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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lynn, and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to October. That's right. October for us is a

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Speaker 1: just a full month of Halloween flavored, spooky, creepy, monstrous content. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, we would put out monstrous and occasionally horror

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Speaker 1: theme content at other points during the year, but we

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Speaker 1: really try and make sure that October is just jam packed.

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Speaker 1: We take our our we take this one holiday very seriously. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: it's monster science all month, that's right. And so today, Robert,

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Speaker 1: he wanted to talk about horror movies and masks. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I kind of. I just kept thinking about this recently,

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Speaker 1: and I don't think there was one particular movie, uh

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Speaker 1: that that that inspired it, because obviously I've been watching

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Speaker 1: slasher movies for a large proportion of my life. I

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Speaker 1: imagine you have as well, and I and I don't

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Speaker 1: imagine we have to explain this particular trope to anyone

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Speaker 1: out there. You don't have to have seen a single

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Speaker 1: slasher film to know it by heart. A mask murderer

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Speaker 1: is on the prow and perhaps by the end of

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Speaker 1: the film, you'll either discover the killer's identity or the

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Speaker 1: nature of the disfiguration that forces them to wear that mask. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you discover it through this, this unmasking that tends to

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Speaker 1: happen at the end of the movie. And I think

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that the unmasking or face reveal trope happens

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Speaker 1: in horror movies. Now, okay, I'll frame it in two ways.

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Speaker 1: One way is that it happens in horror movies that

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Speaker 1: are also mysteries. This makes total sense to me. Imagine

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Speaker 1: a slasher movie like the scream movies, where it turns

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Speaker 1: out at the end of every movie that the killer

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Speaker 1: is a character known to you and you've discovered Ah,

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Speaker 1: it was this person all along, and the mask revealed

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Speaker 1: the face you know, the maskets pulled off. The face

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Speaker 1: revealed tells you who it was. It conveys information. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is the Scooby Doo trope exactly. It was old

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Speaker 1: man grizzle Bums all along. But then there are tons

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Speaker 1: of movies with masked killers that have unmasking moments, but

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Speaker 1: the killer's mask is removed and it is not it's

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Speaker 1: not a mystery, it's not a character like there's Halloween

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Speaker 1: and the Friday the Thirteen sequels. In movies like this,

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Speaker 1: you already know who the killer is, or the killer

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Speaker 1: is not a previously known character, and in these cases,

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Speaker 1: I always wonder what purpose does the face reveal serve?

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Speaker 1: It still tends to happen at the climax of the

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Speaker 1: movie as if like this is all what it's all

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Speaker 1: been leading up to. There's the face, but it's not

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Speaker 1: like it reveals anything about who it was. It's just like, well,

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Speaker 1: that's what his face looks like. Yeah, I mean, in

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Speaker 1: one level, is just kind of like the Fangoria magazine

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Speaker 1: like gore ahound Ethos, right, you know, it's like you

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Speaker 1: just you're building up to that point where you're seeing

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Speaker 1: all this grizzly stuff, but you want reach like peak

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Speaker 1: uh pete grotesque, and that's where it's going to occur

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Speaker 1: when that mask is pulled off, I guess. So. So

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Speaker 1: it's this is of course all just a very well

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Speaker 1: worn trope, but a trope that we keep utilizing in

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Speaker 1: our our horror fiction because, let's face it, it works,

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Speaker 1: it's fun, and I realized that it can it can

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Speaker 1: be a little bit problematic when we start to dissect

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Speaker 1: our love for pretend murder films, which essentially that's what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about, pretend murder movies. And I just want

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Speaker 1: to warn people at the top of this episode that

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Speaker 1: while we often talk about horror movies, monsters, ghosts, and

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Speaker 1: so forth, we don't usually talk about real world serial

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Speaker 1: killers and stuff, which can, arguably, at least to me,

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Speaker 1: be a more disturbing subject matter. And so as a

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Speaker 1: point of illustration of our topic today, we will be

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Speaker 1: discussing a few real murderers from history. Just a fair

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Speaker 1: warning if that sort of thing is likely to bother you.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think about the difference between loving fictional

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Speaker 1: horror and loving, say, true cry. I am like, this

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Speaker 1: is a big difference for me. I love monsters and murder,

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Speaker 1: mystery horror and all that, but I do not really

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Speaker 1: enjoy true crime at all, and I often find it unpleasant.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I can think of a few counter examples,

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Speaker 1: like I like the movie Zodiac, and I love the

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Speaker 1: Charles Manson season of the podcast. You must remember this.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever listened to that? Um? I have? I

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Speaker 1: think I've listened to a few episodes. Yes, it's just

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Speaker 1: really good, but I have. I have not listened to

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Speaker 1: the Charles Manson episodes. Well, if you haven't checked it

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Speaker 1: out that here's a podcast recommendation you must remember. This

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Speaker 1: with Karina Longworth is about Hollywood history and I really

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Speaker 1: enjoy it. But in general, I really prefer my exposure

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Speaker 1: to violence and murder to be fictional. And of course

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Speaker 1: I know people who are exactly the other way around, right.

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Speaker 1: I know you probably do too, Robert, Like, they can't

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Speaker 1: stomach even the mildest of monster movies, but they gobble

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Speaker 1: up nonfiction crime books and podcasts about the most horrible

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Speaker 1: kinds of real life murder and mayhem, which to me

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Speaker 1: is more likely to make me feel just kind of depressed. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I do know individuals who fall into

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Speaker 1: either CATA. I know individuals who like both. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there are there are people who just really love both

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Speaker 1: horror and true crime and we'll and we'll we'll take it,

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Speaker 1: you know, all in however they can, they can get it. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know. For my own part, I'm not as much

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Speaker 1: into true crime right now, but I certainly went through

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Speaker 1: a period of time in college in particular, where I

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Speaker 1: was just like consuming everything I could get at the time,

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Speaker 1: and there weren't as many options, especially online. We didn't

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Speaker 1: have true crime podcasts that back then. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I was watching, uh, you know, any kind of forensic

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Speaker 1: documentary I could get my hands on. I was, I

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Speaker 1: was visiting some of the the early true crime websites

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Speaker 1: and and and reading the you know some of those uh,

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Speaker 1: those those big thick detective manuals about homicide investigation. Now,

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Speaker 1: one thing that we can come back to in a

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Speaker 1: minute is, I bet when you were going through this

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Speaker 1: true crime phase, you may have been surprised to not

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Speaker 1: encounter much use of the mask in in real life

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Speaker 1: murder exactly. And that's that's really the the question that

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Speaker 1: that kind of led to this episode was just the

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Speaker 1: question and the realization that when you look at you

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Speaker 1: look at all of these masked psychopathic individuals in our fiction,

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Speaker 1: and then you you look to real life, um, serial

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Speaker 1: murders and true crime, and you really don't see that

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Speaker 1: many masks. You do see a few notable, notable exceptions,

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Speaker 1: which we will discuss here, but for the most part,

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Speaker 1: the killer's mask seems to be an obsession of fiction

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Speaker 1: that is not as present in real life crime. And

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Speaker 1: we will certainly explore some potential reasons for that later

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Speaker 1: on in the episode. Now, I do want to mention

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Speaker 1: one thing here. We we've we've been talking about true

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Speaker 1: crime and uh in horror fiction. Uh kind of as

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Speaker 1: if they are just too completely separate kingdoms. Of course,

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Speaker 1: these kingdoms border each other and actually overlap. Uh It

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Speaker 1: it becomes impossible to to really uh keep one away

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Speaker 1: from the other. You have horror movies that are very

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Speaker 1: much inspired by real life murders, real life crime, and then, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: we also have the reverse, which will discuss just briefly

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Speaker 1: as well, where you have real life crime that is

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Speaker 1: inspired by horror fiction. Now, if we stick to fictional

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Speaker 1: horror for a bit, you can think of some obvious

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Speaker 1: reasons that it might make sense for a villain to

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Speaker 1: wear a mask. Right, Yeah, let's roll through some of

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Speaker 1: the just obvious reasons. First of all, this is the

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Speaker 1: Scooby Doo factor. Creates a sense of mystery who or

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Speaker 1: what is underneath that mask. I gotta know, it makes

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Speaker 1: a lot more sense for this to be the case

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Speaker 1: in movies where there is actually a known character whose

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Speaker 1: identity is being concealed. When I was in in high school,

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine collected these larger scale g I.

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Speaker 1: Joe figures, not the like old school ones, but kind

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Speaker 1: of like a you know, a new school version that

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Speaker 1: was out, and he had one of Destro uh, and

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Speaker 1: apparently the mask would come him off, but he refused

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Speaker 1: to take the doll out of the box, which always

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Speaker 1: just I was like, how can you do that? Don't

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Speaker 1: You've got to know, right, You've got to know what

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Speaker 1: Destro's face looks like underneath that mask on this doll.

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Speaker 1: And I never found out, so uh, And to my knowledge,

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Speaker 1: he never opened the box. But there's there's this this

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Speaker 1: even when we know that it's not vital to like

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Speaker 1: the true identity of the character, there is something about

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Speaker 1: the identity of the character wrapped up in whatever is

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Speaker 1: being hidden from us. What do you think you're gonna

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Speaker 1: learn by seeing his face? I don't know. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of it's it's almost something that's not put into words.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it might be something again to this, like

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Speaker 1: we are so dependent upon uh, the human face to

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Speaker 1: understand intention and motivation. I mean, the face is a

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Speaker 1: communications array, and if that and if the other individual's

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Speaker 1: face is hidden from us, true communication cannot take place.

