Jason Voorhees (Friday 13th), Ghostface (Scream), Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Michael Myers (Halloween); the four most iconic killers, all don an iconic mask to boot.
So why is it that the mask makes the killer? In most of these killer's cases, the mask itself is often a trophy, excluding Ghostface, whose sole reason for wearing the mask is to cover his identity. Voorhees bears the hockey mask in hopes of covering his deformities (earlier wearing a linen cloth sack over his head in Friday 13th (1980), and acquiring the mask only in Part III. Leatherface's mask is also a trophy made from his victim's own faces stitched together.
I conducted a small survey among friends to find out which killers they thought were the most terrifying of the bunch and here are the results I gathered (pictures used included the four killers above plus Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and Pennywise the Clown (It):
Q: Which of these images makes you the most uncomfortable and why?
Freddy Krueger
"His skin is messed up and his glare is weird. He isn't someone I'd like to meet in person." Well, I'd hope not...
"He has disgusting skin and a creepy face."
Mike Myers
"You can't really see his expression, and that's weird for me. I wouldn't know what he's thinking."
Leatherface
"His weapon is too extreme. I wouldn't like to be chased by him."
Hopefully, you wouldn't like to be chased by anyone in that circumstance.
Ghostface
"It's ironic because he's wearing the Scream mask, but wouldn't it be the victim screaming, not him?"
Pennywise
"I just hate clowns. I'm not sure what it is about them. Maybe it's the fact that they're meant to be for kids, but you don't really know what they're thinking. They could snap at any moment and you'd never know. They're so close to kids all the time, it's worrying. Their face paint is just a fake persona in a sense."
Jason
"It's all the blood. That really makes me uncomfortable."
"I wouldn't usually be scared of a mask like that, but somehow he makes it terrifying. It's probably the blood and everything."
So, in general, it seems that the reason the mask of a killer plays a huge part in their identity is because it covers it. With the mask on, they can move away from a recognizable form and turn into something or someone else; whether it be a killer or a monster.
Throw in a couple of gruesome kills, and you've got yourself a first-class murderer to haunt audiences for many years to come.
- Virginia
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