Skull: The Mask

A very stylised gory slasher, just what one would expect! Very fun to watch with a bunch of friends. At time stehe movie feels like a LSD trip, you just gotta love it!

For the most part Skull: The Mask is a very boring film with no likable characters. I didnt like it. However, the one positive point is the heavy gore content. Its super bloody and those parts are cool. Plus there are odd uses of wrestling moves in this film.

You think you know what you're getting into when you throw on a movie called Skull: The Mask, and for the most part, you'd be right, as there are ample servings of the monster slasher gore promised by the cover. However, between the carnage, it takes on a more relaxed pace than you might expect, with a lot of time spent on mythology and police politics. Frankly, it's a little more convoluted than need be for the film's modest aspirations, but I guess it's nice that they at least try to carve a plot around the senseless killing rampage.

Once it gets down to brass tacks, it delivers on everything you could hope for. They bring to life some pretty sick ideas through gloriously gooey practical effects, the titular creature looks pretty badass and they even get a little arty with some psychedelic interludes and a pretty rad stained glass fight sequence. It's nothing you haven't seen before, so there are few surprises, but it's a half decent bloody b-movie if that's all you ask for.

"Skull" is a dumb film from Brazil that has little to offer cinematically other than lots of blood and practical gore effects. But if you like those things, it might be worthwhile if you're starved for entertainment. I'm actually being very generous with 4 stars, and that's because in this day and age of excessive CGI, it's nice to see the real deal.

So it starts off with a really confusing explanation of the origin of the Mask, which is hidden in a Nazi underground bunker. A leather-clad individual strides in and starts murdering people, then steals the mask and it ends up being used in a ceremony in front of a Nazi (I said it was confusing) and the mask melds itself onto a guy being sacrificed who goes crazy and starts murdering everyone in sight. Cut to present day. (What happened in the meantime??) The mask has been found and others are looking for it. Someone clueless lets it out, performs a ceremony and the mask somehow kills her and her girlfriend. Fun fact: Brazilian TV news shows grotesque crime scene photos in their reports. So later, a cleaning crew is working at the scene and the mask chooses the biggest guy to attach itself to his face and take over his body. He then starts killing people everywhere he goes in vicious and grotesque ways. Amazingly, it takes the police a long time to find him even after he attacks a disco, and when they do, only a couple of cops take him on. One would think they would be on the radio asking for backup and several dozen officers would be rushing to stop this maniac. Maybe it's different in Brazil. Anyway, the dumbness continues and a guy who looks disturbingly like Sylvester Stallone and has a connection to the confusing start eventually takes over.

The cinematography is really awful, as is the acting, the script, direction...really everything except the gore, which isn't great, but as I said earlier, I do respect the effort. It seems to have been the only thing the makers of this ridiculous film did put an effort into.

The movie is a great 80s throwback horror; a very entertaining watch, filled with gory scenes, packed with action, and a solid storyline that you just have to follow to the end.

Well done, practical effects and all!