Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lynn, and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: welcome to October. That's right. October for us is a
Speaker 1: just a full month of Halloween flavored, spooky, creepy, monstrous content. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we would put out monstrous and occasionally horror
Speaker 1: theme content at other points during the year, but we
Speaker 1: really try and make sure that October is just jam packed.
Speaker 1: We take our our we take this one holiday very seriously. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's monster science all month, that's right. And so today, Robert,
Speaker 1: he wanted to talk about horror movies and masks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of. I just kept thinking about this recently,
Speaker 1: and I don't think there was one particular movie, uh
Speaker 1: that that that inspired it, because obviously I've been watching
Speaker 1: slasher movies for a large proportion of my life. I
Speaker 1: imagine you have as well, and I and I don't
Speaker 1: imagine we have to explain this particular trope to anyone
Speaker 1: out there. You don't have to have seen a single
Speaker 1: slasher film to know it by heart. A mask murderer
Speaker 1: is on the prow and perhaps by the end of
Speaker 1: the film, you'll either discover the killer's identity or the
Speaker 1: nature of the disfiguration that forces them to wear that mask. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you discover it through this, this unmasking that tends to
Speaker 1: happen at the end of the movie. And I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting that the unmasking or face reveal trope happens
Speaker 1: in horror movies. Now, okay, I'll frame it in two ways.
Speaker 1: One way is that it happens in horror movies that
Speaker 1: are also mysteries. This makes total sense to me. Imagine
Speaker 1: a slasher movie like the scream movies, where it turns
Speaker 1: out at the end of every movie that the killer
Speaker 1: is a character known to you and you've discovered Ah,
Speaker 1: it was this person all along, and the mask revealed
Speaker 1: the face you know, the maskets pulled off. The face
Speaker 1: revealed tells you who it was. It conveys information. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the Scooby Doo trope exactly. It was old
Speaker 1: man grizzle Bums all along. But then there are tons
Speaker 1: of movies with masked killers that have unmasking moments, but
Speaker 1: the killer's mask is removed and it is not it's
Speaker 1: not a mystery, it's not a character like there's Halloween
Speaker 1: and the Friday the Thirteen sequels. In movies like this,
Speaker 1: you already know who the killer is, or the killer
Speaker 1: is not a previously known character, and in these cases,
Speaker 1: I always wonder what purpose does the face reveal serve?
Speaker 1: It still tends to happen at the climax of the
Speaker 1: movie as if like this is all what it's all
Speaker 1: been leading up to. There's the face, but it's not
Speaker 1: like it reveals anything about who it was. It's just like, well,
Speaker 1: that's what his face looks like. Yeah, I mean, in
Speaker 1: one level, is just kind of like the Fangoria magazine
Speaker 1: like gore ahound Ethos, right, you know, it's like you
Speaker 1: just you're building up to that point where you're seeing
Speaker 1: all this grizzly stuff, but you want reach like peak
Speaker 1: uh pete grotesque, and that's where it's going to occur
Speaker 1: when that mask is pulled off, I guess. So. So
Speaker 1: it's this is of course all just a very well
Speaker 1: worn trope, but a trope that we keep utilizing in
Speaker 1: our our horror fiction because, let's face it, it works,
Speaker 1: it's fun, and I realized that it can it can
Speaker 1: be a little bit problematic when we start to dissect
Speaker 1: our love for pretend murder films, which essentially that's what
Speaker 1: we're talking about, pretend murder movies. And I just want
Speaker 1: to warn people at the top of this episode that
Speaker 1: while we often talk about horror movies, monsters, ghosts, and
Speaker 1: so forth, we don't usually talk about real world serial
Speaker 1: killers and stuff, which can, arguably, at least to me,
Speaker 1: be a more disturbing subject matter. And so as a
Speaker 1: point of illustration of our topic today, we will be
Speaker 1: discussing a few real murderers from history. Just a fair
Speaker 1: warning if that sort of thing is likely to bother you.
Speaker 1: You know, I think about the difference between loving fictional
Speaker 1: horror and loving, say, true cry. I am like, this
Speaker 1: is a big difference for me. I love monsters and murder,
Speaker 1: mystery horror and all that, but I do not really
Speaker 1: enjoy true crime at all, and I often find it unpleasant.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can think of a few counter examples,
Speaker 1: like I like the movie Zodiac, and I love the
Speaker 1: Charles Manson season of the podcast. You must remember this.
Speaker 1: Have you ever listened to that? Um? I have? I
Speaker 1: think I've listened to a few episodes. Yes, it's just
Speaker 1: really good, but I have. I have not listened to
Speaker 1: the Charles Manson episodes. Well, if you haven't checked it
Speaker 1: out that here's a podcast recommendation you must remember. This
Speaker 1: with Karina Longworth is about Hollywood history and I really
Speaker 1: enjoy it. But in general, I really prefer my exposure
Speaker 1: to violence and murder to be fictional. And of course
Speaker 1: I know people who are exactly the other way around, right.
Speaker 1: I know you probably do too, Robert, Like, they can't
Speaker 1: stomach even the mildest of monster movies, but they gobble
Speaker 1: up nonfiction crime books and podcasts about the most horrible
Speaker 1: kinds of real life murder and mayhem, which to me
Speaker 1: is more likely to make me feel just kind of depressed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I do know individuals who fall into
Speaker 1: either CATA. I know individuals who like both. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are there are people who just really love both
Speaker 1: horror and true crime and we'll and we'll we'll take it,
Speaker 1: you know, all in however they can, they can get it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. For my own part, I'm not as much
Speaker 1: into true crime right now, but I certainly went through
Speaker 1: a period of time in college in particular, where I
Speaker 1: was just like consuming everything I could get at the time,
Speaker 1: and there weren't as many options, especially online. We didn't
Speaker 1: have true crime podcasts that back then. But you know,
Speaker 1: I was watching, uh, you know, any kind of forensic
Speaker 1: documentary I could get my hands on. I was, I
Speaker 1: was visiting some of the the early true crime websites
Speaker 1: and and and reading the you know some of those uh,
Speaker 1: those those big thick detective manuals about homicide investigation. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing that we can come back to in a
Speaker 1: minute is, I bet when you were going through this
Speaker 1: true crime phase, you may have been surprised to not
Speaker 1: encounter much use of the mask in in real life
Speaker 1: murder exactly. And that's that's really the the question that
Speaker 1: that kind of led to this episode was just the
Speaker 1: question and the realization that when you look at you
Speaker 1: look at all of these masked psychopathic individuals in our fiction,
Speaker 1: and then you you look to real life, um, serial
Speaker 1: murders and true crime, and you really don't see that
Speaker 1: many masks. You do see a few notable, notable exceptions,
Speaker 1: which we will discuss here, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: the killer's mask seems to be an obsession of fiction
Speaker 1: that is not as present in real life crime. And
Speaker 1: we will certainly explore some potential reasons for that later
Speaker 1: on in the episode. Now, I do want to mention
Speaker 1: one thing here. We we've we've been talking about true
Speaker 1: crime and uh in horror fiction. Uh kind of as
Speaker 1: if they are just too completely separate kingdoms. Of course,
Speaker 1: these kingdoms border each other and actually overlap. Uh It
Speaker 1: it becomes impossible to to really uh keep one away
Speaker 1: from the other. You have horror movies that are very
Speaker 1: much inspired by real life murders, real life crime, and then, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we also have the reverse, which will discuss just briefly
Speaker 1: as well, where you have real life crime that is
Speaker 1: inspired by horror fiction. Now, if we stick to fictional
Speaker 1: horror for a bit, you can think of some obvious
Speaker 1: reasons that it might make sense for a villain to
Speaker 1: wear a mask. Right, Yeah, let's roll through some of
Speaker 1: the just obvious reasons. First of all, this is the
Speaker 1: Scooby Doo factor. Creates a sense of mystery who or
Speaker 1: what is underneath that mask. I gotta know, it makes
Speaker 1: a lot more sense for this to be the case
Speaker 1: in movies where there is actually a known character whose
Speaker 1: identity is being concealed. When I was in in high school,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine collected these larger scale g I.
Speaker 1: Joe figures, not the like old school ones, but kind
Speaker 1: of like a you know, a new school version that
Speaker 1: was out, and he had one of Destro uh, and
Speaker 1: apparently the mask would come him off, but he refused
Speaker 1: to take the doll out of the box, which always
Speaker 1: just I was like, how can you do that? Don't
Speaker 1: You've got to know, right, You've got to know what
Speaker 1: Destro's face looks like underneath that mask on this doll.
