Face Your Fears

I have to admit something, and that is that I don't think I've ever seen - in the history of people putting faces on crescent moons - a skull instead of a face on one. Why has that never been done before now? Hell, it seems like a fairly obvious idea, and yet I can't think of a single instance in which it's ever been done before this mask. Maybe it has and I'm simply uninformed. I've been wrong about stuff before, so it's a possibility, but even still, why isn't this concept more prominent within the horror community as a whole? Makes no sense. Well, here's to you mask sculptor, you've made one hell of an iconic design here. Sadly, however, the concept only lets you go so far with it. You're still stuck within a very strict visual perimeter that you must adhere to. An interesting visual is only as good as its dimensions allow it to be, and when you're stuck working with something that's based on a crescent moon, something really only ...

If you grew up when I did, and was online at the age I was, you most likely remember the internets overly bizarre fascination with Ninjas. For some reason everything was Ninjas. Pirates vs Ninjas. Ask A Ninja. The list goes on and on and on. And, while I'm certainly not against Ninjas, not in the abstract anyway, I also was never a huge fan of Kung-Fu films in general. I liked a few here and there, but they overall just weren't my cup of tea. It just isn't really my genre, and I say that as a giant film geek. But that's absolutely what this mask reminds me of. The lead from a sort of Muppet led kung-fu film, which I would absolutely watch, no questions asked. Overall, it's just cartoony enough to not be boring and just goofy enough to not be realistic (okay, I mean, let's be real, this sort of thing was never going to be realistic), it's just a fantastic overall design. I love that they gave him large pointy elf ears in addition to everything else, even thou...

When I was a little girl growing up, my mother collected records. One of her favorite artists was Todd Rundgren, and for many many years, his album "Acappella" was framed and hanging on the wall of our apartment living room. A lot of other children might have seen this and felt perturbed by it, but I was a strange little girl who collected dead animals and couldn't do math to save her life. I was drawn to this imagery, for reasons that, now, make absolute perfect sense. In many ways, this was the first mask I ever really was capable of appreciating as a piece of art. Lots of countries use masks. Whether they're decorative or they're used in actual ceremonies, they're a big part of certain cultures. Thanks to the website History Of Masks , I was able to ascertain that masks in West Africa are used in ceremonies in which the purpose is to communicate with ancestral spirits. In fact, Africa likely utilizes masks to the upmost extent out of everyone in the world. ...

While I can hear you naysayers already asking me "What is there to possibly admire about a wet trash bag pulled over a decomposing Halloween pumpkin?!", allow me to answer that as thoroughly as I can for you so you might understand me just a little bit better. First of all, Howlin' Harry here is, like most masks covered on this blog, all about the deets. That's right. The deets. We're bringing back 90s slang tonight. With his hauntingly dislocated jaw and raised eyebrows, his face ever stuck in a perpetual "You did WHAT?!" pose, he's just as artistic as any other mask I've talked about even with nowhere near as much work put into him. For once, the color Grey has been used in the correct way and his tone really actually helps out the design here, which I'm assuming was supposed to be "middle aged Crypt Keeper's second wife". His teeth are all varying shapes and sizes, and that big gaping black maw is magnificent, especi...

There's absolutely no way to categorize this type of mask, so I have just come up with the categorization of putting this mask, and all masks that fall into the look a like of it, as "mother fucking awesome". Because this thing is mother fucking awesome. I mean, back before Halloween became nothing but licensed franchised superhero costumes and cosplays of all kinds, this is what you did. Companies had to actually try and make an effort to get your attention, and we got some great shit because of it. And look, I'm not going to look down on anyone who cosplays, because those people have tremendous talent and are better than a lot of actual costume designers in Hollywood I'd say, but I do miss when Halloween was more of a "I'm a bug eyed chainsaw armed mummy" and not "I wore my Shazam costume again this year." Not that there's anything at all wrong with Shazam, it was a great movie, but come on man. Bug eyed chainsaw armed mummy sounds...