Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

An American horror film. A documentary crew is following a man. Leslie wants to be a serial killer and treats it as a career; he has agreed to let the crew film his preparation. From there the film becomes an account of a trade. Leslie does cardio, because the victims run and he has to catch them at a walk. He damages the wiring of the house in advance, oils the doors, prepares the cupboards and closes the escape routes. There is a mentor too: a retired killer who tells stories from his own period and gives advice. What the narrative is interested in is not violence but genre: the film explains the conventions of horror one by one. Why one girl always survives, why the killer never runs, why victims go down to the basement. At a certain point the crew begins to be uneasy. He is actually going to do it. In the last section the form changes. The handheld camera is put down and the narrative turns into a classic horror film; that transition is the best idea in it. Nathan Baesel and Angela Goethals are in the cast. Robert Englund and Zelda Rubinstein, known names of the genre, also appear. Scott Glosserman wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who knows horror and likes films about the genre. Who it is not for: anyone who does not; most of the jokes want familiarity with the clichés, and the last section is hard.