Speaker 1: And I never found out, so uh, And to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: he never opened the box. But there's there's this this
Speaker 1: even when we know that it's not vital to like
Speaker 1: the true identity of the character, there is something about
Speaker 1: the identity of the character wrapped up in whatever is
Speaker 1: being hidden from us. What do you think you're gonna
Speaker 1: learn by seeing his face? I don't know. It's kind
Speaker 1: of it's it's almost something that's not put into words.
Speaker 1: I mean, it might be something again to this, like
Speaker 1: we are so dependent upon uh, the human face to
Speaker 1: understand intention and motivation. I mean, the face is a
Speaker 1: communications array, and if that and if the other individual's
Speaker 1: face is hidden from us, true communication cannot take place.
Speaker 1: So I feel like part of the unmasking psychology is
Speaker 1: faced in that, like, like we're having a one sided
Speaker 1: facial conversation here, and you must remove that mask for this,
Speaker 1: for this understanding to be true. Well, in general, to
Speaker 1: be uncovered is to be vulnerable, and to be covered
Speaker 1: is to be guarded. Any way, right now, another advantage
Speaker 1: to having a mask killer in your fiction is, of
Speaker 1: course it sets up that potential big reveal we've been
Speaker 1: talking about, right, what's the identity of the killer, what's
Speaker 1: the what's the monster's face? Look like? You're gonna build anticipation,
Speaker 1: especially if that is the trump, especially if that is
Speaker 1: what is expected. You go into that Friday thirteenth movie
Speaker 1: knowing that there's going to be a moment where you
Speaker 1: get to see Jason Vorhees's face. There are also some
Speaker 1: very practical filmmaking concerns you can take into account here, right,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, because it's generally cheaper to just put a
Speaker 1: mask on your character than to do all of that
Speaker 1: crazy makeup special effects, you know, especially if you're using
Speaker 1: a generic mask like a hockey mask or a sack
Speaker 1: or a gas mask or some of Yeah, just something
Speaker 1: you find and uh and you might say, well, we'll heck,
Speaker 1: there's some really impressive like Tom Savini u um uh
Speaker 1: makeup effects that are utilized to create Jason in many
Speaker 1: of those films right when them unmasking does occur. But
Speaker 1: if you think, if you think of it this way,
Speaker 1: it's like that's a that's a costly um makeup effect
Speaker 1: to roll out, and you can't just you know, film
Speaker 1: put it on once. If you're filming it multiple times,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to put it on multiple times. It's
Speaker 1: gonna cost time and money. But if you have him
Speaker 1: just wear a hockey mask for most of the time,
Speaker 1: then that just makes filming easier. And if you can't
Speaker 1: afford that fancy makeup at all to begin with, then
Speaker 1: there you go. That's that's the easiest step to take.
Speaker 1: Putting a mask on, I would say, also requires less
Speaker 1: of your actor, That's right. You don't have to really
Speaker 1: worry as much about your your the acting abilities of
Speaker 1: the actor, or you don't have to depend on them
Speaker 1: having a particular uh, you know, unique face. So I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: on one hand, you don't have to have Christopher Lee,
Speaker 1: who who as you know, an accomplished horror actor, and
Speaker 1: you don't also don't have to worry about do I
Speaker 1: have a like a Robert Zadar, somebody who maybe you know,
Speaker 1: arguably is was not as great an actor as Christopher Lee,
Speaker 1: but definitely had a very interesting face. You don't have
Speaker 1: to have either of those. If you just have a
Speaker 1: mask you can throw over the individual. No, you can
Speaker 1: basically just cast your stunt coordinator exactly, which I believe
Speaker 1: is generally what you see in some of these cases.
Speaker 1: You just have the stunt player or just somebody with
Speaker 1: a large frame perhaps playing the character. And then hey,
Speaker 1: you can use as many actors as you actually need.
Speaker 1: You can recast it every movie. You don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about getting into into, you know, deep contract negotiations
Speaker 1: with your with your slasher character. It's also great branding,
Speaker 1: great for Halloween costumes. Oh I see, so that's the
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the reason that Jason Vorhees so easily
Speaker 1: pops up on every street during Halloween, or certainly at
Speaker 1: every haunted attraction, um, you know, any haunted else, commercial
Speaker 1: haunted house you might go to, they will inevitably be
Speaker 1: somebody in a hockey mask. And then finally, it leaves
Speaker 1: lots of room for the creepy and the uncanny. And
Speaker 1: this I think gets into the deeper history of of
Speaker 1: the the use of masks in humans civilization, in various cultures. Uh,
Speaker 1: the idea that the mask is an ancient, uh, performative
Speaker 1: tool that allows an individual to become something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we see this in everything from drama to religious ceremonies.
Speaker 1: Um So what, Robert, what are some of your favorite
Speaker 1: horror movie masks? Well, I have to say I've always
Speaker 1: been very partial to leather Face from the Texas Chainsaw Masker,
Speaker 1: especially for the first film. But but I I say,
Speaker 1: I love one and two and I and I and
Speaker 1: I really like I like three and four as well.
Speaker 1: And four. Yeah, I mean you got u you know
Speaker 1: Matthew McConaughey. I mean four is a bit wackadoodle, but
Speaker 1: you still have McConaughey in there doing his thing. I
Speaker 1: have what's the one with the aliens? Um? I don't
Speaker 1: know about. There's illuminato in the fourth one. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking about. Yeah, I don't think we've been
Speaker 1: blessed with an alien um uh plot in Texas Chancel
Speaker 1: Mask yet. Part three, though, had a Vigo Morrison in it,
Speaker 1: Vigo Mortenson. Yeah, yeah, so that's that was worthwhile. Three
Speaker 1: was pretty good. Yeah, But but you're into the mask, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The mask is the main factor here that we're talking
Speaker 1: about here today. You know, he had this mask that
Speaker 1: was stitched together from from pieces of leather faces victims
Speaker 1: or perhaps the bodies that the leather the lead the
Speaker 1: chainsaw family is stealing out of the cemeteries. Um. And
Speaker 1: in that first film especially, you never see what is
Speaker 1: underneath it. You might wonder about it, but it's there's
Speaker 1: no reveal or anything. Eventually, Hollywood couldn't resist and they
Speaker 1: depicted leather Face unmasked in two thousand three. That's in
Speaker 1: the remake. Yeah, and to Michael Bay remake. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that was fun enough, you know, but it wasn't for me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a says, I think it's the original film
Speaker 1: by by any means. I always like the implication that
Speaker 1: that it didn't matter, like you didn't there wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't set up for an unmasking, like maybe there wasn't
Speaker 1: even an identity under there. You know. It's like his
Speaker 1: identity was the mask made out of his crimes. Now,
Speaker 1: another favorite of mine Uh, and I understand this is
Speaker 1: one of your favorites as well. Dr Philip K. Decker's
Speaker 1: Button Mask and Clive Barker's Night Breathe. Oh, this one
Speaker 1: is so good. This is probably this might be my
Speaker 1: favorite horror movie killer mask. Uh. So it is worn
Speaker 1: by David Cronenberg, or at least David Cronenberg plays the
Speaker 1: character that's wearing it. I don't know if that's actually
Speaker 1: him and all the scenes, because it seems like this
Speaker 1: is another case of like Cronenberg is great, but we
Speaker 1: really can't have him on set all the time or
Speaker 1: like doing all these stunts. So let's just have the
Speaker 1: stunt guy play him, and then whenever he pulls it off,
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get Dave on on set. If he said,
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it, it's basically a sock over
Speaker 1: the head with buttons for eyes and a zipper mouth,
Speaker 1: but impeccably designed, like it's a highly stylized mask that
Speaker 1: actually makes no sense. Then I didn't even really think
Speaker 1: about this till yesterday. How did he see out of it?
Speaker 1: It's almost like he didn't see like when he became
Speaker 1: the killer, he was like using some sort of like uh,
Speaker 1: you know, barkery six cents, you know, like he saw
Speaker 1: through murder or something. It's a very creepy mask, especially
Speaker 1: knowing that the person under it is supposed to be
Speaker 1: a soft spoken, floppy hair David Cronenberg, just imagining how
Speaker 1: that mask over the top of his head is pressing
Speaker 1: his hair down is one of one of the great
Speaker 1: sources of horror in that movie. Uh. Cronenberg, of course,
Speaker 1: is usually known as a horror director. This movie makes
Speaker 1: me think he should take more acting roles. He is
Speaker 1: so unsettling in it. He was he was so good.
