![behind the mask behind the mask](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/public/upload/events/medium/5d9b768ca12ed.jpg)
Masks, in this way, have always been an essential part of our human need to play with identity. A new face allows a person to take on a new role, to become someone else. Throughout history, our ancestors have worn masks of one kind or another for the purposes of entertainment, mockery, ritual, protection, concealment, and transformation. Why might Jason’s goalie mask terrorize us more than his machete? Why might Michael’s blank, featureless façade instill more fear than his kitchen knife? Masks unsettle us because they force us to face fundamental metaphysical truths. You might expect the actual instruments of murder to be the most terrifying elements of a scary movie, but at least as many viewers point to the villains’ masks as to their weapons when pinpointing the real root of their fear.
![behind the mask behind the mask](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0TXa7orBux0/maxresdefault.jpg)
Behind the mask serial#
Yet for all the mask’s prominence in horror cinema, it’s relatively rare for real world mass murderers and serial killers to wear masks in the commission of their ghastly crimes, so it’s strange that this has become such an iconic part of slasher lore. Certainly this is true of the slasher subgenre: think of the hockey mask worn by Jason Voorhees in much of the Friday the 13th franchise or Leatherface’s multiple sewn-skin visages in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, think of the whitened William Shatner disguise that Michael Myers dons to do his dirty work in Halloween or the Munch-esque screaming face worn by the various Ghostface killers in the Scream film series. The “weirdo wearing a mask” is perhaps the most recognizable trope in all of horror. I imagine most of us have seen enough horror films to come to the same conclusion. “I’ve seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly,” Lizabeth Mott says in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.