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Speaker 1: So I feel like part of the unmasking psychology is

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Speaker 1: faced in that, like, like we're having a one sided

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Speaker 1: facial conversation here, and you must remove that mask for this,

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Speaker 1: for this understanding to be true. Well, in general, to

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Speaker 1: be uncovered is to be vulnerable, and to be covered

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Speaker 1: is to be guarded. Any way, right now, another advantage

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Speaker 1: to having a mask killer in your fiction is, of

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Speaker 1: course it sets up that potential big reveal we've been

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Speaker 1: talking about, right, what's the identity of the killer, what's

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Speaker 1: the what's the monster's face? Look like? You're gonna build anticipation,

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Speaker 1: especially if that is the trump, especially if that is

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Speaker 1: what is expected. You go into that Friday thirteenth movie

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Speaker 1: knowing that there's going to be a moment where you

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Speaker 1: get to see Jason Vorhees's face. There are also some

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Speaker 1: very practical filmmaking concerns you can take into account here, right,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, because it's generally cheaper to just put a

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Speaker 1: mask on your character than to do all of that

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Speaker 1: crazy makeup special effects, you know, especially if you're using

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Speaker 1: a generic mask like a hockey mask or a sack

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Speaker 1: or a gas mask or some of Yeah, just something

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Speaker 1: you find and uh and you might say, well, we'll heck,

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Speaker 1: there's some really impressive like Tom Savini u um uh

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Speaker 1: makeup effects that are utilized to create Jason in many

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Speaker 1: of those films right when them unmasking does occur. But

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Speaker 1: if you think, if you think of it this way,

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Speaker 1: it's like that's a that's a costly um makeup effect

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Speaker 1: to roll out, and you can't just you know, film

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Speaker 1: put it on once. If you're filming it multiple times,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna have to put it on multiple times. It's

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Speaker 1: gonna cost time and money. But if you have him

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Speaker 1: just wear a hockey mask for most of the time,

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Speaker 1: then that just makes filming easier. And if you can't

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Speaker 1: afford that fancy makeup at all to begin with, then

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Speaker 1: there you go. That's that's the easiest step to take.

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Speaker 1: Putting a mask on, I would say, also requires less

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Speaker 1: of your actor, That's right. You don't have to really

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Speaker 1: worry as much about your your the acting abilities of

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Speaker 1: the actor, or you don't have to depend on them

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Speaker 1: having a particular uh, you know, unique face. So I'm thinking,

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Speaker 1: on one hand, you don't have to have Christopher Lee,

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Speaker 1: who who as you know, an accomplished horror actor, and

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Speaker 1: you don't also don't have to worry about do I

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Speaker 1: have a like a Robert Zadar, somebody who maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: arguably is was not as great an actor as Christopher Lee,

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Speaker 1: but definitely had a very interesting face. You don't have

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Speaker 1: to have either of those. If you just have a

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Speaker 1: mask you can throw over the individual. No, you can

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Speaker 1: basically just cast your stunt coordinator exactly, which I believe

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Speaker 1: is generally what you see in some of these cases.

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Speaker 1: You just have the stunt player or just somebody with

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Speaker 1: a large frame perhaps playing the character. And then hey,

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Speaker 1: you can use as many actors as you actually need.

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Speaker 1: You can recast it every movie. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: worry about getting into into, you know, deep contract negotiations

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Speaker 1: with your with your slasher character. It's also great branding,

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Speaker 1: great for Halloween costumes. Oh I see, so that's the

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's the reason that Jason Vorhees so easily

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Speaker 1: pops up on every street during Halloween, or certainly at

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Speaker 1: every haunted attraction, um, you know, any haunted else, commercial

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Speaker 1: haunted house you might go to, they will inevitably be

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Speaker 1: somebody in a hockey mask. And then finally, it leaves

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Speaker 1: lots of room for the creepy and the uncanny. And

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Speaker 1: this I think gets into the deeper history of of

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Speaker 1: the the use of masks in humans civilization, in various cultures. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the idea that the mask is an ancient, uh, performative

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Speaker 1: tool that allows an individual to become something else. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we see this in everything from drama to religious ceremonies.

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Speaker 1: Um So what, Robert, what are some of your favorite

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Speaker 1: horror movie masks? Well, I have to say I've always

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Speaker 1: been very partial to leather Face from the Texas Chainsaw Masker,

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Speaker 1: especially for the first film. But but I I say,

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Speaker 1: I love one and two and I and I and

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Speaker 1: I really like I like three and four as well.

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Speaker 1: And four. Yeah, I mean you got u you know

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Speaker 1: Matthew McConaughey. I mean four is a bit wackadoodle, but

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Speaker 1: you still have McConaughey in there doing his thing. I

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Speaker 1: have what's the one with the aliens? Um? I don't

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Speaker 1: know about. There's illuminato in the fourth one. Maybe that's

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Speaker 1: what I'm thinking about. Yeah, I don't think we've been

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Speaker 1: blessed with an alien um uh plot in Texas Chancel

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Speaker 1: Mask yet. Part three, though, had a Vigo Morrison in it,

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Speaker 1: Vigo Mortenson. Yeah, yeah, so that's that was worthwhile. Three

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Speaker 1: was pretty good. Yeah, But but you're into the mask, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The mask is the main factor here that we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here today. You know, he had this mask that

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Speaker 1: was stitched together from from pieces of leather faces victims

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Speaker 1: or perhaps the bodies that the leather the lead the

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Speaker 1: chainsaw family is stealing out of the cemeteries. Um. And

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Speaker 1: in that first film especially, you never see what is

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Speaker 1: underneath it. You might wonder about it, but it's there's

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Speaker 1: no reveal or anything. Eventually, Hollywood couldn't resist and they

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Speaker 1: depicted leather Face unmasked in two thousand three. That's in

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Speaker 1: the remake. Yeah, and to Michael Bay remake. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: that was fun enough, you know, but it wasn't for me.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't a says, I think it's the original film

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Speaker 1: by by any means. I always like the implication that

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Speaker 1: that it didn't matter, like you didn't there wasn't it

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Speaker 1: wasn't set up for an unmasking, like maybe there wasn't

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Speaker 1: even an identity under there. You know. It's like his

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Speaker 1: identity was the mask made out of his crimes. Now,

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Speaker 1: another favorite of mine Uh, and I understand this is

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Speaker 1: one of your favorites as well. Dr Philip K. Decker's

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Speaker 1: Button Mask and Clive Barker's Night Breathe. Oh, this one

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Speaker 1: is so good. This is probably this might be my

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Speaker 1: favorite horror movie killer mask. Uh. So it is worn

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Speaker 1: by David Cronenberg, or at least David Cronenberg plays the

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Speaker 1: character that's wearing it. I don't know if that's actually

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Speaker 1: him and all the scenes, because it seems like this

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Speaker 1: is another case of like Cronenberg is great, but we

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Speaker 1: really can't have him on set all the time or

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Speaker 1: like doing all these stunts. So let's just have the

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Speaker 1: stunt guy play him, and then whenever he pulls it off,

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Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get Dave on on set. If he said,

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Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it, it's basically a sock over

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Speaker 1: the head with buttons for eyes and a zipper mouth,

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Speaker 1: but impeccably designed, like it's a highly stylized mask that

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Speaker 1: actually makes no sense. Then I didn't even really think

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Speaker 1: about this till yesterday. How did he see out of it?

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Speaker 1: It's almost like he didn't see like when he became

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Speaker 1: the killer, he was like using some sort of like uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, barkery six cents, you know, like he saw

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Speaker 1: through murder or something. It's a very creepy mask, especially

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Speaker 1: knowing that the person under it is supposed to be

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Speaker 1: a soft spoken, floppy hair David Cronenberg, just imagining how

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Speaker 1: that mask over the top of his head is pressing

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Speaker 1: his hair down is one of one of the great

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Speaker 1: sources of horror in that movie. Uh. Cronenberg, of course,

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Speaker 1: is usually known as a horror director. This movie makes

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Speaker 1: me think he should take more acting roles. He is

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Speaker 1: so unsettling in it. He was he was so good.

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Speaker 1: Another one of my favorite horror movie masks is not

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Speaker 1: worn by like a movie kill or but in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three The Wickerman, which is one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite horror movies, it's not explicitly a single killer with

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Speaker 1: a mask, but the masks that the villagers wear for

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Speaker 1: the celebration of their pagan religion are just awesome. There's

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Speaker 1: like rabbits and fish and bear masks. Uh, It's it's

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Speaker 1: all there. And I keep thinking, one of these days,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a really good Wickerman party on May

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Speaker 1: Day or something. Well. That really sets expectations very high

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Speaker 1: for whatever you're gonna burn in your backyard. But the

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Speaker 1: but the masks are great here because they highlight the

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Speaker 1: continuity between horror movie masks and the traditional use of

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Speaker 1: masks in religious ceremonies. They just make that connection explicit. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's there's an explicit treatment of like, you know, pagan

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Speaker 1: pagan practices and pagan belief systems in that movie. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: excellent film. And again you're talking about the original, not

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Speaker 1: the the remake, not not the one with the not

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Speaker 1: the bees, though that one's worth watching for different reasons. Now,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of films where the masks, uh

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Speaker 1: that the slasher wears are unimpressive or they're trying a

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Speaker 1: bit too hard. Um. And in some of these cases

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Speaker 1: I haven't. I have admittedly not given the film a

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Speaker 1: proper shake. Like I know there was that the Groundhog

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Speaker 1: Day slasher movie that came out in the last year. Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Um, I can't

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Speaker 1: remember the name of the film off hand. But the

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Speaker 1: character wears like a baby mask. So it's like this

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Speaker 1: kind of goofy looking baby mask, but then it's creepy

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Speaker 1: because he's wearing the baby mask. Oh that reminds me

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Speaker 1: of one of the creepiest masks in movies, which is

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Speaker 1: not a horror movie, but in Terry Gilliam's Brazil the

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Speaker 1: baby mask that terror carrogator. Yeah. Yeah, well I think

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Speaker 1: it's Michael Palin, Michael Palin's character in that. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: he is. He is acting as an interrogator and torturing

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Speaker 1: our hero. Uh so, I guess it is kind of

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Speaker 1: a horror ish scene and that that is a terrible mask, right,

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Speaker 1: terrifying indeed. But you know, so sometimes mask I feel

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Speaker 1: like they're trying a little bit too hard. I was.

