Maskhead

This movie is the worst I've seen b/c there was nothing original about it. It was just not good, pornographic, tasteless, and really an uncreative movie. This movie and "The Black Dahlia Haunting" inspired me and my friends to write and direct our own movie to show you guys how to actually make a movie. It's all about the acting guys. The writing has to actually be good and the cinematography can't be all awkward and amateurish like in this movie or The Haunting. Next time let's actually make a good movie alright guys? Stop this mindless stuff or you'll never make it in this business. I feel like the filmmakers just did all this crap in the movie just to get girls to take their clothes off in front of the camera. No this is not art so don't even try to justify it. It's a load of crap. Scott Swan and Fred Vogel are just a bunch of perverted and uncreative filmmakers.

This fairly recent Toe Tag film directed by Fred Vogel, is actually pretty decent. Much more of a story than their usual productions (August Underground, Mordum), this one features a lesbian couple that interview victims for fetish and very gruesome movies, and then dispatch them in extremely brutal and graphically gory ways, via MASKHEAD, a disfigured maniac who likes to chop up his victims after torturing them. The movie plays with time, and you have to pay attention to figure out what the hell is going in, but in just about everyway, it delivers the goods, even though it can be a little confusing. I enjoyed it, it's borderline soft core, along with the extreme gore. It's definitely Toe Tags best film by far.

Maskhead is a movie that has no limits with its contents of intense violence, a bisexual cowboy, two lesbian snuff filmmakers, a disturbing masked killer known as the movie title itself - Maskhead. It's a movie that will satisfy fans of extreme cinema and it's definitely not a movie for the squeamish. Directed by Fred Vogel (The Man who brought us "The August Underground Trilogy" and many more hardcore horror features) and Scott Swan (writer of two "Master Of Horror" episodes - Cigarette Burns & Pro-Life). With all the blood shed and torture scenes, they're also some slowburn scenes, but it's still a 10 out of 10 for me and It would really be awesome to see a movie mainly about the movie title character itself, Maskhead.

Honestly watching this film I could see how it was made. The guys wanted to top the other films they had done, so they got a cast of actors willing to do softcore porn shots, wrote a flimsy storyline to support the gore and then Google'd several sexual fetishes to make the film even edgier. I will give them props for putting guys through the paces as well as girls. Honestly seeing men in these situations is far more interesting to me and there are so few films that even include them. However, it's still only a couple of scenes. The movie itself (minus the male skin) isn't really worth watching. The effects are passable (especially if you thought August underground was decent)and the acting is about what you'd expect from Toe Tag (which is to say a bunch of foul mouth Southern Good-Ole-Boys and Trailer Park Chicks).

There are other and better gore films out there. This one is only for Toe Tag fans. And I think it's pretty clear that any rating over a 4 is from someone who was on set or sleeping with a cast member...

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.