Speaker 1: Another one of my favorite horror movie masks is not
Speaker 1: worn by like a movie kill or but in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three The Wickerman, which is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite horror movies, it's not explicitly a single killer with
Speaker 1: a mask, but the masks that the villagers wear for
Speaker 1: the celebration of their pagan religion are just awesome. There's
Speaker 1: like rabbits and fish and bear masks. Uh, It's it's
Speaker 1: all there. And I keep thinking, one of these days,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a really good Wickerman party on May
Speaker 1: Day or something. Well. That really sets expectations very high
Speaker 1: for whatever you're gonna burn in your backyard. But the
Speaker 1: but the masks are great here because they highlight the
Speaker 1: continuity between horror movie masks and the traditional use of
Speaker 1: masks in religious ceremonies. They just make that connection explicit. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's an explicit treatment of like, you know, pagan
Speaker 1: pagan practices and pagan belief systems in that movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: excellent film. And again you're talking about the original, not
Speaker 1: the the remake, not not the one with the not
Speaker 1: the bees, though that one's worth watching for different reasons. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of films where the masks, uh
Speaker 1: that the slasher wears are unimpressive or they're trying a
Speaker 1: bit too hard. Um. And in some of these cases
Speaker 1: I haven't. I have admittedly not given the film a
Speaker 1: proper shake. Like I know there was that the Groundhog
Speaker 1: Day slasher movie that came out in the last year. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Um, I can't
Speaker 1: remember the name of the film off hand. But the
Speaker 1: character wears like a baby mask. So it's like this
Speaker 1: kind of goofy looking baby mask, but then it's creepy
Speaker 1: because he's wearing the baby mask. Oh that reminds me
Speaker 1: of one of the creepiest masks in movies, which is
Speaker 1: not a horror movie, but in Terry Gilliam's Brazil the
Speaker 1: baby mask that terror carrogator. Yeah. Yeah, well I think
Speaker 1: it's Michael Palin, Michael Palin's character in that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he is. He is acting as an interrogator and torturing
Speaker 1: our hero. Uh so, I guess it is kind of
Speaker 1: a horror ish scene and that that is a terrible mask, right,
Speaker 1: terrifying indeed. But you know, so sometimes mask I feel
Speaker 1: like they're trying a little bit too hard. I was.
Speaker 1: I was never a big fan of the mask that
Speaker 1: are are the mask or masks that are utilizing the
Speaker 1: Saw films, because he seems to have just a lot
Speaker 1: of gimmicks. He has too many gimmicks, you know. He
Speaker 1: has the traps, he has like a theatrical Robiwars. There's
Speaker 1: a pig mask. There's also the creepy puppet, a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. I'm just biased against the Saw movies in general,
Speaker 1: Like I don't get down with the whole torture thing. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I will say though that again, I've only seen like
Speaker 1: the first one, and I did read that They later
Speaker 1: established that there's some sort of connection between the pig
Speaker 1: masks and the Chinese zodiac. So so kudos for like
Speaker 1: somehow working that in. I was not aware of that.
Speaker 1: Angle doesn't really tempt me to watch the films though,
Speaker 1: well you know they're there are a number of slasher
Speaker 1: films where they did just like pick out a mask,
Speaker 1: an existing mask, like it's the like it's a like
Speaker 1: a coal miner's mask, right, or it's a gas mask
Speaker 1: or something something that that that already exists. Let's claim
Speaker 1: it and make it part of our slasher movie motif. Right.
Speaker 1: So you've got Jason in the Thirteenth Movies just wears
Speaker 1: a hockey mask. Uh, the in My Bloody Valentine, it's
Speaker 1: just sort of like a miner's gas mask. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a classic of the kind of as an early
Speaker 1: slasher film. And then of course just like grabbing a
Speaker 1: mask off the racks of the Halloween Store. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Screen movies classic example of that, the ghost face mask.
Speaker 1: I do have this. I have wondered about this, and
Speaker 1: I looked around. I couldn't find an example of anybody
Speaker 1: doing this. But why do we not have any horror
Speaker 1: movies where the slasher wears a Greek tragedy mask, because
Speaker 1: so many of these are just mega creepy looking. If
Speaker 1: I recall correctly, there is a scene in Scream Too
Speaker 1: that uses the Greek tragic chorus masks. But I think
Speaker 1: maybe it's that the killer is just in the normal
Speaker 1: ghost face mask from the screen movies and is blending
Speaker 1: in among a crowd of Greek masks. They're like trying
Speaker 1: to do a murder during a play rehearsal. It's not
Speaker 1: a very smart strategy. Well, as far as I know there,
Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a huge area of opportunity here,
Speaker 1: you know, not so much for ghost face killer. I
Speaker 1: guess this would be like Greek face killer. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we will we'll get in more to the real life
Speaker 1: killers and why we don't really see that many masks
Speaker 1: utilized in their crimes. Thank alright, we're back. All right.
Speaker 1: So we've been discussing how masks are extremely common in
Speaker 1: horror movies horror stories about fictional killers, but this doesn't
Speaker 1: appear to reflect reality so much. Yeah, when you start
Speaker 1: looking around for examples of of especially serial murderers who
Speaker 1: used a mask during the commission of their crimes. You
Speaker 1: do not find that many cases. And we looked around,
Speaker 1: um and I we even employed um the the true
Speaker 1: crime expertise of our of our colleague, Scott Benjamin on
Speaker 1: this as well. Scott knows what's up. Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: and he helped us with a few of these examples
Speaker 1: that will will mention here. But but but let's lay
Speaker 1: some ground rules here. So we're gonna be looking for
Speaker 1: actual masks serial killers or spree killers. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: we're discounting any kind of mass that was used purely
Speaker 1: as a disguise, like a fake beard, false hair, etcetera. Um.
Speaker 1: And also we have we're gonna require that the mask
Speaker 1: be used during the commission of the crime itself, because
Speaker 1: that's what we see in these slasher movies. Right. It's
Speaker 1: not that Jason goes home afterwards and where's the hockey
Speaker 1: mask and his den It's not that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that he's wearing the hockey mask to blend
Speaker 1: in during a hockey game. He is using it, uh
Speaker 1: for some varied effect during the crime itself. The most
Speaker 1: notable example, and imagine this is the one that a
Speaker 1: lot of you are thinking of is the Zodiac Killer. Now,
Speaker 1: this was not the case during all of the Zodiac
Speaker 1: Killers crimes, right, just some of them, right uh now,
Speaker 1: to remind everybody who we're talking about, this was the
Speaker 1: Northern California serial killer who was at if during the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. Identity as of this recording still unknown,
Speaker 1: but specifically the September nineteen sixty nine attack at Lake
Speaker 1: Barry Essa, he wore a black executioner type hood with
Speaker 1: clip on sunglasses over the eyeholes and a Zodiac symbol
Speaker 1: branded bib uh. Kind of an awkward sounding mask really,
Speaker 1: and and if you you look on mine you can
Speaker 1: see illustrations of this. It does look a little bit goofy,
Speaker 1: a little bit awkward, but also frightening, and that seems
Speaker 1: to have probably been the the effect, one of the
Speaker 1: effects that he was going after. It seems like he
Speaker 1: might have been trying this out, experimenting with it as
Speaker 1: a means of intimidating targets during daytime attacks, but other
Speaker 1: attacks didn't did not involve the mask. And then there's
Speaker 1: the less famous but still very well known Phantom Killer
Speaker 1: six string of killings and tech arcana. This was a
Speaker 1: lover's lane attack or wore a white mask with holes
Speaker 1: cut out for the eyes and mouth. And this was
Speaker 1: actually the basis for the horror film The Town That
Speaker 1: Dreaded Sundown. I think very loosely based. Yes, But but
Speaker 1: but that just description may summon, you know, the memories
Speaker 1: of that VHS tape cover for that VHS tape which
Speaker 1: had that that killer on the front. Well, when I
Speaker 1: think about movies with a white sack over the head,
Speaker 1: I obviously go to Friday the Thirteenth, Part two, before
Speaker 1: Jason took on the hockey mask. That's right, That's something
Speaker 1: that it's easy to forget if you're if you're not
Speaker 1: like a hardcore Friday of their Teeth fan, Right, is
Speaker 1: that he didn't get the hockey mask till which movie,
Speaker 1: the third one? The third one? So he takes it
Speaker 1: from a character character has just got a hockey mask.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, if he'd been a baseball umpire, we'd have
Speaker 1: a totally different franchise on our hands, wouldn't we That
Speaker 1: would be quite odd. Now we've already mentioned Texas Chainsaw Masker,
Speaker 1: and of course, uh the real life case that partially
Speaker 1: inspired this movie. As well as is the book The
Speaker 1: Silence of the Lambs, the character of Buffalo Bill and that,
Speaker 1: but and also Alfred Hitchcox psycho the character Norman Bates.
