Jack Griffin – The Invisible Man (1933)

Ironically Jack Griffin’s bandage mask reveals more about him than if he remained maskless. But the mystery it initially generates as we wonder what is underneath his bandages is what helps to draw everyone into the story.

Christiane – Eyes Without A Face (1960)

The mask Christiane wears while her face is being reconstructed is really unsettling. Its neutral expression feels lifeless and devoid of emotion, a far cry from Christiane’s actual face. Expressionless masks producing horrifying results is now a genre staple. But Christiane’s mask is effective more because of how it restricts her displays of emotion.

The Killer – Blood and Black Lace (1964)

Set in the fashion world Blood and Black Lace‘s killer uses a mask that obscures any defining features, to hide their identity. The mask’s pale and smooth nature recalls the look of mannequins and brings about the feeling of the uncanny valley because of how it makes the killer look human and inhuman.

Leatherface – The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

What is scarier than someone wearing a mask made from human skin?

Michael Myers – Halloween (1978)

Blank, pale, emotionless, and with hauntingly dark eyes. Michael Myers’ mask embodies everything evil Dr. Loomis glimpsed when Michael was a child. It has no human feelings, no warmth, and the eyes, meant to give a window to his soul, are in shadow. Not a bad result for a cheap William Shatner mask.

Jason Voorhees – Friday the 13th Part 3 Onwards

Jason’s second mask is now synonymous with the marauding machete murderer. Its effectiveness comes from the fact that it gives away just enough about Jason’s appearance without ever fully revealing everything. Thus everyone is left to dread what is lurking underneath his iconic look.

Silver Shamrock Masks – Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1982)

Two factors make these accessories iconic. They are incredibly designed, managing to capture Halloween cultural icons in a definitive way. And the fact that they are not designed to hide killers. They are instead designed to entice and ultimately kill the children that wear them.

Irving Wallace – Stage Fright (1987)

The unmoving eyes of this owl mask really bring across Wallace’s predatory nature. As though he is constantly waiting for a moment to strike. Despite looking heavy enough to hinder the killer’s movement it really taps into a primal animalistic fear.

Button Face – Nightbreed (1990)

Everything about Button Face makes viewers feel uncomfortable. The dark buttons like Michael Myers’ mask effectively remove any empathy we could glean from someone’s eyes. And the off-kilter zipper brings to mind horrifying fables of people with their mouths sewn shut. A masterpiece of simple but effective terror.

Sam – Trick ‘r Treat (2007)

Sam’s mask embodies the spooky spirit of Halloween. The mask has a homemade costume feel. Additionally, it evokes the terror and joy of the season with its happy stitched-on smile, and its overall look resembling sacks worn by hanging victims. But its childlike simplicity puts forward the glee one should approach Halloween with. There’s a reason Sam has become the new mascot for the spookiest time of year.

This ends our rundown of 10 iconic horror movie masks. Unfortunately, with only 10 spaces we had to exclude some fan-favourite choices. So what famous horror masks did we miss out?

Also Read: Netflix Horror Movie Written Entirely Using Artificial Intelligence

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1. Horror: Friday the 13^th Part 2

Friday the 13^th Part 2 is a fantastic introduction to the iconic Jason Vorhees. Through sparse screen appearances, a genuinely creepy look, Harry Manfredini’s amazing music, and characters talking about him like a figure of legend, Jason becomes a truly terrifying figure. The film also has some great kills (the two-person spear) and tense set-pieces (the Sheriff’s chase through the woods and the final act showdown). And it gives us one of the genre’s finest female characters in Ginny (Amy Steel). The original is a classic, but Part 2 made the franchise what it is today.

2. Comedy: Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey

If you’ve seen Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure watching this should be mandatory. Bogus Journey is incredibly imaginative and funny. The story includes concepts like Bill and Ted’s ghosts possessing people, having to play Twister with Death to return to Earth, Aliens living in the afterlife, and more. The sheer number of ideas and gags means that the movie never drags. The actors all have perfect comedic timing. The design work is incredible. And Bill and Ted are given more depth through the exploration of their fears. Bogus Journey is a riot and deserves to break free from its sibling’s shadow.

3. Superhero: Kick-Ass 2

While Kick-Ass 2 did lose something by having Hit Girl (played impeccably by Chloe Grace Moretz) no longer being a foul-mouthed youngster and Nic Cage not being involved it is still an entertaining comic book film. Each character has a satisfying and appropriate arc. The effective pitch-black humour returns, the murderous Hit Girl adapting to high school being the highlight. And some of the bloody action (particularly anything involving Olga Kurkulina’s Mother Russia) is really well done. Kick-Ass 2 is a good 15 rated antidote to an oversaturated market of 12a superhero sequels.

4. Sci-Fi: Alien 3

Alien and Aliens are very tough acts to follow. And while flawed it’s hard not to admire Alien 3. Rarely do we get a mainstream sequel as bleak as this. The prior film’s beloved characters are all killed. And Ripley (Sigourney Weaver in another masterful turn) is left to save a planet of prisoners who don’t value anything she has to say. While the plotting is sometimes confusing (not helped by some weird editing) Ripley’s story, the colourful supporting cast and the iconic imagery make Alien 3 deserving of appreciation on its own terms.

