Die teuflische Maske (1961)

Die teuflische Maske: Directed by Julian Roffman. With Paul Stevens, Claudette Nevins, Bill Walker, Anne Collings. A young archaeologist believes he is cursed by a mask that causes him to have weird nightmares and possibly to murder. Before committing suicide, he mails the mask to his psychiatrist, Dr. Barnes, who is soon plunged into the nightmare world of the mask.

“No, itu0026#39;s not the Jim Carrey comedy but an utterly obscure and sadly forgotten cheapie from the glorious early 60u0026#39;s. Honestly, I never would have known about this movieu0026#39;s existence if it werenu0026#39;t for a modest film festival held in my country, which included this movie in their nostalgic 3-D tribute series. Apart from the obvious classics, like u0026quot;House of Waxu0026quot; and u0026quot;Creature from the Black Lagoonu0026quot;, they programmed this peculiar little oddity and it unexpectedly became a pleasant little surprise to pretty much everyone in the theater. The plot is non-existent and rudimentary schlock, but the 3-D sequences are nothing short of mesmerizing and vastly astonishing, especially if you bear in mind the time of release as well as the budget Julian Roffman presumably had to work with. The story is actually comparable to the one in the aforementioned Jim Carrey vehicle. Whenever someone puts on the titular mask, he/she undergoes a drastic transformation. But instead of changing into a jolly green-faced comedian, the mask-wearer here directly enters hell, witnesses all sorts of delirious and flashy tableaux and inevitably develops homicidal tendencies. The ambitious and stubborn psychiatrist Allan Barnes receives the mask from a patient who just committed suicide, and instead of returning it to the police or to museum where it got stolen from, he keeps it for research. Barnes constantly convinces his fiancée and himself heu0026#39;s resistant to the masku0026#39;s powerful satanic side effects, but of course he soon undergoes an incurable transformation. The 3-D footage often doesnu0026#39;t make the slightest bit of sense and/or canu0026#39;t possibly get linked to the rest of the events in the film, but youu0026#39;ll at least have to admit the scenes are trippy and bizarre beyond comparison. There are gigantic skulls emerging from sacrificial altars, large mummified hands launching big balls of fire, ravishing witches luring you with their fingers, trees coming to life before your eyes and literally loads of other lovely stuff. Like any forceful type of drug, the 3-D scenes work addictive and pretty soon you donu0026#39;t even care about the wraparound story anymore as youu0026#39;re simply counting down the minutes until you can put those geeky red u0026amp; green goggles on again. Thereu0026#39;s a funny introduction at the start of the film, in which a supposedly acclaimed collector explains to the audience they should put on our u0026quot;masksu0026quot; whenever the protagonists puts on his. If that isnu0026#39;t clear enough yet, thereu0026#39;s also the brain-penetrating voice-over repeatedly shouting the phrase u0026quot;Put … the mask … ON!!!u0026quot;. This is, plain and simply, undemanding but extremely relaxing 60u0026#39;s entertainment. Itu0026#39;s probably not worth encouraging people to desperately seek for a decent copy (and, of course, matching glasses), but Iu0026#39;m glad I saw it nevertheless.”