstrosity and their character. Yeah. So the unmasking scene where you get to see a distorted face underneath, it's kind of like, oh, thank goodness, my grotesque understanding

of the world is confirmed. Um, ugly people do ugly things, which is ridiculous when you when you call it out like that. But uh, but I think it is that they are these examples are tying into that tradition. Uh. It's also interesting to observe that many mass traditions also

seem to employ and unmasking. We saw this in some of the first nation's rituals that we explored in the Winter People episodes of what I Think last year, where if you remove the mask, you're able to cure an individual that has been overcome by a particular ritualistic madness. Oh yeah, and because the ritual mask is is a magical item and it denotes this barrier between us and

the other. So I, in preparing for this episode, came across a book that I thought had some really interesting insights here about Jason Vorhees specifically, but it can tell us more about the role of masks in horror in general. Um. And this is a book called Horror Zone, The Cultural Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema, published in two thousand and ten by ib Trus, edited by a scholar named Ian Conrich.

And there's a chapter on the Friday the Thirteen films written by Conrich himself, And so he starts by drawing comparisons between the Friday the Thirteenth series with Jason and the Hockey Mask and the tradition of the Theater of the Grand Genial in Paris, which went from eight to nineteen sixty two and which specialized in these blood bath dramas full of torture and mutilation and murder and gore. And there were these big fan ends of the Grand gain Yall who'd come to the theater all the time,

the genial airs. And there was a drama scholar named mel Gordon who did a study of the Grand gain y'all that Conridge discusses to get a sense of what this theater was like. Here's a section that Conridge quotes from Gordon. There's a company manager for the theater who quote frequently purchased different animal eyeballs from taxidermists, not only for visual realism when characters eyes were gouaged out, but for the organ's ability to bounce when they hit the

stage floor. Now that's some real commitment that that's a stage drama. These little horror plays they were putting on in Paris, and they wanted real, realistic gore effects, and for some reason people were eating this up. One of the interesting things to me is that Gordon says that many of these plays were short, and a regular evenings program at a theater might include three gruesome horror plays and three comedies or farces, and they would alternate back

and forth. And this type of lineup where you'd have a gruesome horror play with gore and then a comedy or a force and then keep going back and forth. Was known as hot and cold showers. Well, this makes me think though of how, especially a lot of the horror movies, you'll have that up and down right of like bad comedy and horrific violence. Absolutely, yeah, that's that's what I was highlighting here. Uh yeah, there is a sense of of wanting to like chill you with some

kind of horrific site and then make you laugh. Now. Of course, Connor says that the Friday the Thirteenth films are comparable to Grand Guineall productions in their emphasis on slaughter and the the illusions used to create the appearance

of gore. So Sean Cunningham, the director of the first Friday the Thirteenth movie, discusses how the makeup effects created by Tom Savini for the movie We're so good and so convincing that he would be tempted to keep the scene running and show much more explicit gore than would

normally be warranted by good filmmaking. Um, just because they had put so much work into the blood and gore effects and they looked so realistic and so good, which I've never read that before, but that makes a lot of sense to me, Like the turn toward an emphasis on blood and gore in these slasher movies basically just being a product of the fact that their makeup effects

people were so good. Yeah, you know, I think back to some of the terrible horror movies I've seen where like where they just do not know to cut away from the gore effect because the first like at for a second, the gore effect is highly effective, and then you start staring at it a little bit longer and

you begin to see the cracks in the facade. Well, it's kind of like, you know a movie that's got a fancy car in it, and there are a lot of scenes with that car because it's like, the filmmakers, we paid to lease this car, you know, we might as well get a lot out of it. It's like, once you've sunk enough costs and to get a really good thing, you're tempted to just over indulge in it

because of the sunk costs. Yeah, if if you you're not having to worry about using Nicholas Cage for just one hour of filmmaking, if you've got if you've got him for the full week, you just let him go, right. But so getting back to the mask, Conrad has these thoughts on the role of Jason's mask, and some of it has to do with Jason functioning very much like as you mentioned earlier, an executioner and playing the same

cultural role as one. In writing on Grand Guenial, Gordon writes that these theater performances, the gory ones on stage quote, traded on sensationalistic plots and the exploitation of their audiences visceral curiosity. In a way, they acted as fantasy substitutes

for the guillotine and its public executions. Now that's interesting because so public executions with large audiences used to be a regular feature of public life in many societies, especially you know societies in Europe where they've more recently been phased out, either through abolition of the death penalty or through massive reduction, and how often it's applied through changing

the venue to make them private instead of public. There's clearly something that rove huge crowds out to see the workings of the guillotine or the Halifax jibbit or the gallows, the burning at the stake, the breaking on the wheel, and when you couldn't go out and see that kind of stuff anymore, did whatever drove people to attend those things disappear? I would say, probably not right, that there's still going to be this hunger, But how are you

going to appease it? So, Conrad writes, quote, Like Halloween's Michael Myers and the Texas Chainsaw Masker's leather face, the executioner's mask establishes a cold, mechanical and faceless killer, devoid of personality. The mask also adds the detachment that the executioner,

the professional killer requires in order to function unhindered. Jason's hockey mask is so much part of his identity, his one essential accessory, that without it he is incomplete and maybe even unable to function convincingly as the executioner and so. Author Allie S. Kennetti, who wrote a book called Crowds and Power, wrote that the power of the mask lies in the fact that it is unlike a human face rigid quote. What gives the mask it's interdictory quality is

the fact that it never changes. Everything behind the mask is mysterious above all its separates, and of course interdictory.

