Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

good back-story, and good acting

Boring

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

A psychiatrist doesn't believe an ancient sacrificial mask is causing one of his patients to commit murder but when the guy mails it to him before killing himself, the good doctor gets a chance to find out...What would have been just another low budget black & white horror film almost rises to the occasion once it switches over to 3D whenever someone dons the mask to experience surreal, nightmarish visions that must have scared the pants off kids at the time, judging by the film's many IMDb reviews. The cheesily avant-garde visions are ambitious, I'll give them that, but the rest of the film is a little too slow-moving for its own good and the low body count doesn't help, either. That said, I'm a sucker for ancient artifacts that still possess the power to wreak havoc in the present day and the mask in question, found during a South American archaeological dig, was once used for human sacrifice just like the horrific Aztec ceremonial cloak in the classic Cornell Woolrich horror yarn, "I'm Dangerous Tonight". Tobe Hooper turned that tale into an OK TV movie and I also liked "The Cheaters", an episode of Boris Karloff's THRILLER, where a pair of antique bifocals cause wearers to see things as they really are.

The 3-D process used by the producers of this odd flick was called Nature Vision. Like most 3-D efforts such as "Comin' At Ya" and "The Man Who Wasn't There", the whole point of the exercise was the 3-D. In this, also known as 'Eyes of Hell", the 3-D sequences are pretty effective and trippy and quite bizarre. They also feel like they were shot for another film. The bridging story about a man receiving an Aztec mask is rather slow and ponderous and stylistically inert. But when the hallucinations occur, triggered by the mask, the imagery becomes psychedelic and surreal. There isn't much violence or bloodshed, but the use of the process is respectable. I saw this originally at a drive-in and I well remember the original, colored ad mat (red) that promoted the film's gimmick.

Yes, I have to agree that this is really not a great film. However, as the previous reviewer has commented, it is worth watching at least once for the 3-D sequences, which were done by the famous Slavko Vorkapitch. The premise is actually a great use of the 3-D medium. Whenever the main character puts on the haunted mask, that is the cue for the audience to put their 3-D glasses (Which were in the form of a "Mystic Mask" when I saw this in it's original theatrical release in 1961!). He then has these wild 3-D dream sequences, which are definitely the ONLY good part of the film. In order for this to work in ANY movie theater the 3-D sequences are in the anaglyph format, which uses the red and green glasses, and does not require a special projection lens or silver screen. The film is otherwise black and white, except for the 3-D sequences, which use the red and green encoding to create monochromatic 3-D. It should be noted, however, that this process does not translate very well to video. The 3-D effect may be significantly reduced or not work well at all, depending upon the monitor, color settings, etc. Probably the laserdisc version of this will have the best 3-D effects.

This silly, stagy, slow moving horror film is probably still the best 3D movie ever made. Once you wait through the bland story, and the call comes to "Put On The Mask"; it becomes another film. These 3D sequences are the best, freakest ever put on film, and they transfer to TV remarkably well in the Elvira edition. If you have any taste for oddities at all, this is a must.