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Speaker 1: I was never a big fan of the mask that

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Speaker 1: are are the mask or masks that are utilizing the

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Speaker 1: Saw films, because he seems to have just a lot

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Speaker 1: of gimmicks. He has too many gimmicks, you know. He

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Speaker 1: has the traps, he has like a theatrical Robiwars. There's

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Speaker 1: a pig mask. There's also the creepy puppet, a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff. I'm just biased against the Saw movies in general,

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Speaker 1: Like I don't get down with the whole torture thing. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: I will say though that again, I've only seen like

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Speaker 1: the first one, and I did read that They later

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Speaker 1: established that there's some sort of connection between the pig

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Speaker 1: masks and the Chinese zodiac. So so kudos for like

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Speaker 1: somehow working that in. I was not aware of that.

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Speaker 1: Angle doesn't really tempt me to watch the films though,

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Speaker 1: well you know they're there are a number of slasher

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Speaker 1: films where they did just like pick out a mask,

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Speaker 1: an existing mask, like it's the like it's a like

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Speaker 1: a coal miner's mask, right, or it's a gas mask

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Speaker 1: or something something that that that already exists. Let's claim

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Speaker 1: it and make it part of our slasher movie motif. Right.

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Speaker 1: So you've got Jason in the Thirteenth Movies just wears

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Speaker 1: a hockey mask. Uh, the in My Bloody Valentine, it's

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Speaker 1: just sort of like a miner's gas mask. That's a

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00:19:07,640 --> 00:19:09,560
Speaker 1: that's a classic of the kind of as an early

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Speaker 1: slasher film. And then of course just like grabbing a

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Speaker 1: mask off the racks of the Halloween Store. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: Screen movies classic example of that, the ghost face mask.

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Speaker 1: I do have this. I have wondered about this, and

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Speaker 1: I looked around. I couldn't find an example of anybody

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Speaker 1: doing this. But why do we not have any horror

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Speaker 1: movies where the slasher wears a Greek tragedy mask, because

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Speaker 1: so many of these are just mega creepy looking. If

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Speaker 1: I recall correctly, there is a scene in Scream Too

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Speaker 1: that uses the Greek tragic chorus masks. But I think

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Speaker 1: maybe it's that the killer is just in the normal

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Speaker 1: ghost face mask from the screen movies and is blending

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Speaker 1: in among a crowd of Greek masks. They're like trying

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Speaker 1: to do a murder during a play rehearsal. It's not

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Speaker 1: a very smart strategy. Well, as far as I know there,

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Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a huge area of opportunity here,

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Speaker 1: you know, not so much for ghost face killer. I

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Speaker 1: guess this would be like Greek face killer. Alright, Well,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna take a break and when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we will we'll get in more to the real life

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Speaker 1: killers and why we don't really see that many masks

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Speaker 1: utilized in their crimes. Thank alright, we're back. All right.

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Speaker 1: So we've been discussing how masks are extremely common in

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Speaker 1: horror movies horror stories about fictional killers, but this doesn't

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Speaker 1: appear to reflect reality so much. Yeah, when you start

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Speaker 1: looking around for examples of of especially serial murderers who

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Speaker 1: used a mask during the commission of their crimes. You

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Speaker 1: do not find that many cases. And we looked around,

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Speaker 1: um and I we even employed um the the true

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Speaker 1: crime expertise of our of our colleague, Scott Benjamin on

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00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:55,280
Speaker 1: this as well. Scott knows what's up. Yeah, and uh

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Speaker 1: and he helped us with a few of these examples

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Speaker 1: that will will mention here. But but but let's lay

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Speaker 1: some ground rules here. So we're gonna be looking for

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Speaker 1: actual masks serial killers or spree killers. Uh. And and

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Speaker 1: we're discounting any kind of mass that was used purely

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Speaker 1: as a disguise, like a fake beard, false hair, etcetera. Um.

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Speaker 1: And also we have we're gonna require that the mask

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Speaker 1: be used during the commission of the crime itself, because

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Speaker 1: that's what we see in these slasher movies. Right. It's

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Speaker 1: not that Jason goes home afterwards and where's the hockey

399
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Speaker 1: mask and his den It's not that, uh, you know,

400
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:35,439
Speaker 1: it's not that he's wearing the hockey mask to blend

401
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,720
Speaker 1: in during a hockey game. He is using it, uh

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00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:42,800
Speaker 1: for some varied effect during the crime itself. The most

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Speaker 1: notable example, and imagine this is the one that a

404
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Speaker 1: lot of you are thinking of is the Zodiac Killer. Now,

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Speaker 1: this was not the case during all of the Zodiac

406
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,600
Speaker 1: Killers crimes, right, just some of them, right uh now,

407
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 1: to remind everybody who we're talking about, this was the

408
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Speaker 1: Northern California serial killer who was at if during the

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Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. Identity as of this recording still unknown,

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Speaker 1: but specifically the September nineteen sixty nine attack at Lake

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Speaker 1: Barry Essa, he wore a black executioner type hood with

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Speaker 1: clip on sunglasses over the eyeholes and a Zodiac symbol

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00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:25,640
Speaker 1: branded bib uh. Kind of an awkward sounding mask really,

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Speaker 1: and and if you you look on mine you can

415
00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:31,560
Speaker 1: see illustrations of this. It does look a little bit goofy,

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00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:35,359
Speaker 1: a little bit awkward, but also frightening, and that seems

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00:22:35,359 --> 00:22:37,679
Speaker 1: to have probably been the the effect, one of the

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00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:40,199
Speaker 1: effects that he was going after. It seems like he

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00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:43,440
Speaker 1: might have been trying this out, experimenting with it as

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00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 1: a means of intimidating targets during daytime attacks, but other

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00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:51,320
Speaker 1: attacks didn't did not involve the mask. And then there's

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Speaker 1: the less famous but still very well known Phantom Killer

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Speaker 1: six string of killings and tech arcana. This was a

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00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:02,600
Speaker 1: lover's lane attack or wore a white mask with holes

425
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 1: cut out for the eyes and mouth. And this was

426
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: actually the basis for the horror film The Town That

427
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: Dreaded Sundown. I think very loosely based. Yes, But but

428
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:15,480
Speaker 1: but that just description may summon, you know, the memories

429
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 1: of that VHS tape cover for that VHS tape which

430
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 1: had that that killer on the front. Well, when I

431
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 1: think about movies with a white sack over the head,

432
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 1: I obviously go to Friday the Thirteenth, Part two, before

433
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:29,200
Speaker 1: Jason took on the hockey mask. That's right, That's something

434
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:31,719
Speaker 1: that it's easy to forget if you're if you're not

435
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: like a hardcore Friday of their Teeth fan, Right, is

436
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 1: that he didn't get the hockey mask till which movie,

437
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: the third one? The third one? So he takes it

438
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: from a character character has just got a hockey mask.

439
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 1: Oh wow, if he'd been a baseball umpire, we'd have

440
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 1: a totally different franchise on our hands, wouldn't we That

441
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:54,159
Speaker 1: would be quite odd. Now we've already mentioned Texas Chainsaw Masker,

442
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:57,680
Speaker 1: and of course, uh the real life case that partially

443
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: inspired this movie. As well as is the book The

444
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,879
Speaker 1: Silence of the Lambs, the character of Buffalo Bill and that,

445
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: but and also Alfred Hitchcox psycho the character Norman Bates.

446
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:11,440
Speaker 1: The the real life case that had some degree of

447
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:13,880
Speaker 1: inspiration and all of these was that of ed Geen,

448
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:18,239
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen o six through four, who committed at

449
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: least two murders and mutilated the bodies of corpses that

450
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 1: he pilfered from graveyards and two masks, uh were found

451
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: in his possession that were made from the skin of

452
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 1: two female heads, and these were found in his house

453
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,399
Speaker 1: by police. But there's no indication at least so far

454
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 1: as I've seen, that he ever wore these in the

455
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: commission of his crimes. Wow, I mean at least during

456
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: the murders. I mean, obviously a lot of what this

457
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: guy was doing it can be considered a crime right now.

