This Canadian, partially 3D movie has become a bit of a cult classic over the years, and it is an early entry into the Sixties psychedelic sequence movies.
Tagline: “The picture that crawls right up your spine!” [Huh?]
AKA: Eyes of Hell [re-issue]
WTF Factor: ****
Notable Announcement:
Narrator [commanding]: “Put the mask…on…now!”
Synopsis: Jim Moran [see the Quick Bits section] provides an introduction to the movie, claiming to be an authority on masks. According to him, the mask in the movie provides terrifying visions; to see them, you will put on your own mask [provided by the theater] whenever Allan puts the mask on in the movie. Roll credits.
We open on a genuinely scary scene of a woman running from a would-be attacker in the rainy woods. He catches and strangles the woman, but not before she scratches his face.
We next see the man, Michael Radin (Martin Lavut) at his psychiatrist’s office. He doesn’t remember what actually happened the night before, but he tells the doctor about his nightmares of murder and that he believes he is cursed by a mask. He accuses the shrink, Dr. Allan Barnes (Paul Stevens), of wanting the mask for himself. Allan scoffs at the mask having power over his patient.
After Michael leaves, he mails the mask to Allan and then blows his brains out.
Lieutenant Martin (Bill Walker), who is investigating the suicide, determines that Michael was an archaeologist and invites Michael’s colleague Doctor Soames to visit the apartment to identify the artifacts Michael was working on. What’s missing is a rare Indian ritual mask. Soames discusses the legend of the mask with a skeptical Martin; the mask is supposedly harmful in the wrong hands because it hypnotizes the owner and forces their worst thoughts to become reality.
Allan tells Martin about Michael’s obsession with a mask. Meanwhile the box with the mask is sitting on his desk in front of them.
After Martin leaves, Allan opens the box containing the mask and Pam Albright (Claudette Nevins), his fiancée, comes in to see him.
There is a suicide note from Michael in the box, challenging Allan to wear the mask. Pam steps out as a booming baritone commands us to “Put the mask…on…now!” Allan does [as we should in the theater].
He then hallucinates about a strange ritual for five minutes. There is an electronic score and a weird psychedelic landscape [in 3D and color].
When Pam returns, Allan is rolling around on the floor, having torn the mask off. He admits to putting the mask on and seeing things buried in his own mind. He believes this can be a breakthrough for psychiatry. Pam is not thrilled. Allan says the mask is his now and Pam recommends that he talk to someone he can trust, such as his mentor Professor Quincey.
Allan: “Trust? There’s no one I can trust. I know that now.
Allan says he feels the mask pulling at him, but Pam says she doesn’t feel anything. She wrestles the mask away from him and takes it back to the museum. Allan follows and recovers the mask after ransacking Professor Soames’ office.
Lt. Martin visits Pam, but she won’t tell him anything about Allan or the mask.
Martin: “There’s a legend about that mask, Miss Albright. It does things to people. To even the nicest people. The legend states that the mask can hypnotize a man and bring out the evil in him. Bring it out and magnify it.”
Pam: “Suppose the mask does what you say. What happens if a person has no evil in him to be brought out?”
Martin: “Is there such a person?”
Meanwhile, back in his office, Allan puts the mask back on. This time there’s some sort of priestess in the mask, a doppelganger of Pam, and a particularly phallic rubber snake.
Allan’s secretary Jill Goodrich (Anne Collings) returns after he removes the mask and Allan offers to drive her home. Since she’s taken off her glasses and let down her hair, Allan clearly finds her attractive. She’s into it. They go parking and after smoochies, Allan tries to strangle her. Luckily for her, the struggle sets off the car horn, which distracts him.
Allan tells Professor Quincey (Norman Ettlinger) about the mask and his former mentor clearly attributes the problem to growing mental illness.
Allan: “But that’s only part of it. I want you to help me to understand the mask.”
Quincey: “Isn’t the problem rather one of understanding you?”
Allan: “No, no, no. I said that too. I tell you, this mask has power. I’ve experienced it. Now I want to know why and how it works. Think of what that would mean to the world of psychiatry.”
Quincey is rather outraged.
Quincey: “You mean to say you intend to put that mask on again?”
