Vintage Mask Roundup #4

Read #1 / Read #2 / Read #3

Welcome back to yet another installment of Vintage Mask Roundup! The only posts on this blog that may actually qualify as genuinely terrifying, despite every post featuring a somewhat grotesque mask in them. In case you're just joining us, you can read the previous 3 posts in this series just overhead, but the brief rundown is that we go through 5 different vintage photos of people wearing masks and, more or less, make fun of them.

As we start the fourth round in this traditional segment, we have our very first contender right above, featuring what look like terrifying shrunken grandmas. Those masks are such perfectly encapsulated examples of uncanny valley that it's not even funny, and falls much more in the terrifying region. They look like people, but they're also just slightly off enough to make you wary and uncomfortable, and then, when put on top of what I can only assume are children being held against their will to model these sorts of masks by a man aptly named Creepy Dave, well, it makes it all the more horrifying.

And as if these Jigsaw precursors weren't bad enough, I can tell you with the upmost confidence that this was the norm for Halloween masks of this time period. Everyone looked like a poorly constructed papier-mache Peanuts character. Just imagine walking down the street with your sweet little angel dressed like a witch, like any good god fearing child, and you see a group of these terrifying goblin children coming at you full force, only lightly illuminated by the flickering streetlamps overhead. What a horrible experience that must have been. I'm willing to bet these masks are supposed to be caricatures of someone too, because capitalism is certainly not a modern thing and they did this sort of stuff even back then, banking on famous people and characters to sell products, but I can't confidently say who it is, sadly.

But either way, let's just be glad the design of masks changed throughout time, because imagine if Halloween had featured Michael Meyers in one of these bad boys instead of his iconic mask we know and love today. That'd be utterly scarring.

 

I'm not sure what kind of harem this is, but I can safely say it's one I'd happily join.

 

I mean, we all get to wear singular toned outfits like some kind of college art collective and prance around in what appear to be goat masks of some kind while our loving patriarch, Beardo the Elfling Wonder watches over his flock like a loving father should? Sign me the fuck up. This also looks like it was taken in front of an eighteenth century castle, just look at that wall. This entire thing simultaneously screams 7th grade dance recital and strange ren faire re-enactment. I have to wonder about the context, but perhaps that's something I'm not ready to have, and quite frankly, without the context it only makes it all the more fun, leaving it open for some rather enticing fantasies about what the fuck all is going on here.

I'm all for whatever is going on in this photo, and only can dream that, someday, I too will watch over a small but dedicated group of ballet goats who want to pose like a teen girl pop group taking their debut album cover. Isn't that, really, what we all want?

 

It's almost midnight. The kids have been put to bed, and you're lounging by the fire sipping a nice cold glass of iced tea while tuning in to the local classical radio show. For some reason you're wearing a monocle, despite not being rich while you attempt to class it up like them. And then, the hair on the back of your neck stands up, as you hear it. Those small padded footsteps, that soft *oink* sound that once plagued you as a child. You sit upright, your drink sloshing in its frosty cold glass as you do so, and you know...she's back.

Piggy Patty has been haunting you since you first saw her as a small boy, and you thought that those days were long since gone, but apparently not. Now she's here to claim the innocence of your children as well, stealing their moments of joy and laughter and replacing them instead with nothing but the feeling of sheer, unadulterated terror and unease. Piggy Patty will never stop. She never sleeps. She will get what she wants, even if it means killing you in the process.

Seriously though, these look like the last known photos of a someone heading out for a nice night of trick or treats never to be seen again. Or perhaps the last known photos of whoever was holding the camera as this terrifying pig child hybrid burst into their house and stole all their internal organs, violently removing them only to replace them with oodles of candy, like some sort of fucked up human Halloween pinata.

...and now that I say that out loud, I realize what an absolutely fantastic horror concept that is, and that I should immediately get to work trying to sell it. Anyone know Blumhouse's e-mail? Those guys will produce ANYTHING.

Either way, this seemingly adorable mask hides a deep, dark shameful secret. Sure, it appears to be smiling, but underneath the child that's become trapped behind it is sobbing, begging to be rescued from a life of distress as a pig like murderer. The pig mask itself is what holds all the power, and there's nothing you can do once it chooses you except let fate run its course. And if you should, by some awful chance, one night go into your kitchen only to find the silhouette of Piggy Patty dimly illuminated by the back doors porch light as she stands in your kitchen, preparing to gut you and fill you with a random assortment of fun sized candy bars, the only thing left to do is pray it ends quickly.

Because running will get you nowhere.

Oh look, it's the good posture gas mask, ready to play badminton in his freshly laundered lederhosen. He stopped to have this snapshot taken of him while he picked up some litter on the sidewalk to throw it away in the can behind him, like the fine upstanding law abiding citizen that he is. What a great guy Good Posture Gas Mask is! Be like him, he cares about the cleanliness of his home, and he only wants you to do the same. After all, it's the only planet we've got! And always make sure to change your suspenders at least once a week so they don't get worn out. Goodness knows those things ain't cheap.

I usually shy away from featuring gas masks on this blog for a number of reasons. The first is that they've been overused as a trope in horror, and the second is that, while they're certainly unsettling, they're not really "masks" in the traditional sense like I like to feature here. But that's what Vintage Mask Roundup is all about, man. Breaking those rules and pushing those boundaries. And really, look at this lovable fuck. How could I not feature him? He's on his way to play a rousing game of sports ball with his friends, showing he's not only an active vital person but also a team player, both admirable qualities to want to emulate, really. Good Posture Gas Mask is a role model, honestly, and we should all strive to be like him.

I am not even making fun of this guy, he's too prim and proper to really warrant or deserve a dressing down, and besides, you probably couldn't dress him down even if you tried. We all know he's wearing like five other lederhosen underneath that top pair. That's just how Good Posture Gas Mask rolls. He's got a serious anti-nudity complex.

Okay, okay, enough fooling around. You all came here for truly creepy photos. Well, here you go. This last one is really bizarre and I cannot come up with any real explanation of it, other than perhaps "the work of the devil". There's so much to ask about here. Why are they standing backwards? Why are their hands behind their backs? What are they looking at? Why is the woman next to the masked person not wearing a mask? Just what IS that horrifying mask that person is wearing? Why does this photo look like it was taken just outside an abandoned property deep in the woods somewhere?

Far too many questions, and far too little answers.

That mask is downright unsettling too, if we're being honest. I zoomed in on the mask and read the hat, or what I'm presuming to be a hat anyway, and from what I could see it was foreign. I think French. I looked it up, typing what appears to read as "Pentiction", but all I really got in return was a Wikipedia page for Penticton which is a city in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada, which is the hub of wine tourism apparently. And perhaps that's what it is. It could totally be. I did say the word looked French to my pleb American eyes, and I know lots of folks in Canada speak French, so that may be exactly what it is. Some sort of terrifying memorabilia from the gift shop in one of the wineries or craft breweries there.

Either way, there's simply too much about this photo that remains unanswered, and we're going to need to put on our big girl detective lady pants to really find some answers. So if any of you have any big girl detective lady pants, please put them on and help us out, because mine are ripped and also soiled. I'd really like to get to the bottom of this case, just like they liked the get to the bottom of a case of wine. And without any information, it remains a creepy mystery that will forever be unsolved, always gnawing away at the back of our skulls for years to come.

What is this mask? Who does it represent? Why is it so goddamned smiley?

The world may never know, and, I'm willing to bet at least, the world should never know.