458
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 1: In another case that was recommended to us by Scott Benjamin,

459
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 1: who again is well versed in all of this, uh,

460
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:53,440
Speaker 1: he points out that during the late nineties early two thousands,

461
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: there was a German serial killer man by the name

462
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 1: of Martin Ney, who wore a black mask and black

463
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: clothing and of in the commission of his crimes, and

464
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: it sounds like it was perhaps a disguise, perhaps camouflage,

465
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: because he committed his crimes at night, but also as

466
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 1: a means of intimidating his young victims. So in the

467
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 1: real cases of mask wearing we've seen here with like

468
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: the Zodiac and with Martine, it sounds like an important

469
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 1: factor is the idea that the mask would make the

470
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: victim more afraid because, like the the killer is playing

471
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 1: some kind of power game. Right, especially important or possibly

472
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:35,679
Speaker 1: important in that Zodiac attack, because again, daylight attack against

473
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 1: more than one victim um a psychological advantage. Now, beyond

474
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,879
Speaker 1: these cases we've discussed here, you really don't find a lot. Now,

475
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 1: I know some of you will find some tidbit you

476
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 1: want to send in it. Certainly, feel free to send

477
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: that into us if there's a case that, uh, that

478
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 1: you think should be added to this, uh, this this pile.

479
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: But but still for the most part, there are very

480
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 1: few masks that are utilized. You look at some of

481
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: these other cases. For instance, John Wayne Gaycy famously dressed

482
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:07,159
Speaker 1: as a clown at fundraising events, parades, and children's parties,

483
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:08,959
Speaker 1: but he didn't wear the get up as part of

484
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: his crimes, and even if he had wouldn't have been

485
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: a mask. Now there's also the case of mass shooter

486
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 1: James Egan Holmes, who wore a gas mask during the

487
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,959
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve Aurora shootings, But in this case, he

488
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 1: was attempting to use tear gas canisters during his attack

489
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: as well, So there seems to be a you know,

490
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: particular reason in that case. And beyond this, you'll find

491
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: a few rare cases here and there of an individual

492
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: uh murder taking place committed by someone in say Halloween mask,

493
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: but certainly the majority of cereal and mass homicides UH

494
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: seem to be unmasked acts. This incongruity between fictional killers

495
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: and real killers makes me think that, uh, that the

496
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: mask must be playing some important psychological role in the

497
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 1: in what horror fiction does. Because masks are not that common.

498
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: It can't just be that this is in hired by

499
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:03,360
Speaker 1: the way the real events went down, right, And likewise,

500
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: we're not we're not pointing this out to say, oh, look,

501
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 1: horror movies are getting it wrong, man, you know, Like, no,

502
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,199
Speaker 1: we're not saying that horror movies should be more like

503
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: real crimes. In fact, I do not really want them

504
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:16,919
Speaker 1: to be like real crimes, right. I agree with with

505
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: that sentiment very much so. But so at this point,

506
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: let's stop and just consider the reasons based on these accounts,

507
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 1: one might actually wear a mask during a murder um

508
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: and we can consider where these examples line up, so

509
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:35,400
Speaker 1: to hide one's identity, to intimidate, to augment one's identity,

510
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: or to become someone else protective purposes like the gas

511
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: mask or one that doesn't really come up in any

512
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,160
Speaker 1: of these cases, but one could conceivably wear it, wear

513
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 1: a mask just because it's cold outside, like I'm thinking

514
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: a ski mask or something. And with the with the

515
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 1: zodiac example, we seem to see an attempt at the

516
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 1: first three, right, but identity protection might well fall behind

517
00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 1: augmentation again. Think of the zodiac some but also just

518
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 1: that intimidation factor again. Broad daylight attack on two individuals

519
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:08,479
Speaker 1: and it's thought that he he may have you know,

520
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,360
Speaker 1: he may have wished to benefit from some sort of

521
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: a shock uh feature in his attack, but he was

522
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:17,199
Speaker 1: also assuming in identity, right, I means yeah, because he

523
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: had the zodiac symbol, and this seems to fall in

524
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 1: line with the identity that he projected in his letters

525
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: to the media. Now let's stopped to think though about

526
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: the various reasons not to wear a mask during your crimes.

527
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 1: Reasons that I can think, uh, you know, must have

528
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: presented themselves to these individuals who attempted to use mass

529
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: in their in their crimes. First of all, it's highly

530
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: conspicuous if you're standing around a park, uh, dressed in

531
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: a black hood with a with a crazy symbol on

532
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: your chest. Uh, people are gonna probably take notice. Also,

533
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be it's liable to limit your senses,

534
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: especially your vision. You're gonna you're gonna have a hard

535
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 1: time seeing what you're doing. It's also liable to be

536
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: a bit uncomfortable, and it's a calling card which might

537
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: be desirable uh to you. But also they can certainly

538
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: play against you. For instance, UH looked at a rare

539
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: case of an individual. This is a spree killer named

540
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: Daniel Gonzalez from two thousand four who committed at least

541
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: one murder while wearing a hockey mask inspired by Jason Vorhees.

542
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: But the mask in this case ended up with the

543
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: victims DNA on it and was used in his conviction.

544
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: I think an important point and to think keep in

545
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: mind and all of this too, though, is when you

546
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: look at the modus operandi of so many serial and

547
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: mask killers. Serial killers especially often work by surprise and subterfuge.

548
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: In either case, it often makes far more sense not

549
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: to look like a monster or a weirdo, but rather

550
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: to look exactly like yourself or or like a normal

551
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: human at least even if you disguise yourself slightly in

552
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: some fashion. Yeah, they're probably just trying to look like anybody. Yeah. Ultimately,

553
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: wearing a mask is not a careful thing to do.

554
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: And being careful that's that's ah, that's part in martial

555
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: to organize serial killers, especially people like Ted Bundy, John

556
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 1: Wayne Gacy, rather than of course a disorganized serial killers

557
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: that are going to be more uh you know, impulse based.

558
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: So what is this masking incongruity between real serial killers

559
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: in the killers of horror fiction? Tell us, Well, I

560
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: think we're onto something. Uh. First of all, we just

561
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: mass traditions, Like we've long used mass to tell stories.

562
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: So if we tell stories about fantastic killers, uh, in

563
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: our horror movies, we're gonna use masks again. Like it's

564
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: just two it's just it's just such a part, a

565
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: rich part of our history. But I think ultimately has

566
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 1: far It has far less to do with with with

567
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: actual serial killers and what they're doing, and far more

568
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: to do with how we're processing the idea that the

569
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: human beings are capable of these crimes. Yeah, what we

570
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: think about them, what they represent in our fiction, not

571
00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: what real murderers are actually like. Now that note's take

572
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: another break, and when we come back, we're going to

573
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:07,959
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about executioners, mobs, high priests, and uh,

574
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: and of course the Purge movies. Thank thank alright, we're

575
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: back now. Joe, you're a big Purge fan. I am not.

576
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: I've never seen a Purge movie. I have to admit

577
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: that I have not either, but I did really enjoy

578
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 1: the Rick and Morty episode that has a Purge planet

579
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 1: and it sounds like an unsustainable planet. Yeah. Well, the

580
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: Purge concept, for anyone was not familiar, as the whole

581
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: idea is like one night a year where all crimes

582
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: are legal, mainly murder. That's what the horror movies mostly

583
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: interested in, but conceivably other crimes are also legal. I'm

584
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: not exactly sure how the legislation works. So yeah, you

585
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: have to wonder why do people focus on murder when

586
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: they could just focus on trying to steal as much

587
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: money as possible. Yeah, or ignore environmental regulations. I don't know,

588
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: There's so many things you could do, right, I guess

589
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: there's like that's the one night of the year the

590
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: company does all the polluting. We store it up all

591
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 1: year and then they just dump. Well, we've had four

592
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: Purge movies thus far, well one parody Purge movie on

593
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: top of that, it's not related. And then there's a

594
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: Purge TV show coming out. Maybe the Purge TV show,

595
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: we'll get into white collar Purge crimes. Oh man, one can.

596
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: One can only hope. But in these movies and in

597
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: the the other things they've inspired, like the Rick and

598
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: Morty that you see this idea that people are taken

599
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: to the streets and jumping into each other's homes wearing masks,

600
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: often really well designed masks. They're often very impressive and creative. Uh.

601
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:34,719
Speaker 1: And in Rick and Morty they kind of present this

602
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 1: idea that people have been working all year on their

603
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: Purge masks, you know, like they're going to a science

604
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: fiction convention. Oh, is their cosplay. Yeah, except there purging right,

605
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: But you knows is there's the fantastic side to all

606
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: of this. But but certainly we do see masks worn

607
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: by protesters, terrorists, mob participants. You can be anonymous when

608
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: you wear these masks and these hoods or what have you.

609
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: And there's also that in imidation factor. Just think of

610
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: you know, groups like the klu Klux Klan, etcetera. Yeah,

611
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: there's the idea that that putting on a mask can

612
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: bring out are the worst of us, the worst part

613
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: of humanity can escape when your identity is hidden. Yeah.

614
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 1: And this this gets into a number of different psychological effects,

615
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: some that we've talked on the show about. For instance,

616
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: in clothed cognition um. This has com up on the

617
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: podcast a couple of times. The roles and attributes associated

618
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: with a particular uniform or costume influence the self reflection

619
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: of the individual and their choices their actions. And this

620
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: can be as simple as you dress like a doctor

621
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: and someone hands you a clipboard and you start feeling

622
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: you feel a little smarter, a little more confident. Yeah.

623
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: You you can give people a sense of authority by

624
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: addressing them in a certain way. Address people in Uh,

625
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: in like a military uniform, you might be able to

626
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: make them feel more powerful and aggressive and authoritative. Right.

