This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Director Arne Mattsson is most famous for his 1958 thriller "Mannequin in Red" which allegedly was a role-model movie for the giallo that emerged from Italy during the sixties. Being a gigantic fan of gialli, I really wanted to watch "Mannequin in Red" but – alas – I only found this "Mask of Murder" instead. The first thing that becomes quite obvious here is that Mattsson was quite a lazy and patriotic Swede… The events are supposed to take place in a winterly Canadian village, but everyone drives around in Volvo cars with Swedish license places and I'm pretty sure I also spotted a couple of Swedish signposts as well. The only thing missing to make it abundantly clear that filming took place in Sweden is an Ikea warehouse in the background or guest appearances from the ABBA band members! Secondly, I presume this movie is supposed to be a whodunit/mystery thriller, yet the identity of the killer as well as his motivations are pretty obvious straight from the first murder, so all that remains is a goofy giallo-lite flick with the almighty Christopher Lee in yet another inferior supportive role. The police are hunting down a misogynist and masked killer who slices the throats of his female victims with a razor. He's a dumb killer, I may add, because he allows himself to get caught rather easily. During the arrest, Lt. Bob McLaine shoots the suspect much against the will of his superior Chief Lt. Jonathan Rich (Lee) who also gets injured during the conflict. By the way, did you know the Canadian police use machine guns?!? A few days later, Lt. McLaine painfully discovers that his wife Maria lies about going on holiday to Bermuda in order to spend time with her lover – and her husband's colleague – Ray Cooper. Poor Bob emotionally cracks and at the same time the misogynous killer with his hideous mask and razor starts murdering again. Oh gee, I wonder who he is! The regretful thing about "Mask of Murder" is that plot and the denouement hold quite a lot of potential, so in case Arne Mattsson and his crew would have bothered to uphold the mystery and create suspense just a little bit more, this honestly could have been a nice 80s horror sleeper. Now "Mask of Murder" mainly comes across as a lazy effort. Even the killer's mask is an uninspired and ugly piece of scenery in spite of its significant role in the plot. Was it that hard to come up with a slightly more creative mask?

Certainly among Swedish director Mattsson's best-known work is the "Giallo" precursor MANNEQUIN IN RED (1958); with this in mind, the film under review can be seen as his contribution to the then-prevalent (albeit much-maligned) "Slasher" subgenre. While he should be commended for not following much of the established trappings (if anything, the teenagers who usually make up the victims' list barely feature here) and for managing to attract a serviceable cast (Rod Taylor, Valerie Perrine and Christopher Lee, who – as with the recently-viewed ALBINO {1976} – plays the ineffectual Police Chief), the results are still far from memorable and even downright inept at times.The main problem with the script is that it tries too hard to lend psychological depth to the narrative when its outcome is fairly obvious and predictable from the start. Cop Taylor discovers wife Perrine is having an affair with his closest colleague at the same time as he is investigating a spate of throat-slashings. But since the murders, following the same modus operandi, resume soon after Taylor's execution of the serial killer and Taylor himself had been the last to handle the latter's 'kit' (razor and featureless mask – at one point, the latter is amusingly stated that it makes the wearer look like Yul Brynner; if anything, it actually reminded me of the assailant of THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN {1976}!), there is little doubt as to the identity of the second murderer, given the lawman's state of mind! This effectively dilutes the proceedings of both tension and interest, especially since our anti-hero goes on about his Police business regardless, i.e. probing locations and witnesses for possible clues to the killings he is himself clearly responsible for, and even adding further red herrings in the unconnected razor assault on a drug-dealing barber committed by a gangland collector! Alas, all the satirical socio- political points brilliantly made by Elio Petri via an exact same scenario in the Oscar-winning INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION (1970) are completely bypassed here in favour of the lowest common denominator (read gratuitous softcore nudity). That said, we are still spoon-fed the protagonist's having the cloud of suspicion over himself: he happens to have a similar razor as the murder weapon and one of the people he questions actually says that the current perpetrator has a similar build as his…and, all the while, the bed-ridden Lee (having been shot by the first slasher before being machine-gunned by an already- unbalanced Taylor) contemplates whether the dead man's spirit could have found a new 'vessel' in order to continue his apparently motiveless killing spree (but which Taylor perversely suggests might be brought on by sexual inadequacy)!The snowy backdrop (supposedly Canada but really Uppsala, Sweden – that is to say, Ingmar Bergman's birthplace!) is undeniably attractive and unusual for this type of fare; however, this is continuously undercut by the kitschy 1980s fashions and settings (including obligatory and awfully-scored disco-bar and strip-joint sequences) and some hilariously overstated moments (notably Taylor and Lee's reactions at, respectively, his wife's infidelity – captured from a distance via binoculars – and his friend's guilt – by the symbolic throat-slashing of "Playboy" centrefolds conveniently stashed in a drawer of his work-desk!).The finale, then, emits a false air of cynicism by not only having Taylor frame his duplicitous pal for the murders (he foolishly re-enacts the slaying of a woman witnessed by her young son who, of course, exclaims "That's him!" upon seeing the masked assailant) but by the fact that he is allowed to get away with it (though assured by his superior that he is on to him)! For the record, Lee would re-unite with Mattsson on the director's subsequent effort, i.e. THE GIRL (1986), which also happens to be my next entry in the ongoing tribute I am paying to the recently-deceased Horror icon (incidentally, Rod Taylor also passed away earlier this year – so I got to watch MASK OF MURDER for his sake as well)