Speaker 1: The the real life case that had some degree of
Speaker 1: inspiration and all of these was that of ed Geen,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen o six through four, who committed at
Speaker 1: least two murders and mutilated the bodies of corpses that
Speaker 1: he pilfered from graveyards and two masks, uh were found
Speaker 1: in his possession that were made from the skin of
Speaker 1: two female heads, and these were found in his house
Speaker 1: by police. But there's no indication at least so far
Speaker 1: as I've seen, that he ever wore these in the
Speaker 1: commission of his crimes. Wow, I mean at least during
Speaker 1: the murders. I mean, obviously a lot of what this
Speaker 1: guy was doing it can be considered a crime right now.
Speaker 1: In another case that was recommended to us by Scott Benjamin,
Speaker 1: who again is well versed in all of this, uh,
Speaker 1: he points out that during the late nineties early two thousands,
Speaker 1: there was a German serial killer man by the name
Speaker 1: of Martin Ney, who wore a black mask and black
Speaker 1: clothing and of in the commission of his crimes, and
Speaker 1: it sounds like it was perhaps a disguise, perhaps camouflage,
Speaker 1: because he committed his crimes at night, but also as
Speaker 1: a means of intimidating his young victims. So in the
Speaker 1: real cases of mask wearing we've seen here with like
Speaker 1: the Zodiac and with Martine, it sounds like an important
Speaker 1: factor is the idea that the mask would make the
Speaker 1: victim more afraid because, like the the killer is playing
Speaker 1: some kind of power game. Right, especially important or possibly
Speaker 1: important in that Zodiac attack, because again, daylight attack against
Speaker 1: more than one victim um a psychological advantage. Now, beyond
Speaker 1: these cases we've discussed here, you really don't find a lot. Now,
Speaker 1: I know some of you will find some tidbit you
Speaker 1: want to send in it. Certainly, feel free to send
Speaker 1: that into us if there's a case that, uh, that
Speaker 1: you think should be added to this, uh, this this pile.
Speaker 1: But but still for the most part, there are very
Speaker 1: few masks that are utilized. You look at some of
Speaker 1: these other cases. For instance, John Wayne Gaycy famously dressed
Speaker 1: as a clown at fundraising events, parades, and children's parties,
Speaker 1: but he didn't wear the get up as part of
Speaker 1: his crimes, and even if he had wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: a mask. Now there's also the case of mass shooter
Speaker 1: James Egan Holmes, who wore a gas mask during the
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve Aurora shootings, But in this case, he
Speaker 1: was attempting to use tear gas canisters during his attack
Speaker 1: as well, So there seems to be a you know,
Speaker 1: particular reason in that case. And beyond this, you'll find
Speaker 1: a few rare cases here and there of an individual
Speaker 1: uh murder taking place committed by someone in say Halloween mask,
Speaker 1: but certainly the majority of cereal and mass homicides UH
Speaker 1: seem to be unmasked acts. This incongruity between fictional killers
Speaker 1: and real killers makes me think that, uh, that the
Speaker 1: mask must be playing some important psychological role in the
Speaker 1: in what horror fiction does. Because masks are not that common.
Speaker 1: It can't just be that this is in hired by
Speaker 1: the way the real events went down, right, And likewise,
Speaker 1: we're not we're not pointing this out to say, oh, look,
Speaker 1: horror movies are getting it wrong, man, you know, Like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not saying that horror movies should be more like
Speaker 1: real crimes. In fact, I do not really want them
Speaker 1: to be like real crimes, right. I agree with with
Speaker 1: that sentiment very much so. But so at this point,
Speaker 1: let's stop and just consider the reasons based on these accounts,
Speaker 1: one might actually wear a mask during a murder um
Speaker 1: and we can consider where these examples line up, so
Speaker 1: to hide one's identity, to intimidate, to augment one's identity,
Speaker 1: or to become someone else protective purposes like the gas
Speaker 1: mask or one that doesn't really come up in any
Speaker 1: of these cases, but one could conceivably wear it, wear
Speaker 1: a mask just because it's cold outside, like I'm thinking
Speaker 1: a ski mask or something. And with the with the
Speaker 1: zodiac example, we seem to see an attempt at the
Speaker 1: first three, right, but identity protection might well fall behind
Speaker 1: augmentation again. Think of the zodiac some but also just
Speaker 1: that intimidation factor again. Broad daylight attack on two individuals
Speaker 1: and it's thought that he he may have you know,
Speaker 1: he may have wished to benefit from some sort of
Speaker 1: a shock uh feature in his attack, but he was
Speaker 1: also assuming in identity, right, I means yeah, because he
Speaker 1: had the zodiac symbol, and this seems to fall in
Speaker 1: line with the identity that he projected in his letters
Speaker 1: to the media. Now let's stopped to think though about
Speaker 1: the various reasons not to wear a mask during your crimes.
Speaker 1: Reasons that I can think, uh, you know, must have
Speaker 1: presented themselves to these individuals who attempted to use mass
Speaker 1: in their in their crimes. First of all, it's highly
Speaker 1: conspicuous if you're standing around a park, uh, dressed in
Speaker 1: a black hood with a with a crazy symbol on
Speaker 1: your chest. Uh, people are gonna probably take notice. Also,
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be it's liable to limit your senses,
Speaker 1: especially your vision. You're gonna you're gonna have a hard
Speaker 1: time seeing what you're doing. It's also liable to be
Speaker 1: a bit uncomfortable, and it's a calling card which might
Speaker 1: be desirable uh to you. But also they can certainly
Speaker 1: play against you. For instance, UH looked at a rare
Speaker 1: case of an individual. This is a spree killer named
Speaker 1: Daniel Gonzalez from two thousand four who committed at least
Speaker 1: one murder while wearing a hockey mask inspired by Jason Vorhees.
Speaker 1: But the mask in this case ended up with the
Speaker 1: victims DNA on it and was used in his conviction.
Speaker 1: I think an important point and to think keep in
Speaker 1: mind and all of this too, though, is when you
Speaker 1: look at the modus operandi of so many serial and
Speaker 1: mask killers. Serial killers especially often work by surprise and subterfuge.
Speaker 1: In either case, it often makes far more sense not
Speaker 1: to look like a monster or a weirdo, but rather
Speaker 1: to look exactly like yourself or or like a normal
Speaker 1: human at least even if you disguise yourself slightly in
Speaker 1: some fashion. Yeah, they're probably just trying to look like anybody. Yeah. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: wearing a mask is not a careful thing to do.
Speaker 1: And being careful that's that's ah, that's part in martial
Speaker 1: to organize serial killers, especially people like Ted Bundy, John
Speaker 1: Wayne Gacy, rather than of course a disorganized serial killers
Speaker 1: that are going to be more uh you know, impulse based.
Speaker 1: So what is this masking incongruity between real serial killers
Speaker 1: in the killers of horror fiction? Tell us, Well, I
Speaker 1: think we're onto something. Uh. First of all, we just
Speaker 1: mass traditions, Like we've long used mass to tell stories.
Speaker 1: So if we tell stories about fantastic killers, uh, in
Speaker 1: our horror movies, we're gonna use masks again. Like it's
Speaker 1: just two it's just it's just such a part, a
Speaker 1: rich part of our history. But I think ultimately has
Speaker 1: far It has far less to do with with with
Speaker 1: actual serial killers and what they're doing, and far more
Speaker 1: to do with how we're processing the idea that the
Speaker 1: human beings are capable of these crimes. Yeah, what we
Speaker 1: think about them, what they represent in our fiction, not
Speaker 1: what real murderers are actually like. Now that note's take
Speaker 1: another break, and when we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about executioners, mobs, high priests, and uh,
Speaker 1: and of course the Purge movies. Thank thank alright, we're
Speaker 1: back now. Joe, you're a big Purge fan. I am not.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a Purge movie. I have to admit
Speaker 1: that I have not either, but I did really enjoy
Speaker 1: the Rick and Morty episode that has a Purge planet
Speaker 1: and it sounds like an unsustainable planet. Yeah. Well, the
Speaker 1: Purge concept, for anyone was not familiar, as the whole
Speaker 1: idea is like one night a year where all crimes
Speaker 1: are legal, mainly murder. That's what the horror movies mostly
Speaker 1: interested in, but conceivably other crimes are also legal. I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure how the legislation works. So yeah, you
Speaker 1: have to wonder why do people focus on murder when
Speaker 1: they could just focus on trying to steal as much
Speaker 1: money as possible. Yeah, or ignore environmental regulations. I don't know,
Speaker 1: There's so many things you could do, right, I guess
Speaker 1: there's like that's the one night of the year the
Speaker 1: company does all the polluting. We store it up all
Speaker 1: year and then they just dump. Well, we've had four
Speaker 1: Purge movies thus far, well one parody Purge movie on
Speaker 1: top of that, it's not related. And then there's a
Speaker 1: Purge TV show coming out. Maybe the Purge TV show,
Speaker 1: we'll get into white collar Purge crimes. Oh man, one can.
