Face Your Fears

Read #1 / Read #2 / Read #3 / Read #4 / Read #5 / Read #6 / Read #7 There comes a time where we have to take a look back to the past and see where we've come from, and that time is right now. Welcome to yet another installment of Vintage Mask Roundup! This time, for the eighth edition, we're starting off with something that looks like it should be directly out of a mid 2000s direct to video discount bin horror movie titled something along the lines of "Hogtied" or something like that. In fact, since I don't do much research on these and take them at basically face value, it wouldn't shock me if this was actually just a still from some obscure crappy horror flick, but either way, Pig Butcher deserves to be seen. Here he is coming out of the mens room on his first day on the job (without washing his hands, might I add), ready to get back to slicing and dicing his lower brethren that we've all come to know as delicious. But Pig Butcher isn't scary....

Y'know, usually I pass over Goblins because they're just not really my kind of cryptid. Nothing against them, I just don't find their designs particularly intriguing, nor do I find their color scheme all that fun to discuss, but every now and then I do come across one that tickles my funny bone, and this guy was certainly one of those. As soon as I saw him on eBay I knew I had to talk about him and his gargantuan mouth. I mean, let's be honest, this guy clearly swallows his food whole like a snake, right? That's a skill I wish I had. I want to be able to eat like a cartoon character. Just put a whole chicken in my mouth and pull out the skeleton. I think, personally, his best quality is his teeth. A lot of masks just forgo the teeth without realizing they can be an excellent accessory visually, and whoever designed this mask understood that, because those are some twisted ass chompers and they only add to the unsettling nature of this little Goblin bastard whom I...

I feel like something was lost in translation somewhere along the lines with the making of this mask. Someone in the creative team, probably George, thought "You know what would be neat? A vampire bat!" and then went to tell someone in the art department, probably Craig, who thought he meant quite literally a Vampire with a bat on his face. Look, I know Vampires turn into bats, and I know that Craig has only been working here for like a week, but seriously, how do you screw that up that badly? In fact, I'm more than willing to bet that Craig here is also responsible for the man with a spider on his face . Remember that post? I can just see these two being a double header (no pun intended) together at some cheap knock off Halloween costume shop that badly wants to be Spirit but can't afford to be Spirit. So instead they buy masks like this, and call themselves "Soul" because that's kind of like Spirit. Look the owner's doing his best, okay? His daugh...

Here's a question: can you gain weight from drinking someone's blood? Because if so, that's clearly what happened here. But to be honest, a vampire that looks like this is kind of way more terrifying. He's got a full figure, letting you know he doesn't stop drinking ever. He'll consume a whole ass person if he wants to. No shame. Gotta admire that kind of body acceptance. Though Fat Dracula really has too much neck. He's got like a quadruple chin. I don't say this as a way to make a fat joke, I say this because, as a person who admires masks, I'm curious how one would hide that aspect of it, or even if that's what you're intended to do. I don't know. Just seems like the mask goes on a bit too far down. I would feel claustrophobic in this bad boy, personally, but hey, that's just me. Personally, on a design level - aside from melting neck syndrome - I really love Fat Dracula. He's got a wonderful blue/greyish tint to him and those ...

I know that it's not in my nature to cover masks on this blog that aren't just utterly bizarre and look like some weird monster out of some 50s dime store horror novel, but every now and then one crosses my path that I absolutely refuse to ignore, and such is the case with this one. There's just something so utterly wonderful about what appears to be a grizzled retired clown with a drinking problem who, for some reason we are unaware of, has a spider permanently attached to his forehead. It's glorious. And while some argument could be made that this is meant to be a vampire, what with the sharp teeth and pointy ears, I prefer to continue thinking of him as an out of work clown. I mean, a vampire with a spider on his head is kind of normal for a vampire, you know? That's what they do . That's their shtick. But a clown with a penchant for expensive whiskey and thousands of dollars in debt who one day woke up with a spider attached to his head that he can't rem...

Since the dawn of time, we've loved mashing things up. Whether it's foods that don't belong together, like pineapple on pizza, or music genres like rap with classical, we love the concept of mashups. So, with that in mind, it only makes sense to finally begin mashing up classic horror concepts. This isn't a new thing, exactly, as it's been done for ages. Horror-comedies have been a genre since both have been invented, really, but not until this mask have I seen someone mashup two horror icons. Get ready, we're about to do the monster mashup. Werewolves and Vampires have always been separate, two distinct horror characters that each have their own set of rules and unique personality traits, and often times clash when brought together. Hell, for a long time the internet was obsessed with who was better, Pirates or Ninjas, but come 2010 that devolved into Vampires or Werewolves, mostly thanks to the unreadable text I refuse to acknowledge as literature called Tw...