627
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: It's kind of a reminder that when we dress in

628
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: costumes for Halloween. Uh, you know, we're we're playing with

629
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: the deeper magic of the human condition. A past episode

630
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: of stuffable in your mind. My Halloween costume made me

631
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 1: do it. Uh. We go into this a little bit

632
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:10,919
Speaker 1: and uh, and we've discussed them among different studies. There's

633
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: one study about how masked children take more candy than

634
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: unmasked children. That was a nine study. Yeah, there are

635
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: a few studies along these lines, and whether correctly or not,

636
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: people have long associated masks with like impunity to do evil.

637
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: Like in medieval Catholic France, there was this thing called

638
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: the Feast of Fools that I was reading about. It

639
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: was a feast that was celebrated by by members of

640
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,319
Speaker 1: the church. That was originally, I think, a more liturgically

641
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: grounded observance of inversions, as in Jesus saying the first

642
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: she'll be last, and the last she'll be first. But

643
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: I think over time it developed into something with a

644
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 1: reputation for mischief, like people disguise their identities with masks, costumes,

645
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: or faces covered in mud or dung, and there would

646
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,720
Speaker 1: be wild partying, gambling. Mockery of authority is often taking

647
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: place within the church itself, so you'd go in the

648
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:06,240
Speaker 1: church and gamble and make fun of the bishop or something.

649
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: It's also associated with the quote boy Bishop tradition, where

650
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: you'd take some random boy, dress him up like the bishop,

651
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: and he'd get to be in charge for the day.

652
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: So I might say, you know, the old bishop smells

653
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: like doo doo, Go take a bath um and this

654
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: This seemed to go on through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,

655
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 1: despite a lot of attempts by the Church to eliminate it,

656
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 1: or to at least eliminate the wilder aspects of the

657
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: feast and make it more pious and apparently Pope Innocent.

658
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 1: The third tried to ban masks, reasoning that it was

659
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: the masking which allowed people to engage in the sinful

660
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: misbehavior which they would not engage in if their faces

661
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: were visible, though of course, there was another element here

662
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: in that the masking often had people not just hiding

663
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: their own identity but assuming another, like you could put

664
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: on a crusader mask or a Lady in waiting mask

665
00:35:55,200 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: or a jester mask. Interesting. I'm also reminded of the

666
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: tradition and in various alpine regions where you'd have the

667
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 1: crampus costumes come out closer to Christmas and they would

668
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: go on these rampages. And that has of course been

669
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: a that's been an area of concern where people would say, Oh,

670
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: the cramp the crampuses are getting a little out of hand.

671
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: We need a crack down on the crampuses. They're scaring

672
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: the children a little bit too much. They're getting too

673
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: into it. Crampus knocked is over the line this year. Um,

674
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: you know, I I've I've neglected to mention, of course,

675
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: the the V for Vendetta masks that the Guy Fox

676
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: mass that were embraced by the organization anonymous. If I

677
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: guess you can kind of a loose organization and non

678
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: centralized organization, well do you mean the idea that, But

679
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 1: potentially a mask can help with d individuation where you

680
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 1: come to believe, you know, I'm not this individual person

681
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: with individual responsibilities, but I'm sort of like a feature

682
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: of a group, right. And it's also kind of reminder

683
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:58,320
Speaker 1: of just how disconnected the mask can become from the

684
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 1: original thing. Like we we kind of don't think about

685
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:03,399
Speaker 1: it with with Jason Vorhees, like we don't think, oh, man,

686
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: it's a movie about hockey. We just know that's Jason's mask.

687
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 1: And likewise, if you see a video, like a grainy

688
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: video on YouTube and somebody's wearing the Guy Fox mask,

689
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,359
Speaker 1: we don't go, oh, guy Fox, or we don't think

690
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: oh v for Vendetta, that was a great Alan Moore. Uh,

691
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:22,319
Speaker 1: comic book, the graphic novels amazing. Now we think, oh,

692
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: it's the it's the anonymous organization. Now. One thing you

693
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: have to wonder is when you see people behaving badly

694
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 1: in groups, is it because the group provides anonymity or

695
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: for some other reason associated with being in a group,

696
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 1: Like is anonymity alone enough to get people to break

697
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: social taboos? I was looking at one study on this.

698
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,800
Speaker 1: I don't think it looks like a particularly good study.

699
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: It's a small sample size, it's kind of a strange

700
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: test condition. But for what it's worth, given these caveats, Uh,

701
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: this was the nineteen seventies and the Journal of Social Psychology.

702
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: But is this one by Vorhees Jay at All? No,

703
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:02,279
Speaker 1: this is by Mathis and Guest called anonymity and group

704
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:05,839
Speaker 1: anti social behavior. They got twenty six people, sixteen men

705
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:09,720
Speaker 1: and ten women from a personality course at Western Illinois

706
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:13,240
Speaker 1: University UH and they tried to get them to judge

707
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 1: how willing they would be to engage in what they

708
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: called anti social behavior. The actual reality of this was

709
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: carrying a sign through the college cafeteria reading masturbation is

710
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 1: fun um under four conditions, which would be alone, undisguised,

711
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: alone disguised, in a group undisguised, and in a group disguised.

712
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: And the subjects were basically they were more willing to

713
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:41,240
Speaker 1: carry the sign. They would do it for less money

714
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: if they could do it, if they could do it

715
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:45,959
Speaker 1: in a group, and if they could do it disguised.

716
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: So both conditions seemed to make people more willing to

717
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: do this action that they were calling anti social behavior.

718
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 1: But as I've said, I don't know, this study seems

719
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: a little iffy to me. I love the experiment, though

720
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: more delightful experiments I've seen. Well, they said anonymity apparently

721
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: they thought was an explanation for group anti social behavior. Now, there,

722
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: of course, a ton of different mass traditions throughout the

723
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 1: world a lot of times involving groups wearing the masks,

724
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: and we can't mention all of them here. Maybe we'll

725
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:20,319
Speaker 1: come back and do it in an episode in the

726
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:22,359
Speaker 1: future they will explore more of them. But I ran

727
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: across an interesting one from the Philippines though, a Catholic

728
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 1: Holy Weak tradition called Marionis festival. And in this you

729
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: see a number of different masks worn, um, people taking

730
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: on various roles from you know, the Passion of the Christ,

731
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 1: the Crucifixion, and so forth. But in part of it

732
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:46,760
Speaker 1: you see masked executioners of chasing the Figure of Longeness

733
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,720
Speaker 1: through the streets. This, of course, is the the figure

734
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 1: that's supposed to have actually driven the spear into Christ's side.

735
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: But in this uh, this mask though, Uh, he's depicted

736
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: as a cyclops. Yeah. And then when they and then

737
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: when they finally catch him, uh, they execute him after

738
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: he testifies to Christ's power. That seems like a weird

739
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 1: version somehow has something to do in my mind with

740
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: like the mine ads, uh, you know, taking on their

741
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: their skins and costumes in a way, disguising their identities

742
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: when they behave in a frenzy as a mob now

743
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: we should also point out that executioners have worn the

744
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 1: mass as well to protect their identity and or to

745
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: invoke some key narrative point in the proceedings right, divine justice,

746
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: the faceless actions of the state, etcetera. And sometimes these

747
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 1: are mere hoods. But you can also find examples of

748
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,840
Speaker 1: medieval masks that incorporate iron or made of iron that

749
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: the executioner would wear. I want to come back to

750
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: this in a minute with reference to Jason Vorhees. Okay, well,

751
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 1: let's head back to Jason Vorhees territory at this point.

752
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of what we've talked about

753
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: here gives us the emma we need to understand what's

754
00:40:56,080 --> 00:41:00,760
Speaker 1: going on, sometimes intentionally, but more often I think accidentally. Uh.

755
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 1: In the creation of slasher films. I mean, that's one

756
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:06,280
Speaker 1: of the wonderful things about about horror movies and b movies,

757
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:10,319
Speaker 1: I think, is that oftentimes, uh, the creators don't even

758
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: realize like the potent symbols and UH and narrative elements

759
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: that they're playing with. Well, yeah, I mean sometimes people

760
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: ask like ask me, why do you like horror movies? Like,

761
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: with the implication being that horror movies are mostly bad,

762
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: which I agree they are, and the most movies of

763
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 1: all kinds I think are bad. Um, but they're mostly bad.

764
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: They're stupid and all that. And I agree that most

765
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: horror movies are bad and stupid, but they're they're very

766
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: psychologically interesting and culturally interesting in a way that not

767
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 1: all say, bad dramas or other types that are bad

768
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 1: comedies are horror movies, I feel like are almost always,

769
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:54,439
Speaker 1: even when they're not very well made narratives, they are

770
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:59,479
Speaker 1: revealing about the the creatures and the cultures that made them. Yeah,

771
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: and and about this, you know what is a widely

772
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:07,360
Speaker 1: viewed and often communally viewed slasher film but a public

773
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: mask ritual. I mean, it's it's especially easy to think

774
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:13,320
Speaker 1: about this when we attend again these haunted attractions that

775
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: feature actors dressed up as these various masked murderer characters.