Allan: “Yes. [meaningful pause] And no one can stop me.”
The professor finally agrees to run a controlled experiment. Allan must report to him every day and only use the mask when he is around. Allan agrees. [Hah!]
Lt. Martin has now found a clear set of fingerprints in Soames’ office and is looking for Allan to get a comparison.
Pam visits Allan’s office and finds him contemplating the mask; she tells him he’s an addict and begs him to return the mask to the museum, which isn’t going to happen. However she gives Allan the impetus to immediately return to Quincey with her. They put Allan to bed and Quincey tells Pam that the mask has the power to bring subconscious suppressed thoughts and ideas to the surface.
Allan dons the mask again, because they left him alone with it while he was sleeping. [Great move, guys.] This time his doppelganger is floating in a coffin being rowed through a region of death. Then he finds “Pam” on an altar. The Priestess reappears and Pam becomes a skeleton as the altar collapses in flames.
Allan is clearly pretty far over the edge now. He violently escapes from the house and Pam tries to contact Lt. Martin. Allan goes to Jill and lures her out to his car to “talk.” [He’s lookin’ good if you like ‘em sweaty and crazed.]
Jill: “What are you going to do?”
Allan: “Kill you.”
Jill: “No! No!”
Allan: “I must. I must experience the greatest act of a human mind: to take another life.”
Jill scratches his face and runs away.
Lt. Martin gets in touch with Pam and he’s coming over, but Allan returns to Professor Quincey’s place before they can hide the mask. Pam has the mask and Allan forces her to put it on. Pam sees and feels nothing unusual. Allan becomes enraged and tries to kill Pam, but Lieutenant Martin arrives and clobbers Allan. It doesn’t look like he’s dead.
The mask is returned to the museum and put on display. We see a random visitor falling under its spell. The End.
Thoughts: This was not only the first full length Canadian horror movie, it was the first Canadian film in wide U.S. release. The movie was produced and directed by Julian Roffman; it was the second and final feature film he directed, although he continued to work as a producer. Most of the movie is 2D, punctuated by three dream sequences in 3D. The movie was quite successful during its first release, enough to justify several re-releases, some of which discarded the 3D format. In 2015 a crisp restoration was released to theaters and DVD/Blu-ray, restoring the anamorphic 3D to the print. [I used this print for the stills.]
Most of the film was in black and white but the dream sequences are in color. There is a colorized version that occasionally shows up on YouTube; the color really doesn’t add much. The film was not originally advertised as 3D; the posters just said you needed a Magic Mystic Mask/Miracle Movie Mask, kicking the movie over into William Castle territory. [The poster at the beginning of this post is for the 2015 restored version.]
The dream sequences certainly stand out from the rest of the movie, not only for being in both 3D and color, but also for their Sixties psychedelic nature. Sadly, the presentation of the rest of the movie is mundane, enlivened only by actor Paul Stevens’ crazed facial expressions when Allan is under the influence of the mask.
Notable credit: Script for Dream Sequences Slavko Vorkapich
Vorkapich was a well-known Serbian montage expert, who created the montage sequences for such major films as David Copperfield (1935) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941 [the Spencer Tracy version]). He conceptualized the dream segments for The Mask. However, Vorkapich’s designs were deemed too expensive to carry out fully, so director Roffman created simplified versions based (more or less) on Vorkapich’s plans. Vorkapich’s name remained in the credits for contractual reasons.
This movie is worth a look, especially in a group setting. For maximum enjoyment, check out the restored version and get some cheap anaglyphic (one red/one green lens) 3D glasses from Amazon. Putting the “mask” on when commanded is part of the experience.
Quick bits:
- Jim Moran introduces the movie as a self-proclaimed expert on masks. He was actually a well-known television personality at the time, but pretty much forgotten now. He is not exactly a dynamic presence.
- Various reviewers have suggested that this might be an “allegory” for addiction. There’s not much allegory to it; the addiction message is explicit throughout the movie and Pam spells it out in careful detail.
- This was the only 3D movie made in Canada (at least with an international release).
Suggested double feature: The Twilight Zone episode, The Masks (1964), or maybe The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) for the plague of frogs segment.
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “The Strange Adventures of David Gray”