Mask of Murder is another of those mystery thrillers that borrows plot points from the slasher movies and giallos that had been popular around the time. Just like Baby Doll Murders, Out of the Dark and Dead End; Mask of Murder puts a mysterious killer up against a struggling and scarily inept Police Force. Christopher Lee's credits over the last ten years have included three mega-blockbusters, which isn't bad going for an actor that made his first movie appearance way back in the midst of World War 2. He was initially John Carpenter's first choice to play the Sam Loomis character in Halloween, but he didn't accept; something he admits he's always regretted. He even went as far as to call it the biggest mistake of his career. Obviously annoyed that he'd missed out on some supreme slasher action, perhaps the reason he took a supporting role here was because he didn't want to make the same mistake twice? Or maybe he was blackmailed into doing it? I really don't know, but one thing is certain however, he was definitely slumming it here…It's all set in a small snowy Canadian town. Almost immediately, a loony in a mask grabs an unsuspecting woman and slices her throat with a straight razor. Later that day in another location, a second victim suffers the same fate at the hands of the gruesome killer. He removes his disguise and heads back to a remote cabin where he proves his dementia by gnashing his teeth and staring into the screen. Ooooh scary! We next get to meet the members of our cast over dinner. First off there's John (Christopher Lee) the chief of the local Police Force. His best detective, Bob (Rod Taylor) has been having problems with his wife Marianne (Valerie Perrine). These difficulties must have a lot to do with the fact that his partner Ray (Sam Cook) is busy banging her every time that he gets the chance. The dinner party is cut short when Bob receives a call informing him that they have the assassin surrounded. They rush to the scene and to cut a long story short, the city of Nelson should be a little quieter from now on. But the tranquillity doesn't last. It begins to look like there's a copycat murderer at work when more women turn up with their throats slit. Is someone mimicking the murders? Or is the killer back from beyond the grave? Why on earth Christopher Lee turned down Halloween but chose to play a part in this turkey is one of the world's biggest mysteries. I mean seriously come on, surely the screenwriter must have known that the killer's identity was patently obvious from the start. This is perhaps the dumbest and most basic premise for a murder mystery that I have ever seen. The Scooby Doo cartoon offers less obvious plot twists than this rubbish. Swedish film-maker Arne Mattson directs so sloppily that he manages to drag surprisingly wooden performances from an inviting ensemble of screen veterans. Lee's the best of the bunch, but he's not on screen long enough to warrant his fans to hunt this down. The pace is non-existent, and perhaps the most obnoxious thing about Mask of Murder is the horrible music that accompanies every 'twist' in the story. It sounds like a one-handed guitarist attempting to mimic a Jimi Hendrix lick after one too many bottles of cider.The throat slashings are quite bloody and in one scene a girl is murdered in a cinema - a trick that has become a slasher trademark after He knows you're alone and Scream 2. The only problem is that the killings are so poorly executed that the gratuitous blood gushes just look like a poor attempt to flog a dead horse. I knew from the off that I was in for a bad time with this movie and my suspicions were confirmed when I witnessed Rod Taylor sniffing his adulterous wife's underwear. (Don't ask!)I'm led to believe that Mask of Murder has become extremely rare, which is certainly a blessing. If you want to keep your sanity intact then please don't bother trying to hunt this one down. If you must buy this waste of space for the inclusion of Christopher Lee, then all I can recommend is don't get the UK version. The BBFC rated print is missing all the throat slashing, which makes it even less rewarding. This is an exceptionally bad film, riddled with uninspired hamstrung performances and dumb pathetic scripting. Shame on you Mr. Lee...

While I agree with nearly all of what chrisie says in her review here, I don't think it's one of the worst films I've ever seen. But maybe that says something more about me than it does the film...There was a plot here, not much of one but lot of grade-Z films don't have that subtle little thing. Plus there was a kinda twisted motive for the copycat killer that made some logical sense. Again, not a feature of some bad films I've seen.The acting was pretty standard and Chris Lee could have phoned his role in, Rod Taylor played his usual 'tough straight guy' part and Valerie Perrine was...er...Valerie Perrine again...nice eye candy but little else.Main fault really is this type of film had been done many times before and done far better. Still, it passed the time and I resisted the urge to fast-forward, which is always a good sign.And by the way, I don't think it was his wife's knickers that Rod Taylor was sniffing, looked more like her nightie to me. Not that most men would blame him for having a sniff of the knicks....we're strange, complicated creatures we men! In this instance I assume the idea that he was smelling his wife's perfume on her nightie to show the viewers this was the only way he could get close to her anymore? Then again, maybe he's just a pervert.....N.B. My referring to another review by Chrisie in which she mentions the knicker sniffing may be confusing since that review has been deleted for some unknown reason.