776
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: You know, especially uh a Jason Vories or Michael Myers

777
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: or leather Face, you know something where the mask is

778
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: is a found item essentially, or it's easily acquired at

779
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: the grocery store. Um. I I wonder if they connect

780
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,840
Speaker 1: with these deeper traditions. Uh so, you know, yeah, crazy

781
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: realistic monster, makeup, special effects. They're cool and all, but

782
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 1: there's something about the mask itself. You know, this is

783
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,759
Speaker 1: not merely a human, but a human playing a part,

784
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: taking on a role, and perhaps the authority of a

785
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: primal force, even the authority of a divine force. Yeah,

786
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: I think there's something to that, because you know, honestly,

787
00:42:56,520 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: don't we see this in the evolution of the way

788
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: we we depict Jason Vorhees mask on VHS and DVD covers. Well,

789
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 1: if you look at the evolution of Friday thirteenth, you know,

790
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,760
Speaker 1: VHS box art or posters for the films, the first

791
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: few movies just emphasized murder. They're just like, okay, there's

792
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: slaughter going on. But starting somewhere after Jason puts on

793
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 1: the familiar hockey mask and we get to see the

794
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:30,399
Speaker 1: hockey mask repeated, the mask becomes the focus of the franchise, right.

795
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 1: It stops being about how many people will he kill

796
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 1: this time? It starts being about the mask, And often

797
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: the mask is like glowing or something. Yeah. Like, there's

798
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 1: some especially on some of the VHS covers I was

799
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: looking at, and the ones I remember from my childhood

800
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:48,359
Speaker 1: seeing on the shelves there's like there's a glowing light

801
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: behind the mask shining through the mask. Holes in the

802
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 1: hockey mask are all like they're they're like Spielberg shafts

803
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 1: of light. You know. Yeah, it's like it's like God

804
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: is speaking to us through Jason Vorhees, Like it's this.

805
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: There's something to this, man, I mean, it gets this

806
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 1: in a minute. And it's strange given how few supernatural

807
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: elements there are in Friday the Thirteenth, right, I mean,

808
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:13,760
Speaker 1: there are supernatural elements to present themselves. Yes, he's essentially

809
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: this undead creature. Eventually, but part six he becomes basically

810
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: a zombie. Right, But there's not a lot of divine

811
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 1: supernatural elements here, at least not on the surface. But

812
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: then look at those VHS covers. Look at the divine

813
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:30,240
Speaker 1: light shining or the demonic light shining through that mask.

814
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,439
Speaker 1: I think that that also that in contemplating real life

815
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:37,439
Speaker 1: serial killers, we we like the idea of dehumanizing them

816
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 1: in our fiction because surely they don't look like everyone else.

817
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: I mean, and surely especially they don't look like they

818
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: can't look like me, But so we have to obscure

819
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: them with a mask. They're transformed by the mask and

820
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 1: underneath that mask, then they're they're surely going to be

821
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: some sort of fleshly monstrosity or deformity that denotes inner

822
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: distortion as well, because of course that's the the other

823
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: old trope, right. Uh, that just goes goes back through

824
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: most of human history, that that the outer distortion represents

825
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,760
Speaker 1: inner distortion. Yeah. As much as we love monsters in

826
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: in fiction and myth, I mean, one of the sad

827
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: things about the idea of a monster, like the roots

828
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:16,240
Speaker 1: of that word, going back to this superstition that people

829
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 1: with abnormal physical appearances reflect some kind of sinfulness or

830
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: curse or monstrosity and their character. Yeah. So the unmasking

831
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: scene where you get to see a distorted face underneath,

832
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, oh, thank goodness, my grotesque understanding

833
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: of the world is confirmed. Um, ugly people do ugly things,

834
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: which is ridiculous when you when you call it out

835
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 1: like that. But uh, but I think it is that

836
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: they are these examples are tying into that tradition. Uh.

837
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: It's also interesting to observe that many mass traditions also

838
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: seem to employ and unmasking. We saw this in some

839
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: of the first nation's rituals that we explored in the

840
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:57,760
Speaker 1: Winter People episodes of what I Think last year, where

841
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 1: if you remove the mask, you're able to cure an

842
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: individual that has been overcome by a particular ritualistic madness.

843
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and because the ritual mask is is a

844
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 1: magical item and it denotes this barrier between us and

845
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: the other. So I, in preparing for this episode, came

846
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: across a book that I thought had some really interesting

847
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 1: insights here about Jason Vorhees specifically, but it can tell

848
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: us more about the role of masks in horror in general. Um.

849
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 1: And this is a book called Horror Zone, The Cultural

850
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 1: Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema, published in two thousand and

851
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: ten by ib Trus, edited by a scholar named Ian Conrich.

852
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 1: And there's a chapter on the Friday the Thirteen films

853
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: written by Conrich himself, And so he starts by drawing

854
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 1: comparisons between the Friday the Thirteenth series with Jason and

855
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: the Hockey Mask and the tradition of the Theater of

856
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: the Grand Genial in Paris, which went from eight to

857
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two and which specialized in these blood bath

858
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 1: dramas full of torture and mutilation and murder and gore.

859
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 1: And there were these big fan ends of the Grand

860
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 1: gain Yall who'd come to the theater all the time,

861
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:07,359
Speaker 1: the genial airs. And there was a drama scholar named

862
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:09,879
Speaker 1: mel Gordon who did a study of the Grand gain

863
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 1: y'all that Conridge discusses to get a sense of what

864
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 1: this theater was like. Here's a section that Conridge quotes

865
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,920
Speaker 1: from Gordon. There's a company manager for the theater who

866
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 1: quote frequently purchased different animal eyeballs from taxidermists, not only

867
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: for visual realism when characters eyes were gouaged out, but

868
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 1: for the organ's ability to bounce when they hit the

869
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 1: stage floor. Now that's some real commitment that that's a

870
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 1: stage drama. These little horror plays they were putting on

871
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: in Paris, and they wanted real, realistic gore effects, and

872
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 1: for some reason people were eating this up. One of

873
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: the interesting things to me is that Gordon says that

874
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,240
Speaker 1: many of these plays were short, and a regular evenings

875
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 1: program at a theater might include three gruesome horror plays

876
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: and three comedies or farces, and they would alternate back

877
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 1: and forth. And this type of lineup where you'd have

878
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,800
Speaker 1: a gruesome horror play with gore and then a comedy

879
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:03,959
Speaker 1: or a force and then keep going back and forth.

880
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 1: Was known as hot and cold showers. Well, this makes

881
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 1: me think though of how, especially a lot of the

882
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: horror movies, you'll have that up and down right of

883
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: like bad comedy and horrific violence. Absolutely, yeah, that's that's

884
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: what I was highlighting here. Uh yeah, there is a

885
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: sense of of wanting to like chill you with some

886
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,399
Speaker 1: kind of horrific site and then make you laugh. Now.

887
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 1: Of course, Connor says that the Friday the Thirteenth films

888
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:32,239
Speaker 1: are comparable to Grand Guineall productions in their emphasis on

889
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: slaughter and the the illusions used to create the appearance

890
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: of gore. So Sean Cunningham, the director of the first

891
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 1: Friday the Thirteenth movie, discusses how the makeup effects created

892
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 1: by Tom Savini for the movie We're so good and

893
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 1: so convincing that he would be tempted to keep the

894
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: scene running and show much more explicit gore than would

895
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 1: normally be warranted by good filmmaking. Um, just because they

896
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:58,879
Speaker 1: had put so much work into the blood and gore

897
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: effects and they looked so realistic and so good, which

898
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: I've never read that before, but that makes a lot

899
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 1: of sense to me, Like the turn toward an emphasis

900
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 1: on blood and gore in these slasher movies basically just

901
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 1: being a product of the fact that their makeup effects

902
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 1: people were so good. Yeah, you know, I think back

903
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:19,280
Speaker 1: to some of the terrible horror movies I've seen where

904
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:22,480
Speaker 1: like where they just do not know to cut away

905
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 1: from the gore effect because the first like at for

906
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:28,839
Speaker 1: a second, the gore effect is highly effective, and then

907
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: you start staring at it a little bit longer and

908
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: you begin to see the cracks in the facade. Well,

909
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, you know a movie that's got

910
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:37,279
Speaker 1: a fancy car in it, and there are a lot

911
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,080
Speaker 1: of scenes with that car because it's like, the filmmakers,

912
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 1: we paid to lease this car, you know, we might

913
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 1: as well get a lot out of it. It's like,

914
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,800
Speaker 1: once you've sunk enough costs and to get a really

915
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: good thing, you're tempted to just over indulge in it

916
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: because of the sunk costs. Yeah, if if you you're

917
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: not having to worry about using Nicholas Cage for just

918
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: one hour of filmmaking, if you've got if you've got

919
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:00,759
Speaker 1: him for the full week, you just let him go, right.

920
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 1: But so getting back to the mask, Conrad has these

921
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 1: thoughts on the role of Jason's mask, and some of

922
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: it has to do with Jason functioning very much like

923
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:14,320
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, an executioner and playing the same

924
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: cultural role as one. In writing on Grand Guenial, Gordon

925
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:23,720
Speaker 1: writes that these theater performances, the gory ones on stage quote,

926
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:28,279
Speaker 1: traded on sensationalistic plots and the exploitation of their audiences

927
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: visceral curiosity. In a way, they acted as fantasy substitutes

928
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 1: for the guillotine and its public executions. Now that's interesting

929
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:41,799
Speaker 1: because so public executions with large audiences used to be

930
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 1: a regular feature of public life in many societies, especially

931
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,879
Speaker 1: you know societies in Europe where they've more recently been

932
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: phased out, either through abolition of the death penalty or

933
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 1: through massive reduction, and how often it's applied through changing

934
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 1: the venue to make them private instead of public. There's

935
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: clearly something that rove huge crowds out to see the

936
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 1: workings of the guillotine or the Halifax jibbit or the gallows,

937
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:08,920
Speaker 1: the burning at the stake, the breaking on the wheel,

938
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: and when you couldn't go out and see that kind

939
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:15,800
Speaker 1: of stuff anymore, did whatever drove people to attend those

940
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 1: things disappear? I would say, probably not right, that there's

941
00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:22,359
Speaker 1: still going to be this hunger, But how are you

942
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: going to appease it? So, Conrad writes, quote, Like Halloween's

943
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 1: Michael Myers and the Texas Chainsaw Masker's leather face, the

944
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:35,920
Speaker 1: executioner's mask establishes a cold, mechanical and faceless killer, devoid

945
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 1: of personality. The mask also adds the detachment that the executioner,

946
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: the professional killer requires in order to function unhindered. Jason's

947
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 1: hockey mask is so much part of his identity, his

948
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 1: one essential accessory, that without it he is incomplete and

949
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: maybe even unable to function convincingly as the executioner and so.

