[CFF 2020 World Premiere Review] Skull: The Mask Wonders What Would Jason Do in a Brazillian Noir?

From Chattanooga Film Festival, open to residents of The United States. Virtual Festival Badges for this and all other festival films can be purchased here.

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One of my favorite things about horror festivals is stumbling over that little gem. Maybe it strains against its low budget. Maybe it’s a little rough around the edges. Maybe it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. But it’s one of those films that genre fans live for, particularly when it comes from a place of love. The Brazillian import Skull: The Mask is that movie. 

It begins with a cold open in 1944 when a man dressed all in black with an Ant-Man-looking mask, complete with a chain link mouth covering, goes on a killing spree in an underground bunker on his search for an arcane object called the “Mask of Anhangá. The mask belongs to a demon named T’Uxlu, who guards the underworld and is a servant to the pre-Columbian god Tahawantinsupay (Tahaw to his friends). After retrieving the mask and delivering it to a man with a crazed smile, a ritual is performed to summon the god...but ends with an exploding head. 

Then we’re transported to 2021, where a construction site in the Amazon uncovers the relics from 1944, including the Mask of Anhangá. Here, the narrative splits into a variety of storylines and characters. At the heart is Detective Beatriz Obdias (Natallia Rodrigues), a hotshot and hot-blooded cop who, 15 years previously was arraigned for manslaughter but managed to avoid being sentenced when she made a deal at the trial. Currently, she’s investigating the kidnapping of three Bolivian girls and gets roped into a conspiracy that, in typical noir fashion, might go straight to the top!  

Meanwhile, Manco Ramirez (Wilton Andrade) is barely getting by and wants Padre Vasco Magno (Riacardo Gelli) to return his deceased father’s belongings to him. Manco’s father once belonged to the same secret order that Vasco serves and owned a bunch of artifacts dating back 500 years. The only artifact Manco has to remind him of his father is a desiccated hand that has a connection to the demonic Anhangá mask. Padre Magno is also currently dealing with a crisis of faith as his secret demon-fighting order hasn’t actually fought a demon in...well, a very, very long time at the very least. 

Then there’s Tack Waelder (Ivo Müller), a businessman and CEO of a Chinese conglomerate called Jiú Shijiú. He sent his employee Galvani (Guta Ruiz) to the digsite to procure the mask and bring it to him. Unfortunately, Galvani’s girlfriend gets the idea to perform a ritual to summon Tahaw, ends up getting her heart ripped out and bringing the skull mask to life. And when the cleaning crew comes to clean up the bodies, they’re attacked by the mask, it latches onto the bigger cleaner (Rurik Jr.)’s face and turns him into...well, an 80s/Victor Crawley-styled behemoth of a monster who goes on a heart-ripping killing spree in the name of his cosmic god. 

Basically, it’s Jason Takes São Paulo. And if that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will.

You have the incredibly noir-inspired setting of a corrupt city and a genderbent detective with a violent history and tons of attitude to spare. Beatriz is the kind of cop who brandishes her gun at every opportunity, is ostracized by her fellow detectives and prowls the streets to a tune of a soulful and mournful saxophone. The music by Fernando Arruda clearly pulls from noir’s jazz-infused history and gives Skull: The Mask a surprisingly somber feel in the first act. It supports Beatriz’s descent as her investigation crosses paths with Skull’s violent conquests and she gets further embroiled in Tack’s company and his dubious intentions for the missing mask. 

Dropped into the middle of this melancholic affair is a hulking beast of a monster, who obeys a lot of the slasher tropes. His first victims, post tentacled mask possession of the cleaning crew (natch), is a couple having sex in a car. He murders them most viciously before continuing on his way, going after drug-dealers, partiers and more. And as he continues on his murderous rampage, his once white clothes quickly become a blood-soaked mess and just get hilariously goopier and goopier by the minute. Eel-like tentacles, meanwhile, slither through his body and he actually uses the tentacles to swing his machete-like blade à la Scorpion. 

I never knew I’d see a mashup of classic noir tropes and an 80s undead slasher, with a smattering of cosmic horror, but here we are. And it mostly works, thanks in large effort to the fantastic practical effects. Heads will be smashed, stabbed and skinned. Hearts will be ripped out. Throats slashed. Intestines ripped out...only to be used to strangle another person. Buckets of blood will explode everywhere. And it all has that DIY feel that Adam Green brought to Hatchet. 

Does it need the detective’s investigation into the missing Bolivian girls or the way her search leads her to a powerful CEO? Probably not. And at a brisk 89 minutes including credits, it’s tone and narrative threads are all over the place. It’d feel bloated and overstuffed if it weren’t so earnest. Writers and directors Armando Fonseca and Kapel Furman obviously put a lot of love and effort into this DIY creature feature and I think they could have a franchise on their hands. 

Besides, who doesn’t want to see a Jason Goes to Hell monster movie set in a noir-drenched São Paulo?