THE MASK Movie Review

Eyes of Hell
The Spooky Movie Show

This wacky Canadian horror movie from 1961 tried—as happens every few years—to resuscitate the brief 3-D craze of the 1950s. It's the story of a psychiatrist (Paul Stevens) who comes into the possession of an ancient Aztec mask, and sees the physical manifestations of his unconscious sexual desires whenever he puts it on. We get to see his fantasies, too—and in 3-D—because every time he puts the mask on in the movie, the narrator instructs us to put on the cardboard mask (with red and blue cellophane eyes) that we were given when we bought our tickets (or bought the tape). It's kind of a cool, Freudian gimmick, but the director, Julian Roffman, dropped the ball by making the film unnecessarily dull, and the fantasy scenes laughably cheesy. The gimmick itself is really not very different from the premise of the 1994 Jim Carrey movie, except that Carrey simply lives out his fantasies. (Carrey also has the ability to pop through any movie screen without the need for special glasses.) Also known as Eyes of Hell.

NEXT STOP … X—The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, Tightrope, The Dead Zone

1961 85m/B CA Paul Stevens, Claudette Nevins, Bill Walker, Anne Callings, Martin Lavut, Leo Leyden, Bill Bryden, Eleanor Beecroft, Steven Appleby; D: Julian Roffman; W: Slavko Vorkapich, Franklin Delessert, Sandy Haver, Frank Taubes; C: Herbert S. Alpert; M: Louis Applebaum. VHS, LV RHI, MLB