Here means enforcing a prohibition. Right, the executioner, the embodiment of the harshest end of the law and of justice, is masked in order to be made without a human face, because human faces, even even mean human faces, can convey uncertainty, individuality, vulnerability, even maybe sympathy, and the inscrutable mask sort of leaves the victim feeling baffled and subservient, being put to death

by a force beyond human appeal. So this makes me think about what's going on with this big face reveal that happens so often towards the end of these movies, you know, like when Jason's mask gets knocked off and you get to see his face. Conridge thinks that these reveals are designed to show always that the killer is not just a normal human wearing the mask, but some

sort of aberration more in it than a he. And I think, if this interpretation is correct, it's sort of as if you saw the execution or raise his mask to you, and where you expected to see a human face that might show you an expression of pity. Instead, what you get is something just as monstrous and inhuman underneath the mask. It's almost like taking the mask off and showing you Jason's monster face is letting you know that there is no appeal, there's no chance that he's

going to change his mind about this. Has anyone ever made a slasher film where there is just like a black hole underneath the mask? I think that would be a nice psychedelic twist on it. Well, it's just a complete void and no faces, absolute darkness. Yeah, that's interesting.

I've definitely never seen it. Look at us Stewart is given away wonderful slasher movie ideas in this uh So, Conridge quotes a scholar named Bernard Veldt who has written that, since Jason wears a hockey mask, and I think this is a pretty terrible take, he is an angry god quote playing a sport or a game with human life. But Conrich, I think, does not agree with this take,

and I don't agree with this take either. Instead, he he points out that the movies emphasize Jason not as a game player, but as an efficient, skilled professional, sort of rapidly and systematically dispatching his victims one after another, with no particular indication that he's playing games or getting any personal sense of enjoyment out of it. And I would say. In other words, this means he's behaving like a medieval headsman with a full schedule of executions lined

up for the day. And I think this is correct. This is how Jason is portrayed in the Friday the Thirteenth movies. He is efficient and systematic and business like. He it's like watching someone do their job. Yeah, and this is I think this is one of the reasons why for so long everyone was like, Oh, when's he gonna fight Freddie? Because Freddie is the complete opposite of

that Freddie. Yeah, yeah, fred Freddie is a sadist and uh, and Jason is a pro And personally, I think this Jason as professional executioner model is highly salient as to what role these films are playing culturally and why they are what they are, and what role the mask plays. Um. Think about the way that in movies like this, the murders generally don't come as a surprise, you know. Rather, there there's sort of a series of repeated cues that

a character is about to meet the acts. Uh. The character gets isolated from the others, their music and film pacing cues to let you know that a murderer is coming. They're certain cliches and tropes that are invoked. Is anybody there? And then it happens, And it strikes me as very much like sort of having the next condemned prisoner being brought up to the executioner's block and allowed a prayer or final words or whatever in this repeated and predictable pattern.

Here's another parallel. How often the murders and slasher movies can feel like punishments for particular sins, taboo violations, or just general character flaws that the victims have prominently displayed in the scenes right beforehand. Oh yes, this is a

this is a classic part of the whole genre. Right, you have a campful of horrible kids, and you're gonna have to get through all of those before you get to that that final girl who actually has virtue, right, the one, the one who's the innocent, who's undeserving of the punishment. So yeah, I think there's something that Connors is really onto here. I think the model of Jason as a sort of execution or of European history, the

sovereign's representative, there's something to that. And of course, as we mentioned a minute ago, the mask really helps with the execution or persona. I think it's highly possible that a major role played by films like The Friday the Thirteenth films is they're tapping into something that was lost when public executions went away, This desire people had to see some kind of disembodied arm of justice enacting systematic violence against people who break taboos. You know this, this

makes me think of Paris Hilton. Um. I don't know if you remember, there was a Harmony that came out the House of Wax. I believe itself a remake of past wax movies, just like a legacy of you know, the wax based horror movies. But it was a pretty big deal at the time because Paris Hilton wasn't like

kind of peak uh fame slash infamy. Um. And she has a role in the film and she is killed by the unknown murder and you can kind of see that as like this weird and I and and kind of I have to say, unsettling, like the public desire for the fictional executioner to take care of Paris Hilton, for the for the population people. Yeah, the movie was advertised Wait did you already just say that the movie was adver ties as come watch Paris Die. Basically, yeah,