Speaker 1: One can only hope. But in these movies and in
Speaker 1: the the other things they've inspired, like the Rick and
Speaker 1: Morty that you see this idea that people are taken
Speaker 1: to the streets and jumping into each other's homes wearing masks,
Speaker 1: often really well designed masks. They're often very impressive and creative. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in Rick and Morty they kind of present this
Speaker 1: idea that people have been working all year on their
Speaker 1: Purge masks, you know, like they're going to a science
Speaker 1: fiction convention. Oh, is their cosplay. Yeah, except there purging right,
Speaker 1: But you knows is there's the fantastic side to all
Speaker 1: of this. But but certainly we do see masks worn
Speaker 1: by protesters, terrorists, mob participants. You can be anonymous when
Speaker 1: you wear these masks and these hoods or what have you.
Speaker 1: And there's also that in imidation factor. Just think of
Speaker 1: you know, groups like the klu Klux Klan, etcetera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's the idea that that putting on a mask can
Speaker 1: bring out are the worst of us, the worst part
Speaker 1: of humanity can escape when your identity is hidden. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this this gets into a number of different psychological effects,
Speaker 1: some that we've talked on the show about. For instance,
Speaker 1: in clothed cognition um. This has com up on the
Speaker 1: podcast a couple of times. The roles and attributes associated
Speaker 1: with a particular uniform or costume influence the self reflection
Speaker 1: of the individual and their choices their actions. And this
Speaker 1: can be as simple as you dress like a doctor
Speaker 1: and someone hands you a clipboard and you start feeling
Speaker 1: you feel a little smarter, a little more confident. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You you can give people a sense of authority by
Speaker 1: addressing them in a certain way. Address people in Uh,
Speaker 1: in like a military uniform, you might be able to
Speaker 1: make them feel more powerful and aggressive and authoritative. Right.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a reminder that when we dress in
Speaker 1: costumes for Halloween. Uh, you know, we're we're playing with
Speaker 1: the deeper magic of the human condition. A past episode
Speaker 1: of stuffable in your mind. My Halloween costume made me
Speaker 1: do it. Uh. We go into this a little bit
Speaker 1: and uh, and we've discussed them among different studies. There's
Speaker 1: one study about how masked children take more candy than
Speaker 1: unmasked children. That was a nine study. Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: a few studies along these lines, and whether correctly or not,
Speaker 1: people have long associated masks with like impunity to do evil.
Speaker 1: Like in medieval Catholic France, there was this thing called
Speaker 1: the Feast of Fools that I was reading about. It
Speaker 1: was a feast that was celebrated by by members of
Speaker 1: the church. That was originally, I think, a more liturgically
Speaker 1: grounded observance of inversions, as in Jesus saying the first
Speaker 1: she'll be last, and the last she'll be first. But
Speaker 1: I think over time it developed into something with a
Speaker 1: reputation for mischief, like people disguise their identities with masks, costumes,
Speaker 1: or faces covered in mud or dung, and there would
Speaker 1: be wild partying, gambling. Mockery of authority is often taking
Speaker 1: place within the church itself, so you'd go in the
Speaker 1: church and gamble and make fun of the bishop or something.
Speaker 1: It's also associated with the quote boy Bishop tradition, where
Speaker 1: you'd take some random boy, dress him up like the bishop,
Speaker 1: and he'd get to be in charge for the day.
Speaker 1: So I might say, you know, the old bishop smells
Speaker 1: like doo doo, Go take a bath um and this
Speaker 1: This seemed to go on through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
Speaker 1: despite a lot of attempts by the Church to eliminate it,
Speaker 1: or to at least eliminate the wilder aspects of the
Speaker 1: feast and make it more pious and apparently Pope Innocent.
Speaker 1: The third tried to ban masks, reasoning that it was
Speaker 1: the masking which allowed people to engage in the sinful
Speaker 1: misbehavior which they would not engage in if their faces
Speaker 1: were visible, though of course, there was another element here
Speaker 1: in that the masking often had people not just hiding
Speaker 1: their own identity but assuming another, like you could put
Speaker 1: on a crusader mask or a Lady in waiting mask
Speaker 1: or a jester mask. Interesting. I'm also reminded of the
Speaker 1: tradition and in various alpine regions where you'd have the
Speaker 1: crampus costumes come out closer to Christmas and they would
Speaker 1: go on these rampages. And that has of course been
Speaker 1: a that's been an area of concern where people would say, Oh,
Speaker 1: the cramp the crampuses are getting a little out of hand.
Speaker 1: We need a crack down on the crampuses. They're scaring
Speaker 1: the children a little bit too much. They're getting too
Speaker 1: into it. Crampus knocked is over the line this year. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I I've I've neglected to mention, of course,
Speaker 1: the the V for Vendetta masks that the Guy Fox
Speaker 1: mass that were embraced by the organization anonymous. If I
Speaker 1: guess you can kind of a loose organization and non
Speaker 1: centralized organization, well do you mean the idea that, But
Speaker 1: potentially a mask can help with d individuation where you
Speaker 1: come to believe, you know, I'm not this individual person
Speaker 1: with individual responsibilities, but I'm sort of like a feature
Speaker 1: of a group, right. And it's also kind of reminder
Speaker 1: of just how disconnected the mask can become from the
Speaker 1: original thing. Like we we kind of don't think about
Speaker 1: it with with Jason Vorhees, like we don't think, oh, man,
Speaker 1: it's a movie about hockey. We just know that's Jason's mask.
Speaker 1: And likewise, if you see a video, like a grainy
Speaker 1: video on YouTube and somebody's wearing the Guy Fox mask,
Speaker 1: we don't go, oh, guy Fox, or we don't think
Speaker 1: oh v for Vendetta, that was a great Alan Moore. Uh,
Speaker 1: comic book, the graphic novels amazing. Now we think, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the it's the anonymous organization. Now. One thing you
Speaker 1: have to wonder is when you see people behaving badly
Speaker 1: in groups, is it because the group provides anonymity or
Speaker 1: for some other reason associated with being in a group,
Speaker 1: Like is anonymity alone enough to get people to break
Speaker 1: social taboos? I was looking at one study on this.
Speaker 1: I don't think it looks like a particularly good study.
Speaker 1: It's a small sample size, it's kind of a strange
Speaker 1: test condition. But for what it's worth, given these caveats, Uh,
Speaker 1: this was the nineteen seventies and the Journal of Social Psychology.
Speaker 1: But is this one by Vorhees Jay at All? No,
Speaker 1: this is by Mathis and Guest called anonymity and group
Speaker 1: anti social behavior. They got twenty six people, sixteen men
Speaker 1: and ten women from a personality course at Western Illinois
Speaker 1: University UH and they tried to get them to judge
Speaker 1: how willing they would be to engage in what they
Speaker 1: called anti social behavior. The actual reality of this was
Speaker 1: carrying a sign through the college cafeteria reading masturbation is
Speaker 1: fun um under four conditions, which would be alone, undisguised,
Speaker 1: alone disguised, in a group undisguised, and in a group disguised.
Speaker 1: And the subjects were basically they were more willing to
Speaker 1: carry the sign. They would do it for less money
Speaker 1: if they could do it, if they could do it
Speaker 1: in a group, and if they could do it disguised.
Speaker 1: So both conditions seemed to make people more willing to
Speaker 1: do this action that they were calling anti social behavior.
Speaker 1: But as I've said, I don't know, this study seems
Speaker 1: a little iffy to me. I love the experiment, though
Speaker 1: more delightful experiments I've seen. Well, they said anonymity apparently
Speaker 1: they thought was an explanation for group anti social behavior. Now, there,
Speaker 1: of course, a ton of different mass traditions throughout the
Speaker 1: world a lot of times involving groups wearing the masks,
Speaker 1: and we can't mention all of them here. Maybe we'll
Speaker 1: come back and do it in an episode in the
Speaker 1: future they will explore more of them. But I ran
Speaker 1: across an interesting one from the Philippines though, a Catholic
Speaker 1: Holy Weak tradition called Marionis festival. And in this you
Speaker 1: see a number of different masks worn, um, people taking
Speaker 1: on various roles from you know, the Passion of the Christ,
Speaker 1: the Crucifixion, and so forth. But in part of it
Speaker 1: you see masked executioners of chasing the Figure of Longeness
Speaker 1: through the streets. This, of course, is the the figure
Speaker 1: that's supposed to have actually driven the spear into Christ's side.