950
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: Author Allie S. Kennetti, who wrote a book called Crowds

951
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:04,839
Speaker 1: and Power, wrote that the power of the mask lies

952
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 1: in the fact that it is unlike a human face

953
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 1: rigid quote. What gives the mask it's interdictory quality is

954
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 1: the fact that it never changes. Everything behind the mask

955
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:20,839
Speaker 1: is mysterious above all its separates, and of course interdictory.

956
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:25,480
Speaker 1: Here means enforcing a prohibition. Right, the executioner, the embodiment

957
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 1: of the harshest end of the law and of justice,

958
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 1: is masked in order to be made without a human face,

959
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: because human faces, even even mean human faces, can convey uncertainty, individuality, vulnerability,

960
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 1: even maybe sympathy, and the inscrutable mask sort of leaves

961
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 1: the victim feeling baffled and subservient, being put to death

962
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: by a force beyond human appeal. So this makes me

963
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:53,320
Speaker 1: think about what's going on with this big face reveal

964
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 1: that happens so often towards the end of these movies,

965
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 1: you know, like when Jason's mask gets knocked off and

966
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,960
Speaker 1: you get to see his face. Conridge thinks that these

967
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:06,360
Speaker 1: reveals are designed to show always that the killer is

968
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 1: not just a normal human wearing the mask, but some

969
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 1: sort of aberration more in it than a he. And

970
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:15,879
Speaker 1: I think, if this interpretation is correct, it's sort of

971
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: as if you saw the execution or raise his mask

972
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:22,640
Speaker 1: to you, and where you expected to see a human

973
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 1: face that might show you an expression of pity. Instead,

974
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 1: what you get is something just as monstrous and inhuman

975
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:32,839
Speaker 1: underneath the mask. It's almost like taking the mask off

976
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:36,359
Speaker 1: and showing you Jason's monster face is letting you know

977
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,399
Speaker 1: that there is no appeal, there's no chance that he's

978
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 1: going to change his mind about this. Has anyone ever

979
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,840
Speaker 1: made a slasher film where there is just like a

980
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 1: black hole underneath the mask? I think that would be

981
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 1: a nice psychedelic twist on it. Well, it's just a

982
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:55,160
Speaker 1: complete void and no faces, absolute darkness. Yeah, that's interesting.

983
00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:57,880
Speaker 1: I've definitely never seen it. Look at us Stewart is

984
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:01,319
Speaker 1: given away wonderful slasher movie ideas in this uh So,

985
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: Conridge quotes a scholar named Bernard Veldt who has written that,

986
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: since Jason wears a hockey mask, and I think this

987
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,280
Speaker 1: is a pretty terrible take, he is an angry god

988
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:14,800
Speaker 1: quote playing a sport or a game with human life.

989
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 1: But Conrich, I think, does not agree with this take,

990
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: and I don't agree with this take either. Instead, he

991
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: he points out that the movies emphasize Jason not as

992
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: a game player, but as an efficient, skilled professional, sort

993
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:32,560
Speaker 1: of rapidly and systematically dispatching his victims one after another,

994
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: with no particular indication that he's playing games or getting

995
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 1: any personal sense of enjoyment out of it. And I

996
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: would say. In other words, this means he's behaving like

997
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 1: a medieval headsman with a full schedule of executions lined

998
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:47,040
Speaker 1: up for the day. And I think this is correct.

999
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: This is how Jason is portrayed in the Friday the

1000
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:54,160
Speaker 1: Thirteenth movies. He is efficient and systematic and business like.

1001
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:58,880
Speaker 1: He it's like watching someone do their job. Yeah, and

1002
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:00,320
Speaker 1: this is I think this is one of the reasons

1003
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: why for so long everyone was like, Oh, when's he

1004
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 1: gonna fight Freddie? Because Freddie is the complete opposite of

1005
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:10,719
Speaker 1: that Freddie. Yeah, yeah, fred Freddie is a sadist and uh,

1006
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 1: and Jason is a pro And personally, I think this

1007
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:17,960
Speaker 1: Jason as professional executioner model is highly salient as to

1008
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:21,359
Speaker 1: what role these films are playing culturally and why they

1009
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:24,759
Speaker 1: are what they are, and what role the mask plays. Um.

1010
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: Think about the way that in movies like this, the

1011
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:31,399
Speaker 1: murders generally don't come as a surprise, you know. Rather,

1012
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 1: there there's sort of a series of repeated cues that

1013
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:37,400
Speaker 1: a character is about to meet the acts. Uh. The

1014
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 1: character gets isolated from the others, their music and film

1015
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:44,040
Speaker 1: pacing cues to let you know that a murderer is coming.

1016
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 1: They're certain cliches and tropes that are invoked. Is anybody there?

1017
00:55:48,719 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 1: And then it happens, And it strikes me as very

1018
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 1: much like sort of having the next condemned prisoner being

1019
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:58,440
Speaker 1: brought up to the executioner's block and allowed a prayer

1020
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:02,320
Speaker 1: or final words or whatever in this repeated and predictable pattern.

1021
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:06,440
Speaker 1: Here's another parallel. How often the murders and slasher movies

1022
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 1: can feel like punishments for particular sins, taboo violations, or

1023
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: just general character flaws that the victims have prominently displayed

1024
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:18,840
Speaker 1: in the scenes right beforehand. Oh yes, this is a

1025
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:21,839
Speaker 1: this is a classic part of the whole genre. Right,

1026
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:24,799
Speaker 1: you have a campful of horrible kids, and you're gonna

1027
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 1: have to get through all of those before you get

1028
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: to that that final girl who actually has virtue, right,

1029
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 1: the one, the one who's the innocent, who's undeserving of

1030
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 1: the punishment. So yeah, I think there's something that Connors

1031
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:37,560
Speaker 1: is really onto here. I think the model of Jason

1032
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:41,560
Speaker 1: as a sort of execution or of European history, the

1033
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:45,399
Speaker 1: sovereign's representative, there's something to that. And of course, as

1034
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 1: we mentioned a minute ago, the mask really helps with

1035
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:51,640
Speaker 1: the execution or persona. I think it's highly possible that

1036
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 1: a major role played by films like The Friday the

1037
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: Thirteenth films is they're tapping into something that was lost

1038
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 1: when public executions went away, This desire people had to

1039
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:09,000
Speaker 1: see some kind of disembodied arm of justice enacting systematic

1040
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 1: violence against people who break taboos. You know this, this

1041
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 1: makes me think of Paris Hilton. Um. I don't know

1042
00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 1: if you remember, there was a Harmony that came out

1043
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:21,560
Speaker 1: the House of Wax. I believe itself a remake of

1044
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 1: past wax movies, just like a legacy of you know,

1045
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:27,800
Speaker 1: the wax based horror movies. But it was a pretty

1046
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 1: big deal at the time because Paris Hilton wasn't like

1047
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 1: kind of peak uh fame slash infamy. Um. And she

1048
00:57:35,600 --> 00:57:38,440
Speaker 1: has a role in the film and she is killed

1049
00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:42,880
Speaker 1: by the unknown murder and you can kind of see

1050
00:57:42,880 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 1: that as like this weird and I and and kind

1051
00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:48,760
Speaker 1: of I have to say, unsettling, like the public desire

1052
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 1: for the fictional executioner to take care of Paris Hilton,

1053
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 1: for the for the population people. Yeah, the movie was

1054
00:57:57,320 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 1: advertised Wait did you already just say that the movie

1055
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:02,600
Speaker 1: was adver ties as come watch Paris Die. Basically, yeah,

1056
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 1: that was basically the techno that. I don't know if

1057
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 1: that was the actual tablet line, but things and there

1058
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:11,560
Speaker 1: were things advertising the movie that said that, And I

1059
00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:14,000
Speaker 1: mean that's like, on one hand, you could see, you know,

1060
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm a big fan of Paris Hilton

1061
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: or anything, but there is something kind of like nasty,

1062
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: maybe somewhat misogynistic about that, just like taking some prominent,

1063
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:28,760
Speaker 1: maybe rich, annoying female celebrity and saying, now you all

1064
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 1: get to see what it looks like if she gets murdered.

1065
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:34,320
Speaker 1: But this does make me think there's a possibility for

1066
00:58:34,120 --> 00:58:36,400
Speaker 1: for this for the future. Again, here's another free idea

1067
00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 1: for everyone out there. Um, it's essentially celebrity Big Brother.

1068
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 1: But but you have Jason Vorhees on hand to dispatch

1069
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:49,600
Speaker 1: fictionally of course, to dispatch everybody in the Big Brother House.

1070
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:54,200
Speaker 1: And that's every season like whoever the most uh you know, um,

1071
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:58,200
Speaker 1: but reviled the celebrities are too. Given um, given season,

1072
00:58:58,320 --> 00:58:59,919
Speaker 1: then those are the ones that are brought on the show.

