I'm a life long horror fan and I've seen thousands and thousands of horror movies from all over the world and movies that range from 1080p to shot on a cheap VHS camcorder in the 80's. Nowadays I feel almost dead inside because of crappy the horror genre has gotten and Hollywood really has ran out of ideas. The biggest mainstream horror movies are mostly stealing ideas from the underground, indie, other countries, or outright remaking movies. Toe Tag on the other hand makes horror movies for hardcore horror fans but seem to put people off who go in expecting just a gore movie. Maskhead really is the easiest Toe Tag movie to watch and it does feel like a nice merge of the underground and the mainstream.
As you've noticed on the main page, Maskhead is a collaboration between Fred Vogel (Toe Tag Pictures) and Scott Swan (best known for John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns.) Two young and creative minds getting together and really doing something unique. It's not another fake snuff film and it really isn't a masked killer or slasher film. The plot is about a modeling agency scouting for talent to make some soft core fetish videos. The movie is shot on two cameras, one is digital video hand camera which is mostly used during interviews and the other is a traditional steady camera. They film the movie almost like what you're watching is a mix of the footage the characters are filming but also it's like a movie where you see these characters off the set. The footage is mixed around so you'll see things out of chronology but it all makes more sense later on. The people that run the modeling agency are two lesbians and when they interview people (mostly porn stars and wannabe stars) they do throw in some really provocative questions to see how they react on the fly. Another major character is Cowboy who in opinion was one of the best movie characters of 2009 and this guy was just overflowing with charisma. He talks a lot and has all kinds of wild stories to tell. You just can't get bored with Cowboy because he really is a charmer. Then there's Maskhead, nobody really talks about him and he doesn't talk much but he appears very disfigured, he wears a horrific mask (which is probably just to scare the hell out of people) and he brings a snuff element to the fetish videos.
That's the main idea of the plot and characters without spoiling anything. The audition scenes were mostly shot unscripted and those provocative questions did throw some actors off guard. The people being auditioned and interviewed are interesting to hear from and why they want to get into porn. As you would expect the men are all very over confident. The next portion of their screen time is staring in the fetish video. One of the best scenes is the clown girl which actually has quite a cult following. She does things like a balloon fetish and other things until the she sees something she can not unsee, at which point Maskhead grabs her and kills her. Each porn star is in a scenario like that and often times it builds to something very awful happening to them before Maskhead steps in from the shadows. It's talked about that Maskhead is the real star of these videos. The murders are pretty brutal but it's not too hard to watch, I mean it's tame compared to the August Underground series which I think is nice because it's gruesome but it isn't too off putting. I'd say it would probably be a bit much for a casual horror fan like someone who loves the Saw series but if you've seen lots of ultra gory movies then Maskhead is a bit light, which isn't a bad thing by any means. Maskhead is more about the characters and it's way of telling the story than it is about hardcore violence. Also for a movie with porn as subject mater, there really isn't much in the way of sexual content or nudity, but then it is supposed to be a soft core fetish video. I really think Maskhead was the #1 horror movie of 2009. I'd recommend it to fans of gruesome underground horror as well as people who like horror but aren't looking for something that goes to the point of mental scaring or making you sick. If this is your first Toe Tag movie then I'd say this would be the best choice followed by The Redsin Tower and Sella Turcica, they really have came a long way from the studio making serial killer snuff movies.