Speaker 1: But in this uh, this mask though, Uh, he's depicted
Speaker 1: as a cyclops. Yeah. And then when they and then
Speaker 1: when they finally catch him, uh, they execute him after
Speaker 1: he testifies to Christ's power. That seems like a weird
Speaker 1: version somehow has something to do in my mind with
Speaker 1: like the mine ads, uh, you know, taking on their
Speaker 1: their skins and costumes in a way, disguising their identities
Speaker 1: when they behave in a frenzy as a mob now
Speaker 1: we should also point out that executioners have worn the
Speaker 1: mass as well to protect their identity and or to
Speaker 1: invoke some key narrative point in the proceedings right, divine justice,
Speaker 1: the faceless actions of the state, etcetera. And sometimes these
Speaker 1: are mere hoods. But you can also find examples of
Speaker 1: medieval masks that incorporate iron or made of iron that
Speaker 1: the executioner would wear. I want to come back to
Speaker 1: this in a minute with reference to Jason Vorhees. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's head back to Jason Vorhees territory at this point.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of what we've talked about
Speaker 1: here gives us the emma we need to understand what's
Speaker 1: going on, sometimes intentionally, but more often I think accidentally. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the creation of slasher films. I mean, that's one
Speaker 1: of the wonderful things about about horror movies and b movies,
Speaker 1: I think, is that oftentimes, uh, the creators don't even
Speaker 1: realize like the potent symbols and UH and narrative elements
Speaker 1: that they're playing with. Well, yeah, I mean sometimes people
Speaker 1: ask like ask me, why do you like horror movies? Like,
Speaker 1: with the implication being that horror movies are mostly bad,
Speaker 1: which I agree they are, and the most movies of
Speaker 1: all kinds I think are bad. Um, but they're mostly bad.
Speaker 1: They're stupid and all that. And I agree that most
Speaker 1: horror movies are bad and stupid, but they're they're very
Speaker 1: psychologically interesting and culturally interesting in a way that not
Speaker 1: all say, bad dramas or other types that are bad
Speaker 1: comedies are horror movies, I feel like are almost always,
Speaker 1: even when they're not very well made narratives, they are
Speaker 1: revealing about the the creatures and the cultures that made them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and about this, you know what is a widely
Speaker 1: viewed and often communally viewed slasher film but a public
Speaker 1: mask ritual. I mean, it's it's especially easy to think
Speaker 1: about this when we attend again these haunted attractions that
Speaker 1: feature actors dressed up as these various masked murderer characters.
Speaker 1: You know, especially uh a Jason Vories or Michael Myers
Speaker 1: or leather Face, you know something where the mask is
Speaker 1: is a found item essentially, or it's easily acquired at
Speaker 1: the grocery store. Um. I I wonder if they connect
Speaker 1: with these deeper traditions. Uh so, you know, yeah, crazy
Speaker 1: realistic monster, makeup, special effects. They're cool and all, but
Speaker 1: there's something about the mask itself. You know, this is
Speaker 1: not merely a human, but a human playing a part,
Speaker 1: taking on a role, and perhaps the authority of a
Speaker 1: primal force, even the authority of a divine force. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's something to that, because you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: don't we see this in the evolution of the way
Speaker 1: we we depict Jason Vorhees mask on VHS and DVD covers. Well,
Speaker 1: if you look at the evolution of Friday thirteenth, you know,
Speaker 1: VHS box art or posters for the films, the first
Speaker 1: few movies just emphasized murder. They're just like, okay, there's
Speaker 1: slaughter going on. But starting somewhere after Jason puts on
Speaker 1: the familiar hockey mask and we get to see the
Speaker 1: hockey mask repeated, the mask becomes the focus of the franchise, right.
Speaker 1: It stops being about how many people will he kill
Speaker 1: this time? It starts being about the mask, And often
Speaker 1: the mask is like glowing or something. Yeah. Like, there's
Speaker 1: some especially on some of the VHS covers I was
Speaker 1: looking at, and the ones I remember from my childhood
Speaker 1: seeing on the shelves there's like there's a glowing light
Speaker 1: behind the mask shining through the mask. Holes in the
Speaker 1: hockey mask are all like they're they're like Spielberg shafts
Speaker 1: of light. You know. Yeah, it's like it's like God
Speaker 1: is speaking to us through Jason Vorhees, Like it's this.
Speaker 1: There's something to this, man, I mean, it gets this
Speaker 1: in a minute. And it's strange given how few supernatural
Speaker 1: elements there are in Friday the Thirteenth, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are supernatural elements to present themselves. Yes, he's essentially
Speaker 1: this undead creature. Eventually, but part six he becomes basically
Speaker 1: a zombie. Right, But there's not a lot of divine
Speaker 1: supernatural elements here, at least not on the surface. But
Speaker 1: then look at those VHS covers. Look at the divine
Speaker 1: light shining or the demonic light shining through that mask.
Speaker 1: I think that that also that in contemplating real life
Speaker 1: serial killers, we we like the idea of dehumanizing them
Speaker 1: in our fiction because surely they don't look like everyone else.
Speaker 1: I mean, and surely especially they don't look like they
Speaker 1: can't look like me, But so we have to obscure
Speaker 1: them with a mask. They're transformed by the mask and
Speaker 1: underneath that mask, then they're they're surely going to be
Speaker 1: some sort of fleshly monstrosity or deformity that denotes inner
Speaker 1: distortion as well, because of course that's the the other
Speaker 1: old trope, right. Uh, that just goes goes back through
Speaker 1: most of human history, that that the outer distortion represents
Speaker 1: inner distortion. Yeah. As much as we love monsters in
Speaker 1: in fiction and myth, I mean, one of the sad
Speaker 1: things about the idea of a monster, like the roots
Speaker 1: of that word, going back to this superstition that people
Speaker 1: with abnormal physical appearances reflect some kind of sinfulness or
Speaker 1: curse or monstrosity and their character. Yeah. So the unmasking
Speaker 1: scene where you get to see a distorted face underneath,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, oh, thank goodness, my grotesque understanding
Speaker 1: of the world is confirmed. Um, ugly people do ugly things,
Speaker 1: which is ridiculous when you when you call it out
Speaker 1: like that. But uh, but I think it is that
Speaker 1: they are these examples are tying into that tradition. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's also interesting to observe that many mass traditions also
Speaker 1: seem to employ and unmasking. We saw this in some
Speaker 1: of the first nation's rituals that we explored in the
Speaker 1: Winter People episodes of what I Think last year, where
Speaker 1: if you remove the mask, you're able to cure an
Speaker 1: individual that has been overcome by a particular ritualistic madness.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and because the ritual mask is is a
Speaker 1: magical item and it denotes this barrier between us and
Speaker 1: the other. So I, in preparing for this episode, came
Speaker 1: across a book that I thought had some really interesting
Speaker 1: insights here about Jason Vorhees specifically, but it can tell
Speaker 1: us more about the role of masks in horror in general. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is a book called Horror Zone, The Cultural
Speaker 1: Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema, published in two thousand and
Speaker 1: ten by ib Trus, edited by a scholar named Ian Conrich.
Speaker 1: And there's a chapter on the Friday the Thirteen films
Speaker 1: written by Conrich himself, And so he starts by drawing
Speaker 1: comparisons between the Friday the Thirteenth series with Jason and
Speaker 1: the Hockey Mask and the tradition of the Theater of
Speaker 1: the Grand Genial in Paris, which went from eight to
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two and which specialized in these blood bath
Speaker 1: dramas full of torture and mutilation and murder and gore.
Speaker 1: And there were these big fan ends of the Grand
Speaker 1: gain Yall who'd come to the theater all the time,
Speaker 1: the genial airs. And there was a drama scholar named
Speaker 1: mel Gordon who did a study of the Grand gain
Speaker 1: y'all that Conridge discusses to get a sense of what
Speaker 1: this theater was like. Here's a section that Conridge quotes
Speaker 1: from Gordon. There's a company manager for the theater who
Speaker 1: quote frequently purchased different animal eyeballs from taxidermists, not only
Speaker 1: for visual realism when characters eyes were gouaged out, but
Speaker 1: for the organ's ability to bounce when they hit the
Speaker 1: stage floor. Now that's some real commitment that that's a
Speaker 1: stage drama. These little horror plays they were putting on
Speaker 1: in Paris, and they wanted real, realistic gore effects, and
Speaker 1: for some reason people were eating this up. One of
Speaker 1: the interesting things to me is that Gordon says that
Speaker 1: many of these plays were short, and a regular evenings
Speaker 1: program at a theater might include three gruesome horror plays
Speaker 1: and three comedies or farces, and they would alternate back
Speaker 1: and forth. And this type of lineup where you'd have
Speaker 1: a gruesome horror play with gore and then a comedy
Speaker 1: or a force and then keep going back and forth.