5. Children: Return to Oz

Despite being a sequel to one of the best movies of all time, made decades later and changing from a colourful musical with dark edges to a dark fantasy, Return to Oz somehow manages to be a great film. With a riveting story about trying to restore order to Oz, engaging new characters (Tik-Tok, Jack Pumpkinhead, and Gump), a terrifying ensemble of villains (The Nome King, Mombi, and The Wheelers), unbelievable effects, and Fairuza Balk doing good work as Dorothy this is a sequel with teeth. And it’s a perfect thematic follow-up to the original.

6. Action: Tomorrow Never Dies

Apart from the infamous Die Another Day Pierce Brosnan’s Bond sequels seem largely ignored. But Tomorrow Never Dies is a solid Bond film. The plot is somewhat plodding and after Goldeneye, TND can feel rather lacking. However, there are some great performances from Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh as Wei Lin, and Jonathan Pryce as news mogul Elliott Carver. Couple this with some fantastic action set pieces like the handcuffed motorbike chase scene, the rye humour, and a painfully relevant plot about news manipulation and you have a fun action film that more than makes up for its flaws.

Hopefully, this list encourages some of you to watch these movies. As they are worthy of more love than they initially received. And please tell us about your favourite underrated continuations so we can give more love to movies that need it.

Also Read: The New Frontier of the Western

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Horror films thrive on spooking their audience in a variety of ways. For example, the recent tech horror Countdown tapped into our anxiety about our mortality with an app that predicts the time you’ll die, down to the second. The central conceit being, how do you avoid death?

Well, today we’re counting down seven reasons characters die in horror films. Avoid these things to ensure your safety.

1. Taking drugs/having sex

Let’s get the obvious reason out first. Now many tend to overstate the significance of not taking drugs and having sex in horror movies. There are many iconic horror movie survivors who didn’t die after taking drugs (Laurie smokes marijuana and survived Halloween (1978)) and having sex (Ginny in Friday the 13 part 2, Sidney in Scream and Jay in It Follows).

But generally, it’s best to play it safe. For every iconic horror survivor who disproves this claim, there are slews of iconic horror victims that prove it. Just see Tina in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) who had sex moments before her tortuous slicing by Freddy Krueger.

And Palmer in The Thing (1982) definitely shouldn’t have gotten high with a shapeshifting alien creature running around.

2. Mocking conventions

Something less widely recognised is the fact that knowing genre clichés can also be a death sentence. How many times in horror movies have you heard someone mock their compatriots, by saying, “haven’t you seen a scary movie before?” only for them to die soon after. Unless you’re part of the Scream series self-aware characters rarely live to the end credits.

For a great example of how self-awareness kills, look at the character of Lizbeth from Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives.

3. Heading into the unknown

A word of advice, if you’re heading somewhere and find that it’s abandoned, rundown, has measures in place to keep people out, contains weird items or you don’t know much about it, just leave. You don’t know what may be lurking around.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) typifies this. Two of our leads wander onto a property with a drained swimming pool, blacked-out windows, and teeth are found on the porch. When they don’t leave there are very unfortunate consequences.

4. Going anywhere alone

Following on from the last entry, while it’s a bad idea heading into the unknown it’s even worse to go anywhere without bringing someone with you. It’s a good rule of thumb, when you go off alone you’re easier to stalk, terrorize and kill because no one’s there to keep you grounded and out of harm’s way.

No series exemplifies this trope better than the Friday the 13^th series. The first movie, in particular, features several effective reasons for why you should never go anywhere alone.

5. Being generally unpleasant

As in life, don’t be unpleasant to people. Don’t insult, belittle, harm or be rude, it just makes everyone hate you. And when everyone hates you in a horror film you can rest assured that you are going to die.

Look no further than this scene from Silent Night for proof of that.

6. Ignoring warnings & premonitions

I get that sometimes it’s hard to accept warnings from strangers, close friends, relatives or even your subconscious (in the case of dreams). It may feel patronising or like you aren’t personally in control. But these warnings are for your safety. It’s so baffling that horror film characters continually ignore them, as it usually leads to someone biting the big one.

Again Friday the 13^th shows that warnings should be heeded. If the kids listened to Crazy Ralph, they’d still be alive.

7. Cheating death

The final irony of horror movies is that you’re seldom truly safe. There was a time when good people survived and lead happy lives after the credits rolled. But besides the odd exception, that’s not the case nowadays.

If you’re in a self-contained movie maybe, one or two survivors will live to tell the tale. But if you’re a returning character from another film (and you aren’t Sidney Prescott, Ash Williams, Tommy Jarvis or Alice Johnson), you’ll more than likely die. So, if you survive, avoid sequels.

The master of dying in sequels is Laurie Strode. Originally dying in an off-screen car crash between Halloween 2 and 4, she was brought back in H20 (which continued from Halloween 2), only to die again in Halloween: Resurrection. She also died in the director’s cut of Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 (the second film in the reboot timeline) before being brought back in Halloween (2018). It seems the universe has a fascination with reviving and killing Laurie.

So there’s our list of seven reasons why characters die in horror movies. Just avoid doing these things and you’re sure to live to see another day.

Also Read: 5 Horror Films and The Real Events Behind Them

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