that was basically the techno that. I don't know if that was the actual tablet line, but things and there were things advertising the movie that said that, And I mean that's like, on one hand, you could see, you know, I'm not saying I'm a big fan of Paris Hilton or anything, but there is something kind of like nasty, maybe somewhat misogynistic about that, just like taking some prominent, maybe rich, annoying female celebrity and saying, now you all

get to see what it looks like if she gets murdered. But this does make me think there's a possibility for for this for the future. Again, here's another free idea for everyone out there. Um, it's essentially celebrity Big Brother. But but you have Jason Vorhees on hand to dispatch fictionally of course, to dispatch everybody in the Big Brother House. And that's every season like whoever the most uh you know, um,

but reviled the celebrities are too. Given um, given season, then those are the ones that are brought on the show. That sort of what these movies are though. But I wonder if it gets it, maybe it gets some of that public distaste out of their system too. It's almost like a it's like a mock execution, you know, it's almost like a parody uh taking place, you know, and like maybe thanks to the House of Wax, people were able to say, Okay, we're all right with Paris. Now

she's paid for her crimes, we can move on. We saw her diet in that horror movie. Well, I don't remember who the killer was in that movie or if a mask was involved, but I do think that that it's correct that the mask is an important part of establishing this uh this like disembodied enactment of justice, execution or arm of the law kind of punishment. Well, it's worth noting that in many of these slasher films there may not be an actual mask, but thanks to the

way it is shot, the killer remains faceless. I'm thinking, of course, about the various Dario Orgento films where you just see hands enacting crimes. Or there's one segment in the original vhf us Um anthology film that came out where the the killer in the woods, their their face is always covered by VHS tracking errors. Oh yeah, I remember that, which can be interpreted is essentially a kind

of mask. It's like the medium itself coming for you. Ye. Now, another thing I want to say is that all this stuff I've been saying about the Friday the Thirteenth movies, it doesn't apply equally across all movies with masked killers. I would say a counter example would be better movies, generally, better movies that have more likable characters, where you're like invested in their survival and their their peril raises your stress. You're sort of where you're with the characters. You know.

A bad thing about the Friday the Thirteenth movies is you're just generally not with the characters. You're not worried about whether they're going to make it or not. And that's been a long criticism of the Friday the Thirteenth movies is that there's something kind of nasty at the core of them where you're not hoping the characters survive. You're just waiting to see which one of the gets killed next and how again, making it more kind of

like going to a public execution. Yeah, the characters without masks are kind of, to a certain extent as inhuman as the character in the mask. I wonder how the mask functions differently in horror, where you genuinely do like the characters. You want them to survive, and you're you're

trying to see how they will get through it. Well, then you're begging for them to, uh, to unmask the villain, right, I mean, it's it's kind of like the the ideas, like the law is oppressive and horrible until it goes after the people that do not deserve it's it's wrath when it becomes unjust, and then we want to see it's, uh, it's secrets uncovered. Then we want to see the executioner's mask ripped from its face. Yeah, maybe that's what's going

on in the scene. I'm sure you remember this, Robert. There's a scene that has never much made sense to me in the original Halloween where Michael Myers mask comes off brief briefly and you see his face and then he just sort of puts the mask back on. The face revealed doesn't really show anything. It's just a guy. It's just a guy in his face. Uh. And I've

never understood why that's in the movie. Maybe it's it's a brief moment of victory, because in Halloween it's not quite the same you're you're very much with Jamie Lee Curtis, like, you know, you want her to get through this. You don't want to see her punished or anything. Yeah, that is a weird moment, Like that's one that I legitimately had forgotten that that was a part of the original Halloween. It's always a surprising moment and I'm not sure what

it means. One quick side note I couldn't finish this episode without mentioning, is I remember the story our colleague Ben Boland, one of the hosts of stuff that I don't want you to know and ridiculous history. Uh. He told Uh, he told a group of us one time in the office that he got pulled over for driving with a werewolf mask on, And I asked him, is that true? And he said, yes, it is true. He was wearing a werewolf mask driving a car that was

in Georgia. He wasn't given a ticket, but the the the cop who pulled him overtold him he could not drive with a mask on one and he did. He still doesn't know quite why that is h He's also he said he'd driven with a batman mask on before and never gotten pulled over for that. But did get pulled over for the werewolf mask. Interesting, Well, I mean I'm imagining there's less of visibility with the werewolf mask. Alright, Well,

we're gonna leave it off there. I had a lot of fun here today talking about slasher movies, mass traditions and really just kind of trying to dive deep into something that's very easy to take for granted and just dismiss it's just some silly aspect of our silly horror movies. But I think it's anything but as usual. Even our silliest horror movies tell us something about ourselves, all right. In the meantime, if you want to check out more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over

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