Speaker 1: Was known as hot and cold showers. Well, this makes
Speaker 1: me think though of how, especially a lot of the
Speaker 1: horror movies, you'll have that up and down right of
Speaker 1: like bad comedy and horrific violence. Absolutely, yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: what I was highlighting here. Uh yeah, there is a
Speaker 1: sense of of wanting to like chill you with some
Speaker 1: kind of horrific site and then make you laugh. Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, Connor says that the Friday the Thirteenth films
Speaker 1: are comparable to Grand Guineall productions in their emphasis on
Speaker 1: slaughter and the the illusions used to create the appearance
Speaker 1: of gore. So Sean Cunningham, the director of the first
Speaker 1: Friday the Thirteenth movie, discusses how the makeup effects created
Speaker 1: by Tom Savini for the movie We're so good and
Speaker 1: so convincing that he would be tempted to keep the
Speaker 1: scene running and show much more explicit gore than would
Speaker 1: normally be warranted by good filmmaking. Um, just because they
Speaker 1: had put so much work into the blood and gore
Speaker 1: effects and they looked so realistic and so good, which
Speaker 1: I've never read that before, but that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to me, Like the turn toward an emphasis
Speaker 1: on blood and gore in these slasher movies basically just
Speaker 1: being a product of the fact that their makeup effects
Speaker 1: people were so good. Yeah, you know, I think back
Speaker 1: to some of the terrible horror movies I've seen where
Speaker 1: like where they just do not know to cut away
Speaker 1: from the gore effect because the first like at for
Speaker 1: a second, the gore effect is highly effective, and then
Speaker 1: you start staring at it a little bit longer and
Speaker 1: you begin to see the cracks in the facade. Well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, you know a movie that's got
Speaker 1: a fancy car in it, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of scenes with that car because it's like, the filmmakers,
Speaker 1: we paid to lease this car, you know, we might
Speaker 1: as well get a lot out of it. It's like,
Speaker 1: once you've sunk enough costs and to get a really
Speaker 1: good thing, you're tempted to just over indulge in it
Speaker 1: because of the sunk costs. Yeah, if if you you're
Speaker 1: not having to worry about using Nicholas Cage for just
Speaker 1: one hour of filmmaking, if you've got if you've got
Speaker 1: him for the full week, you just let him go, right.
Speaker 1: But so getting back to the mask, Conrad has these
Speaker 1: thoughts on the role of Jason's mask, and some of
Speaker 1: it has to do with Jason functioning very much like
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, an executioner and playing the same
Speaker 1: cultural role as one. In writing on Grand Guenial, Gordon
Speaker 1: writes that these theater performances, the gory ones on stage quote,
Speaker 1: traded on sensationalistic plots and the exploitation of their audiences
Speaker 1: visceral curiosity. In a way, they acted as fantasy substitutes
Speaker 1: for the guillotine and its public executions. Now that's interesting
Speaker 1: because so public executions with large audiences used to be
Speaker 1: a regular feature of public life in many societies, especially
Speaker 1: you know societies in Europe where they've more recently been
Speaker 1: phased out, either through abolition of the death penalty or
Speaker 1: through massive reduction, and how often it's applied through changing
Speaker 1: the venue to make them private instead of public. There's
Speaker 1: clearly something that rove huge crowds out to see the
Speaker 1: workings of the guillotine or the Halifax jibbit or the gallows,
Speaker 1: the burning at the stake, the breaking on the wheel,
Speaker 1: and when you couldn't go out and see that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff anymore, did whatever drove people to attend those
Speaker 1: things disappear? I would say, probably not right, that there's
Speaker 1: still going to be this hunger, But how are you
Speaker 1: going to appease it? So, Conrad writes, quote, Like Halloween's
Speaker 1: Michael Myers and the Texas Chainsaw Masker's leather face, the
Speaker 1: executioner's mask establishes a cold, mechanical and faceless killer, devoid
Speaker 1: of personality. The mask also adds the detachment that the executioner,
Speaker 1: the professional killer requires in order to function unhindered. Jason's
Speaker 1: hockey mask is so much part of his identity, his
Speaker 1: one essential accessory, that without it he is incomplete and
Speaker 1: maybe even unable to function convincingly as the executioner and so.
Speaker 1: Author Allie S. Kennetti, who wrote a book called Crowds
Speaker 1: and Power, wrote that the power of the mask lies
Speaker 1: in the fact that it is unlike a human face
Speaker 1: rigid quote. What gives the mask it's interdictory quality is
Speaker 1: the fact that it never changes. Everything behind the mask
Speaker 1: is mysterious above all its separates, and of course interdictory.
Speaker 1: Here means enforcing a prohibition. Right, the executioner, the embodiment
Speaker 1: of the harshest end of the law and of justice,
Speaker 1: is masked in order to be made without a human face,
Speaker 1: because human faces, even even mean human faces, can convey uncertainty, individuality, vulnerability,
Speaker 1: even maybe sympathy, and the inscrutable mask sort of leaves
Speaker 1: the victim feeling baffled and subservient, being put to death
Speaker 1: by a force beyond human appeal. So this makes me
Speaker 1: think about what's going on with this big face reveal
Speaker 1: that happens so often towards the end of these movies,
Speaker 1: you know, like when Jason's mask gets knocked off and
Speaker 1: you get to see his face. Conridge thinks that these
Speaker 1: reveals are designed to show always that the killer is
Speaker 1: not just a normal human wearing the mask, but some
Speaker 1: sort of aberration more in it than a he. And
Speaker 1: I think, if this interpretation is correct, it's sort of
Speaker 1: as if you saw the execution or raise his mask
Speaker 1: to you, and where you expected to see a human
Speaker 1: face that might show you an expression of pity. Instead,
Speaker 1: what you get is something just as monstrous and inhuman
Speaker 1: underneath the mask. It's almost like taking the mask off
Speaker 1: and showing you Jason's monster face is letting you know
Speaker 1: that there is no appeal, there's no chance that he's
Speaker 1: going to change his mind about this. Has anyone ever
Speaker 1: made a slasher film where there is just like a
Speaker 1: black hole underneath the mask? I think that would be
Speaker 1: a nice psychedelic twist on it. Well, it's just a
Speaker 1: complete void and no faces, absolute darkness. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I've definitely never seen it. Look at us Stewart is
Speaker 1: given away wonderful slasher movie ideas in this uh So,
Speaker 1: Conridge quotes a scholar named Bernard Veldt who has written that,
Speaker 1: since Jason wears a hockey mask, and I think this
Speaker 1: is a pretty terrible take, he is an angry god
Speaker 1: quote playing a sport or a game with human life.
Speaker 1: But Conrich, I think, does not agree with this take,
Speaker 1: and I don't agree with this take either. Instead, he
Speaker 1: he points out that the movies emphasize Jason not as
Speaker 1: a game player, but as an efficient, skilled professional, sort
Speaker 1: of rapidly and systematically dispatching his victims one after another,
Speaker 1: with no particular indication that he's playing games or getting
Speaker 1: any personal sense of enjoyment out of it. And I
Speaker 1: would say. In other words, this means he's behaving like
Speaker 1: a medieval headsman with a full schedule of executions lined
Speaker 1: up for the day. And I think this is correct.
Speaker 1: This is how Jason is portrayed in the Friday the
Speaker 1: Thirteenth movies. He is efficient and systematic and business like.
Speaker 1: He it's like watching someone do their job. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is I think this is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why for so long everyone was like, Oh, when's he
Speaker 1: gonna fight Freddie? Because Freddie is the complete opposite of
Speaker 1: that Freddie. Yeah, yeah, fred Freddie is a sadist and uh,
Speaker 1: and Jason is a pro And personally, I think this
Speaker 1: Jason as professional executioner model is highly salient as to
Speaker 1: what role these films are playing culturally and why they
Speaker 1: are what they are, and what role the mask plays. Um.
Speaker 1: Think about the way that in movies like this, the
Speaker 1: murders generally don't come as a surprise, you know. Rather,
Speaker 1: there there's sort of a series of repeated cues that
Speaker 1: a character is about to meet the acts. Uh. The
Speaker 1: character gets isolated from the others, their music and film
Speaker 1: pacing cues to let you know that a murderer is coming.
