Die teuflische Maske

... I don't know if that's correct, but I liked it. Paul Stevens stars as a psychiatrist who feels guilt after a patient dies. The now-dead man worked in antiquities and had recently acquired a mysterious mask that he claimed had sinister mystical attributes. The patient had mailed the mask to the doctor, who decides to try it on, only to discover that his patient was right. Also featuring Claudette Nevins, Bill Walker, Anne Collings, Martin Lavut, Leo Leyden, and Norman Ettinger.

When originally released, audience members were given 3D glasses in the shape of small masks, and they were prompted to don them whenever the mask is worn onscreen. They were treated to nightmarish sequences in 3D. These are the best parts of the film, featuring foggy ruins filled with corpse-like people, masked killers, and human sacrifice. The rest of the movie is rather unmemorable, but the nightmares/hallucinations caused by the mask make this a worth-see for horror enthusiasts. The version I watched had the 3D sequences intact, and luckily I had some old cardboard 3D glasses laying around.

This silly, stagy, slow moving horror film is probably still the best 3D movie ever made. Once you wait through the bland story, and the call comes to "Put On The Mask"; it becomes another film. These 3D sequences are the best, freakest ever put on film, and they transfer to TV remarkably well in the Elvira edition. If you have any taste for oddities at all, this is a must.

Restricted somewhat by it's low budget, this Canadian made horror film is interesting, and I would imagine be even better, if seen in it's original 3D form. The effects in the "flat version"look like they could be effective. Film starts off well, but nothing really is explained and film's climax is disappointing, but overall not a bad little "B" movie.

This movie really grows on you. Yes, it's true, the non-3D parts are boring, but I find them functional. Like any good freak-out movie, if it was all a freak out, you'd get worn out fast. This is like a freak-out musical in a way, where the freaky scenes are the equal of big musical numbers.

A doctor is turned on to a creepy mask by one of his patients who has turned into a homicidal maniac. Next thing you know, the doctor is trying on the mask and going insane, and oh what a mess, and his girlfriend and everyone, and blah blah blah.

Meanwhile, in the hallucinogenic mask sequences, you get to experience what it must have been like to be on LSD in the 60's. There's a whole "alternate world," where a strange, mutated man is milling around, looking for the woman (?) he is in love with in a fever dream landscape where there are skulls and burning hands and satanists and gore and other neato stuff. And it's all in bizarro 3-D! Even if it doesn't work well all the time, it's still mighty disturbing, especially for a movie from 1961! The images, and the incredible, collage-like soundtrack to the freak sequences will linger on your brain long afterwards, in the same way that wearing those horrible glasses leave an impression on your eyes after you take them off for the "normal" scenes. You're exhausted, and confused, and weirded out.

Yay

The 1961 THE MASK is about a psychiatrist who is given an ancient Aztec or Mayan mask by a patient who has just died. The doctor feels compelled to put the mask on, and has horrific visions of the walking dead, sacrificial altars and weird chambers with plenty of fire to boot. Sort of like Orpheus in the underworld. It was shot in 3D, and I can tell you from first-hand knowledge how absolutely terrifying this movie was when I saw it on its initial release. I was 11 at the time. Loud, electronic music made it even harder to sit through. It was Canada's first shot at a horror film and is almost, dare I say, a work of art for the set pieces the doctor experiences each time he wears the mask. The movie, which could just as easily have been a stage play, holds up very well, at least in the 3D segments. The rest is simply filler. Remade many years later with Jim Carrey, but with a decidedly different approach.