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Admirable film.

The Mask (1961) ** (out of 4)Dr. Allan Barnes (Paul Stevens) is working with a troubled man who comes into his office claiming to have murdered a woman due to a mysterious mask in his possession. The doctor doesn't believe this so the man kills himself but before doing so he mails the doctor the mask. Soon the doctor is curious to try the mask on and then he begins to see the evil visions it offers.THE MASK is a fairly interesting movie from Canada that has a lot of interesting ideas and some great images but sadly the entire thing is so poorly acted and is so cheaply produced that in the end it comes across as a disappointment. I will admit that I could only watch the movie in 2D so I'm really not sure how well or poorly the 3D effects were.As for the film itself, as I said the performances in the film really aren't all that special but what really kills the film is the low-budget and the direction. Whenever the movie isn't involved in the "mask vision" then there's really nothing too interesting happening. The entire story is interesting but the majority of the movie happens as characters discuss the mask and its effects and none of them is all that captivating. Another problem is that the editing is so poor that it doesn't help things either.Where the film does succeed is in the visions. Again, some of it is poorly staged due to the budget but there are still some pretty interesting stuff that seems to be influenced by some of the movies from Italy including Mario Bava's BLACK Sunday. The images of the various zombie like creatures are rather effective as are the smoke and skull images. Perhaps their impact were even stronger in 3D. With that said, THE MASK certainly has enough interesting things to make it worth viewing, although the end result should have been better.

Great news! Kino plans to release a restored version of this movie in Blu-Ray 3D on November 24 2015 so the fantasy sequences should really be effective. Those scenes were really the only reason to watch an otherwise banal movie but they were released in anaglyph 3D which was never that effective to begin with. Seeing it in f/s Blu-Ray 3D will be a whole new experience and should be a real trip! Basically the story deals with a psychiatrist who is troubled by the suicide of a patient until he receives a package from the man that was sent just before his death. It contains an ancient Aztec mask but when he puts it on the doctor experiences wild hallucinations. This low budget Canadian production is notable only for those sequences and they should be awesome in this newly restored version.

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.

There are several firsts associated with this obscure but stylish horror item: it was the first Canadian film to be widely distributed in America; it was the first product in the genre to emanate from the country (so, keeping David Cronenberg in mind, it has a lot to answer for); and, it was the only Canadian production ever to be (partly) shot in 3-D! Given the film's successful combination of art and exploitation, it should come as no real surprise, therefore, to find its director Julian Roffman later engaged as a producer on another notable Canadian horror film, THE PYX (1973) as well as the cheesy exploitation flick THE GLOVE (1979); interestingly enough, my twin brother and I also emerged with divergent opinions on this one but, judging by the final star rating, there can be no doubt as to who eventually won the argument…although, admittedly, his similarly less enthusiastic judgment of THE UNSEEN (1945) had just made me reconsider my own! Actually, this was my second stab at acquiring the film as my first attempt only provided me with a faulty copy. The plot deals with the deadly effect that an ancient burial mask has on whoever happens to don it – from the young disturbed kid being treated by his skeptical shrink at the start of the film (driven first to a homicidal fury and then suicide) and later on, the psychoanalyst himself who receives the mask itself in the mail (a last-minute gift from his former patient)! The film's real raison d'etre and true coup is the surrealistic externalization of the psychoanalyst's demented hallucinations in a reddish-hued Hades (in an otherwise monochrome film) peopled with eyeless arm-grabbing zombies, with the exception of one literally eye-popping specimen, that anticipate the look (complete with monastic attire) of 'the vampires' in THE OMEGA MAN (1971). Ostensibly, these 3-D nightmare sequences (preceded by the ominous off-screen "Put the mask on...now" command – obviously a cue for the audience to put their special glasses on – and underscored by jazzed-up music) were the brainchild of celebrated and multi-talented artist Slavko Vorkapich – best-known for co-directing (with Robert Florey) the avant-garde short THE LIFE OF 9413, A Hollywood EXTRA (1928) and devising the montage segments in Frank Capra's MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) – but, apparently, his ideas proved too ambitious for the low-budget afforded them and, consequently, they were (mostly) discarded…even if he is still given full credit for them in the film's opening titles.