Speaker 1: They're certain cliches and tropes that are invoked. Is anybody there?
Speaker 1: And then it happens, And it strikes me as very
Speaker 1: much like sort of having the next condemned prisoner being
Speaker 1: brought up to the executioner's block and allowed a prayer
Speaker 1: or final words or whatever in this repeated and predictable pattern.
Speaker 1: Here's another parallel. How often the murders and slasher movies
Speaker 1: can feel like punishments for particular sins, taboo violations, or
Speaker 1: just general character flaws that the victims have prominently displayed
Speaker 1: in the scenes right beforehand. Oh yes, this is a
Speaker 1: this is a classic part of the whole genre. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a campful of horrible kids, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get through all of those before you get
Speaker 1: to that that final girl who actually has virtue, right,
Speaker 1: the one, the one who's the innocent, who's undeserving of
Speaker 1: the punishment. So yeah, I think there's something that Connors
Speaker 1: is really onto here. I think the model of Jason
Speaker 1: as a sort of execution or of European history, the
Speaker 1: sovereign's representative, there's something to that. And of course, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned a minute ago, the mask really helps with
Speaker 1: the execution or persona. I think it's highly possible that
Speaker 1: a major role played by films like The Friday the
Speaker 1: Thirteenth films is they're tapping into something that was lost
Speaker 1: when public executions went away, This desire people had to
Speaker 1: see some kind of disembodied arm of justice enacting systematic
Speaker 1: violence against people who break taboos. You know this, this
Speaker 1: makes me think of Paris Hilton. Um. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember, there was a Harmony that came out
Speaker 1: the House of Wax. I believe itself a remake of
Speaker 1: past wax movies, just like a legacy of you know,
Speaker 1: the wax based horror movies. But it was a pretty
Speaker 1: big deal at the time because Paris Hilton wasn't like
Speaker 1: kind of peak uh fame slash infamy. Um. And she
Speaker 1: has a role in the film and she is killed
Speaker 1: by the unknown murder and you can kind of see
Speaker 1: that as like this weird and I and and kind
Speaker 1: of I have to say, unsettling, like the public desire
Speaker 1: for the fictional executioner to take care of Paris Hilton,
Speaker 1: for the for the population people. Yeah, the movie was
Speaker 1: advertised Wait did you already just say that the movie
Speaker 1: was adver ties as come watch Paris Die. Basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was basically the techno that. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that was the actual tablet line, but things and there
Speaker 1: were things advertising the movie that said that, And I
Speaker 1: mean that's like, on one hand, you could see, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm a big fan of Paris Hilton
Speaker 1: or anything, but there is something kind of like nasty,
Speaker 1: maybe somewhat misogynistic about that, just like taking some prominent,
Speaker 1: maybe rich, annoying female celebrity and saying, now you all
Speaker 1: get to see what it looks like if she gets murdered.
Speaker 1: But this does make me think there's a possibility for
Speaker 1: for this for the future. Again, here's another free idea
Speaker 1: for everyone out there. Um, it's essentially celebrity Big Brother.
Speaker 1: But but you have Jason Vorhees on hand to dispatch
Speaker 1: fictionally of course, to dispatch everybody in the Big Brother House.
Speaker 1: And that's every season like whoever the most uh you know, um,
Speaker 1: but reviled the celebrities are too. Given um, given season,
Speaker 1: then those are the ones that are brought on the show.
Speaker 1: That sort of what these movies are though. But I
Speaker 1: wonder if it gets it, maybe it gets some of
Speaker 1: that public distaste out of their system too. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a it's like a mock execution, you know, it's
Speaker 1: almost like a parody uh taking place, you know, and
Speaker 1: like maybe thanks to the House of Wax, people were
Speaker 1: able to say, Okay, we're all right with Paris. Now
Speaker 1: she's paid for her crimes, we can move on. We
Speaker 1: saw her diet in that horror movie. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: remember who the killer was in that movie or if
Speaker 1: a mask was involved, but I do think that that
Speaker 1: it's correct that the mask is an important part of
Speaker 1: establishing this uh this like disembodied enactment of justice, execution
Speaker 1: or arm of the law kind of punishment. Well, it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that in many of these slasher films there
Speaker 1: may not be an actual mask, but thanks to the
Speaker 1: way it is shot, the killer remains faceless. I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: of course, about the various Dario Orgento films where you
Speaker 1: just see hands enacting crimes. Or there's one segment in
Speaker 1: the original vhf us Um anthology film that came out
Speaker 1: where the the killer in the woods, their their face
Speaker 1: is always covered by VHS tracking errors. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember that, which can be interpreted is essentially a kind
Speaker 1: of mask. It's like the medium itself coming for you. Ye. Now,
Speaker 1: another thing I want to say is that all this
Speaker 1: stuff I've been saying about the Friday the Thirteenth movies,
Speaker 1: it doesn't apply equally across all movies with masked killers.
Speaker 1: I would say a counter example would be better movies, generally,
Speaker 1: better movies that have more likable characters, where you're like
Speaker 1: invested in their survival and their their peril raises your stress.
Speaker 1: You're sort of where you're with the characters. You know.
Speaker 1: A bad thing about the Friday the Thirteenth movies is
Speaker 1: you're just generally not with the characters. You're not worried
Speaker 1: about whether they're going to make it or not. And
Speaker 1: that's been a long criticism of the Friday the Thirteenth
Speaker 1: movies is that there's something kind of nasty at the
Speaker 1: core of them where you're not hoping the characters survive.
Speaker 1: You're just waiting to see which one of the gets
Speaker 1: killed next and how again, making it more kind of
Speaker 1: like going to a public execution. Yeah, the characters without
Speaker 1: masks are kind of, to a certain extent as inhuman
Speaker 1: as the character in the mask. I wonder how the
Speaker 1: mask functions differently in horror, where you genuinely do like
Speaker 1: the characters. You want them to survive, and you're you're
Speaker 1: trying to see how they will get through it. Well,
Speaker 1: then you're begging for them to, uh, to unmask the villain, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's kind of like the the ideas,
Speaker 1: like the law is oppressive and horrible until it goes
Speaker 1: after the people that do not deserve it's it's wrath
Speaker 1: when it becomes unjust, and then we want to see it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's secrets uncovered. Then we want to see the executioner's
Speaker 1: mask ripped from its face. Yeah, maybe that's what's going
Speaker 1: on in the scene. I'm sure you remember this, Robert.
Speaker 1: There's a scene that has never much made sense to
Speaker 1: me in the original Halloween where Michael Myers mask comes
Speaker 1: off brief briefly and you see his face and then
Speaker 1: he just sort of puts the mask back on. The
Speaker 1: face revealed doesn't really show anything. It's just a guy.
Speaker 1: It's just a guy in his face. Uh. And I've
Speaker 1: never understood why that's in the movie. Maybe it's it's
Speaker 1: a brief moment of victory, because in Halloween it's not
Speaker 1: quite the same you're you're very much with Jamie Lee Curtis, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you want her to get through this. You
Speaker 1: don't want to see her punished or anything. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is a weird moment, Like that's one that I legitimately
Speaker 1: had forgotten that that was a part of the original Halloween.
Speaker 1: It's always a surprising moment and I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: it means. One quick side note I couldn't finish this
Speaker 1: episode without mentioning, is I remember the story our colleague
Speaker 1: Ben Boland, one of the hosts of stuff that I
Speaker 1: don't want you to know and ridiculous history. Uh. He
Speaker 1: told Uh, he told a group of us one time
Speaker 1: in the office that he got pulled over for driving
Speaker 1: with a werewolf mask on, And I asked him, is
Speaker 1: that true? And he said, yes, it is true. He
Speaker 1: was wearing a werewolf mask driving a car that was
Speaker 1: in Georgia. He wasn't given a ticket, but the the
Speaker 1: the cop who pulled him overtold him he could not
Speaker 1: drive with a mask on one and he did. He
Speaker 1: still doesn't know quite why that is h He's also
Speaker 1: he said he'd driven with a batman mask on before
Speaker 1: and never gotten pulled over for that. But did get
Speaker 1: pulled over for the werewolf mask. Interesting, Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm imagining there's less of visibility with the werewolf mask. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna leave it off there. I had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun here today talking about slasher movies, mass traditions
Speaker 1: and really just kind of trying to dive deep into
Speaker 1: something that's very easy to take for granted and just
Speaker 1: dismiss it's just some silly aspect of our silly horror movies.
Speaker 1: But I think it's anything but as usual. Even our
Speaker 1: silliest horror movies tell us something about ourselves, all right.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out more
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