1073
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 1: That sort of what these movies are though. But I

1074
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 1: wonder if it gets it, maybe it gets some of

1075
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 1: that public distaste out of their system too. It's almost

1076
00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:10,600
Speaker 1: like a it's like a mock execution, you know, it's

1077
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 1: almost like a parody uh taking place, you know, and

1078
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:18,840
Speaker 1: like maybe thanks to the House of Wax, people were

1079
00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:21,200
Speaker 1: able to say, Okay, we're all right with Paris. Now

1080
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 1: she's paid for her crimes, we can move on. We

1081
00:59:23,720 --> 00:59:25,720
Speaker 1: saw her diet in that horror movie. Well, I don't

1082
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:28,120
Speaker 1: remember who the killer was in that movie or if

1083
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:31,320
Speaker 1: a mask was involved, but I do think that that

1084
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,120
Speaker 1: it's correct that the mask is an important part of

1085
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 1: establishing this uh this like disembodied enactment of justice, execution

1086
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:43,440
Speaker 1: or arm of the law kind of punishment. Well, it's

1087
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:46,040
Speaker 1: worth noting that in many of these slasher films there

1088
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:48,600
Speaker 1: may not be an actual mask, but thanks to the

1089
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:52,040
Speaker 1: way it is shot, the killer remains faceless. I'm thinking,

1090
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:54,560
Speaker 1: of course, about the various Dario Orgento films where you

1091
00:59:54,760 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 1: just see hands enacting crimes. Or there's one segment in

1092
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:02,200
Speaker 1: the original vhf us Um anthology film that came out

1093
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:05,560
Speaker 1: where the the killer in the woods, their their face

1094
01:00:05,680 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 1: is always covered by VHS tracking errors. Oh yeah, I

1095
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:12,760
Speaker 1: remember that, which can be interpreted is essentially a kind

1096
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:17,200
Speaker 1: of mask. It's like the medium itself coming for you. Ye. Now,

1097
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 1: another thing I want to say is that all this

1098
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: stuff I've been saying about the Friday the Thirteenth movies,

1099
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:25,400
Speaker 1: it doesn't apply equally across all movies with masked killers.

1100
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:30,920
Speaker 1: I would say a counter example would be better movies, generally,

1101
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:34,360
Speaker 1: better movies that have more likable characters, where you're like

1102
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 1: invested in their survival and their their peril raises your stress.

1103
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:41,040
Speaker 1: You're sort of where you're with the characters. You know.

1104
01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 1: A bad thing about the Friday the Thirteenth movies is

1105
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:47,560
Speaker 1: you're just generally not with the characters. You're not worried

1106
01:00:47,560 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 1: about whether they're going to make it or not. And

1107
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: that's been a long criticism of the Friday the Thirteenth

1108
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:54,720
Speaker 1: movies is that there's something kind of nasty at the

1109
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: core of them where you're not hoping the characters survive.

1110
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:00,280
Speaker 1: You're just waiting to see which one of the gets

1111
01:01:00,360 --> 01:01:04,200
Speaker 1: killed next and how again, making it more kind of

1112
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:08,120
Speaker 1: like going to a public execution. Yeah, the characters without

1113
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:11,320
Speaker 1: masks are kind of, to a certain extent as inhuman

1114
01:01:11,360 --> 01:01:14,400
Speaker 1: as the character in the mask. I wonder how the

1115
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:18,400
Speaker 1: mask functions differently in horror, where you genuinely do like

1116
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:20,840
Speaker 1: the characters. You want them to survive, and you're you're

1117
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:23,320
Speaker 1: trying to see how they will get through it. Well,

1118
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:27,080
Speaker 1: then you're begging for them to, uh, to unmask the villain, right,

1119
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:29,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's kind of like the the ideas,

1120
01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:32,840
Speaker 1: like the law is oppressive and horrible until it goes

1121
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:36,240
Speaker 1: after the people that do not deserve it's it's wrath

1122
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:40,920
Speaker 1: when it becomes unjust, and then we want to see it's, uh,

1123
01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:43,600
Speaker 1: it's secrets uncovered. Then we want to see the executioner's

1124
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: mask ripped from its face. Yeah, maybe that's what's going

1125
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:48,640
Speaker 1: on in the scene. I'm sure you remember this, Robert.

1126
01:01:48,640 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: There's a scene that has never much made sense to

1127
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:54,800
Speaker 1: me in the original Halloween where Michael Myers mask comes

1128
01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:57,720
Speaker 1: off brief briefly and you see his face and then

1129
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:00,440
Speaker 1: he just sort of puts the mask back on. The

1130
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:04,240
Speaker 1: face revealed doesn't really show anything. It's just a guy.

1131
01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:06,840
Speaker 1: It's just a guy in his face. Uh. And I've

1132
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 1: never understood why that's in the movie. Maybe it's it's

1133
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:13,080
Speaker 1: a brief moment of victory, because in Halloween it's not

1134
01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 1: quite the same you're you're very much with Jamie Lee Curtis, like,

1135
01:02:15,920 --> 01:02:18,040
Speaker 1: you know, you want her to get through this. You

1136
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:20,480
Speaker 1: don't want to see her punished or anything. Yeah, that

1137
01:02:20,600 --> 01:02:23,160
Speaker 1: is a weird moment, Like that's one that I legitimately

1138
01:02:23,200 --> 01:02:25,960
Speaker 1: had forgotten that that was a part of the original Halloween.

1139
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:28,320
Speaker 1: It's always a surprising moment and I'm not sure what

1140
01:02:28,320 --> 01:02:32,000
Speaker 1: it means. One quick side note I couldn't finish this

1141
01:02:32,040 --> 01:02:35,600
Speaker 1: episode without mentioning, is I remember the story our colleague

1142
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:37,160
Speaker 1: Ben Boland, one of the hosts of stuff that I

1143
01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:39,880
Speaker 1: don't want you to know and ridiculous history. Uh. He

1144
01:02:40,560 --> 01:02:42,960
Speaker 1: told Uh, he told a group of us one time

1145
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:45,040
Speaker 1: in the office that he got pulled over for driving

1146
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:48,320
Speaker 1: with a werewolf mask on, And I asked him, is

1147
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:50,360
Speaker 1: that true? And he said, yes, it is true. He

1148
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:52,640
Speaker 1: was wearing a werewolf mask driving a car that was

1149
01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 1: in Georgia. He wasn't given a ticket, but the the

1150
01:02:56,240 --> 01:02:58,840
Speaker 1: the cop who pulled him overtold him he could not

1151
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:01,160
Speaker 1: drive with a mask on one and he did. He

1152
01:03:01,200 --> 01:03:04,280
Speaker 1: still doesn't know quite why that is h He's also

1153
01:03:04,360 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 1: he said he'd driven with a batman mask on before

1154
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:08,760
Speaker 1: and never gotten pulled over for that. But did get

1155
01:03:08,840 --> 01:03:11,880
Speaker 1: pulled over for the werewolf mask. Interesting, Well, I mean

1156
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:16,880
Speaker 1: I'm imagining there's less of visibility with the werewolf mask. Alright, Well,

1157
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:18,920
Speaker 1: we're gonna leave it off there. I had a lot

1158
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:22,360
Speaker 1: of fun here today talking about slasher movies, mass traditions

1159
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:25,800
Speaker 1: and really just kind of trying to dive deep into

1160
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:28,000
Speaker 1: something that's very easy to take for granted and just

1161
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:31,920
Speaker 1: dismiss it's just some silly aspect of our silly horror movies.

1162
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:35,600
Speaker 1: But I think it's anything but as usual. Even our

1163
01:03:35,640 --> 01:03:39,280
Speaker 1: silliest horror movies tell us something about ourselves, all right.

1164
01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out more

1165
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:42,560
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over

1166
01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:44,360
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is

1167
01:03:44,400 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 1: the mothership. That's where you'll find all of the episodes,

1168
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:52,400
Speaker 1: including this October's Halloween offerings, as well as past Halloween

1169
01:03:52,400 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 1: offerings from the past. You'll find a store tab that

1170
01:03:55,280 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: you can click on, or you can check out all

1171
01:03:57,360 --> 01:03:59,840
Speaker 1: sorts of cool merchandise that has our logo on. It's

1172
01:03:59,840 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 1: a great way to support the show, and if you

1173
01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:04,040
Speaker 1: want to support the show without spending a dime, a

1174
01:04:04,120 --> 01:04:06,600
Speaker 1: great way to do it. Is to rate and review

1175
01:04:06,640 --> 01:04:08,680
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind wherever you have the power

1176
01:04:08,720 --> 01:04:11,280
Speaker 1: to do so. Big thanks as always to our wonderful

1177
01:04:11,320 --> 01:04:14,680
Speaker 1: audio producers Alex Williams and Try Harrison. If you would

1178
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:16,760
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback about

1179
01:04:16,800 --> 01:04:20,440
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, with suggestions for future topics,

1180
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, let us know how you

1181
01:04:22,520 --> 01:04:24,520
Speaker 1: found out about the show, how long you've been listening,

1182
01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:27,160
Speaker 1: where you listen from. You can email us at blow

1183
01:04:27,200 --> 01:04:38,600
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more

1184
01:04:38,640 --> 01:04:40,920
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

1185
01:04:40,960 --> 01:05:01,919
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1186
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:02,400
Speaker 1: by A. P.