The Bad Boy Of Rubbertown

When you're down in Coolsville, be aware that you're also deep in Rubbertown, where the meanest, slickest gangs of monsters meet. This guy, Johnny Horns, is the head (not to be cute) of the toughest gang around, and he's a pretty decent guy despite that leader role. Sure he may act tough, he may ride a motorcycle and have a bedazzled leather jacket that bears the phrase "Kill The Plastics", but otherwise he's a good guy to have around.

Johnny Horns isn't a bad guy any means. He's got a good set of morals and a decent head on his head on his shoulders, but that doesn't mean he won't fuck you up and sideways if you cross him or hurt any of his family. He's tough, but he's fair, and he'll give you two shakes of a lambs tail before he brings the hammer of rubber justice down on you hard.

Seriously though, this thing is great. It's such a unique design. It's missing a jaw, first of all, despite being a mask you wear around your whole head, and it has this weird stylistic pattern on the face that makes him look otherworldly. I love the yellowed teeth that cover up the top half of your mouth, but of course the absolute best aspects of this mask are - without question - the horns and the pompadour.

 I mean, just look at this goddamned hair. Is that slick or what? That mixed with the sideburns, the eyebrows, one eye only half open in a squint and the horns makes this like a tough mid 50s Vegas bad boy with a heart of gold, like if James Dean had been a demon. James Demon. I can't get over the decision to make these half faces, though, I think that's so fascinating.

Usually with rubber wrap around masks, you get an entire face, but whoever designed this mold decided that it'd actually be creepier if your lower half of your face was exposed, and they're not wrong. You could do a lot with that on its own, to add to the creep factor of the whole costume. Kudos to you, mask designer, whoeever you are. And the little devil horns are just the perfect touch, honestly. The best thing about this mask is how absolutely unevil it is. It just looks like a guy with a bad skin complexion and some devil horns. It isn't outright a monster, but those monster features make the normalness of the whole thing all the more unnerving than it would be.  They even gave the guy normal looking human ears to add to the confusion of what the hell this thing is supposed to be.

This Elvis looking mother fucker even comes two for the price of one on the eBay listing I found, which means it's all the easier to start your own Johnny Horns gang in Rubbertown!

I love masks that are monstrous, don't get me wrong. Really out there, really bizarre, really expertly crafted to look like a creature from another world. That being said, I also love masks that really just take a seemingly plain face and then add really monstrous features to it to make it very uncanny valley, and this is probably one of my favorite examples in recent memory. The design on his skin, the pompadour, and the tiny tiny horns. Have I mentioned how much I actually love the size of the horns? They're just there, they aren't the focal point, and I think that's a brilliant decision. They're quite obviously the most demonic part of the mask, the part that's supposed to really tell you that something isn't quite normal here, and yet they made it very subtle. It's genius design.

Johnny Horns, overall, is a decent fellow with a great face and a love for his momma's homemade soup. I kind of wish we saw these sorts of masks more often, if I'm being honest. Like I said, not that I don't love outright monstrous designs, but I do feel like this sort of underplayed low key design concept is far too often ignored in favor of being loud and in your face, design wise, and that's a shame because when done right, anything works. So here's to hoping I run into some more masks like Johnny Horns in the future, and here's to hoping that he won't break my knees if I say I like them better than his.

I kinda need my knees, Johnny.