Horror and comedy is a tough mix, but Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon for the most part
inventively juggles the disparate tones of both types of films — certainly
impressively showcasing why the former genre is so frequently traded in by low-budget
filmmakers — and in the process undeniably establishes career beachheads for
all of its young principal players.

The names of both Wes Craven and Christopher Guest have been
invoked in countless reviews of Behind
the Mask, which enjoyed a brief theatrical run in limited markets
nationwide earlier this summer, and it’s not entirely inappropriate, really. Directed
and produced by Scott Glosserman from a generally smart and often quite funny script
co-written with David J. Stieve, the film is set in a world where Freddy
Krueger, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees all actually exist. Despite its very
specifically evocative title, and the downward-arc biographies of washed-up entertainment
figures that such a designation summons forth, Behind the Mask unfolds in mockumentary form as the grad-school
project for non-fiction filmmaker Taylor Gentry (Angela Goethals), who follows
around up-and-coming homicidal maniac Leslie Vernon (Invasion’s Nathan Baesel) as he plots the labyrinthine killing
spree that will launch him into infamy.

Leslie has graciously given Taylor
and her documentary crew unprecedented access to his life as he trains and
plans for his reign of terror over the sleepy town of Glen
Echo. Along the way he dines with an old mentor (Scott
Wilson), scouts and preps locations, and explains the necessity of the sort of convoluted
rules of procedure that, in the world outside the movie, govern horror films.
Per their agreement, Taylor
refrains from rendering judgment on Leslie’s aspiration, though she finds that promise
more and more difficult to keep as things wear on. A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Robert Englund, meanwhile, plays Doc
Holloran, a vaguely Dr. Loomis-esque figure bent on exposing the truth about
Leslie’s past (“the Ahab of the piece,” as Leslie explains), and stopping his
murderous plans.

As a slice of deconstructive, tongue-in-cheek entertainment,
Behind the Mask is certainly beaten
to the punch by Scream, yet it still
offers a fresh perspective since so much of the movie unfolds in casual
fashion, and through the eyes of the putative villain of the piece. Baesel is a
great guide here; there’s a bit of Seann William Scott’s American Pie mischievousness in his performance. The script is also
deftly balanced between droll and whimsical. One moment Leslie is running
through his training regimen (“You have no idea how much cardio I have to
do…”), the next he’s waxing rhapsodic about his search for the perfect victims,
and the order in which thy must die (“How do the swallows find Capistrano?”).
If there are knocks, it’s that the elements of mythology and back-story that
drive the movie’s latter third don’t fully coalesce, and (another seemingly
minor quibble, I’m sure), Leslie’s killer garb includes an extremely small
mask (above) that, well, seems kind of silly. That said, this is a rather
ingenious little independent movie, and certainly one well worth a look for
genre diehards.

Presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, enhanced for 16×9
televisions, Behind the Mask comes
with Dolby digital 5.1 and Dolby surround 2.0 audio tracks. It’s housed in a
regular Amray case which is turn stored in a cardboard slipcase with a gatefold
cover that sticks shut courtesy of a small touch of non-marking adhesive. It’s
nice to see such a small title, all things considered, anchored by a solid
slate of bonus features. Kicking things off is a rather cluttered audio
commentary track with actors Baesal, Goethals, Britain
Spellings and Ben Pace. This is recommended only for those who’ve seen the
feature once or twice before; while some of the stories and good-natured
ribbing (“Oh, the Yannic imagery!”) are amusing, the constant talking over one
another does get old.

The best supplemental bit is a fantastic 32-minute making-of
featurette, constructed around video diary segments from director Glosserman
(who, humorously, talks about the cast getting together and getting drunk just
prior to the start of production). There’s also six minutes casting tapes from
the audition process, and a clutch of deleted and extended scenes with optional
commentary with Glosserman; the latter runs just over 25 minutes in aggregate. Teaser
and full-length trailers for the movie, along with a DVD-ROM copy of the film’s
screenplay rounds things out. It’s a fantastic package for an inventive, neat
little film. B+ (Movie) A- (Disc)

A featured selection at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, Driving Lessons is a decently touching, passingly amusing and laid-track heart-warming little look at a young guy’s coming-of-age, starring
Rupert Grint, of the Harry Potter
films, and further anchored by respected Academy Award nominees Laura Linney and
Julie Walters. If it’s by and by a quite familiar tale, it’s earnestly acted, and one that at least offers
Grint the opportunity to stretch his legs a little bit, which should be
welcomed by fans of the aforementioned series.

We first meet Ben, a shy, bookish 17-year-old, as he’s approaching
a very unpromising summer vacation. While the other kids are out having fun,
Ben spends these precious few weeks attending bible classes, suffering the
titular instruction with his overbearing and self-righteous mother (Linney) and
helping out at a local old people’s home. It’s certainly not his ideal
summer break but, with a demanding, vigilant mother and a passive vicar for a
father (Nicholas Farrell), Ben is anything but in control of his own destiny;
he’s marking time, caught up between adolescence and adulthood.

Ben’s absurdly straitlaced world is turned upside down when
he gets a job assisting Evie (Walters, Grint’s mother in the Potter flicks), an eccentric retired actress. Refined,
vulgar and childish all at once, Evie enters Ben’s life like a hurricane.
Suddenly caught up between these two very different storm fronts, Ben starts to
gravitate more and more towards his employer’s unconventional and often bizarre
ways, even though it continually gets him into trouble with his mother. Evie
drafts Ben as her partner in a series of adventures, culminating in a camping excursion
that turns into a full-fledged road trip when she cajoles unlicensed Ben into
driving her to the Edinburgh Festival. Ben reluctantly ignores his conformist
instincts and jumps behind the wheel. What follows is a journey in which Ben
and Evie help each other move forward in their radically different lives, as
Ben is forced to confront how he was brought up and who he ultimately wants to
be.

Written and directed by feature debut director Jeremy Brock (the co-writer of The Last King of Scotland), who apparently based a
good bit of Driving Lessons on his
own childhood experiences, the movie trades in fairly familiar archetypes to
anyone who’s seen their fair share of repressed-Christian and/or otherwise stifled
adolescent tales of keenly pitched woe and awakening. For all her wild energy, Evie
is essentially just another manipulative force in Ben’s life, and it takes both
him and the movie a while to recognize and own up to this fact. Gangly Grint is
ample as Ben, and Linney and Walters hold serve on screen through the force of
their personalities, but the characters as written are rather thin, and the movie itself doesn’t fully engage so much as glide
smoothly through its conflicts, to its rather unsurprising final resting point.
Though not as harsh a judgment as it sounds, Driving Lessons is essentially a whiler of time, engaging but not
necessarily remarkable.

Housed in a regular Amray case, and presented in a rich 1.85:1
anamorphic widescreen transfer, the film comes with a Dolby digital 5.1
soundtrack which acquits itself nicely, and optional English and French
subtitles. Supplemental special features consist of a perfunctory 17-minute making-of
featurette, which includes on-set footage and interviews. There is also a quartet
of deleted scenes and a very short blooper reel, complemented by trailers for
other Sony arthouse and indie-inflected releases. C (Movie) B- (Disc)