40 Fun Facts About Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon

Angela Goethals, Taylor Gentry in Behind the Mask, played big sister Linnie McCallister in which holiday comedy?

Home Alone gave Angela Goethals her best-known childhood role as Linnie. Another actress, Maureen Elisabeth Shay, took over the part in the sequel two years later.

Which A Nightmare on Elm Street star plays Doc Halloran, the psychiatrist hunting Leslie Vernon?

Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger himself, switches sides to play the heroic Doc Halloran. Leslie is delighted to be chased, because he believes every great slasher needs a nemesis.

Behind the Mask treats past killings on Elm Street, in Haddonfield and at which other slasher setting as real history?

Crystal Lake is named early in the narration as the scene of real murders. In Leslie's world the famous movie slashers actually existed, and he trains to join their ranks.

Why does Leslie Vernon say a slasher needs so much cardio training in Behind the Mask?

To keep pace without running is the whole trick: a slasher has to look as if he is strolling while his victims sprint. Leslie treats the famous slow-moving killer as an athletic feat.

Zelda Rubinstein, Mrs. Collinwood in Behind the Mask, was best known as the medium Tangina in which 1982 film?

Poltergeist made Zelda Rubinstein a horror icon as the tiny medium who clears the haunted house. She returned to the part in both sequels.

Scott Wilson, who plays retired killer Eugene in Behind the Mask, later played farmer Hershel Greene on which TV series?

The Walking Dead cast Scott Wilson as Hershel five years after he played Leslie's mentor. He joined Behind the Mask because a friend already in the cast suggested him.

What does security-camera footage show Leslie Vernon's burned body doing during the end credits of Behind the Mask?

Sitting up on an autopsy table is Leslie's last wink at the audience: like the slashers he idolises, he was never really finished. The writers always meant his story to continue.

Who turns out to be the survivor girl Leslie Vernon was secretly grooming all along in Behind the Mask?

The woman interviewing him, Taylor Gentry, was his real target from the start. Leslie picked her crew to film his debut precisely so that she would end up facing him.

Which literary name does Leslie Vernon give Doc Halloran, the obsessed pursuer every slasher supposedly needs?

Ahab, the whale-chasing captain of Moby-Dick, is Leslie's word for the nemesis who will hunt him without rest. He is thrilled when his old psychiatrist turns up to fill the role.

Doc Halloran in Behind the Mask is modelled on Dr. Sam Loomis, the psychiatrist of which slasher film series?

Halloween gave horror its template for the obsessed doctor in Donald Pleasence's Loomis, who spends film after film pursuing his escaped patient.

Why does Taylor Gentry's crew realise that the waitress Kelly cannot be Leslie Vernon's true survivor girl?

She is not a virgin, as the crew discover when they burst in on Kelly and her boyfriend. By Leslie's rules only an innocent can face the killer, so his heroine has to be someone else.

Leslie Vernon's story was shot in the Pacific Northwest but is set in a small town in which US state?

Maryland is where Leslie's hometown sits on screen. Principal photography took place in Oregon, where a limited budget meant rewriting scenes to fit the locations.

Which piece of farm equipment does Leslie Vernon's survivor girl use to crush his head in their last showdown?

An apple press finishes Leslie in exactly the way he had laid out for his heroine. She then burns down the shed around him, completing the ending he had planned for himself.

What is the job of Mrs. Collinwood, whom Leslie Vernon targets to lure his chosen heroine into the story?

Librarian Mrs. Collinwood is the one who tells the teenage waitress the legend of the Vernon boy. Zelda Rubinstein took the part as a cameo, and it was expanded once she said yes.

Which stuntman, a four-time Jason Voorhees, makes a cameo at the Elm Street house in Behind the Mask?

Kane Hodder appears briefly as the man at the door of the famous address. He later said he showed up as a favour to a friend in the cast.

Which Juilliard-trained actor plays the cheerful aspiring killer Leslie Vernon in Behind the Mask?

Nathan Baesel won the part at his audition, where the director decided on the spot that he had found his Leslie. He had graduated from Juilliard only two years ahead of the shoot.

Which first-time feature director made Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon from a script by David J. Stieve?

Scott Glosserman was handed the script by a friend and loved its idea of a regular guy in a very unusual profession. He co-wrote the shooting screenplay and produced the film himself.

At which Austin, Texas festival did Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon have its premiere in March 2006?

South by Southwest hosted the first screening a full year ahead of the cinema release. It spent that year touring festivals and collecting prizes until a distributor picked it up.

Which small town, whose name the film's production company also uses, does Leslie Vernon plan to terrorise?

Glen Echo is both the sleepy setting and a name in the credits, since the film was produced by Glen Echo Entertainment. Its on-screen main street is really in Troutdale, Oregon.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon was filmed largely in and around which Oregon city?

Portland supplied most of the locations, with outlying small towns standing in for the countryside. The director also recruited young local filmmakers there as additional editors.

Eugene, Leslie Vernon's mentor, was written as a nod to Billy, the killer in which 1974 Canadian slasher?

Black Christmas made Billy a pioneer who never got the fame of later slashers, which is the point of the nod. Early drafts hinted far more strongly that Eugene actually was Billy.

What has Leslie Vernon done in advance to the tools his victims might grab as weapons in the barn?

Rigged them to fail is Leslie's answer to the victim who grabs a weapon: every likely tool in the barn has been tampered with. He also seals the exits and maps the routes people will run.

Under Leslie Vernon's code of ethics, which hiding place is a sacred space that a slasher must never open?

A closet is off limits because Leslie reads it as a symbol of the womb. The gag sends up the academic readings of slasher films that the script borrows with a straight face.

Leslie Vernon practises heart-slowing yoga exercises in Behind the Mask so that he can convincingly fake what?

His own death is part of the act: bystanders must believe the slasher is finished until he gets up again. Leslie also studies theatre techniques to create the right atmosphere.

Behind the Mask's idea of a film crew trailing a friendly killer recalls which 1992 Belgian mockumentary?

Man Bites Dog follows documentarians who slide from observing a murderer to helping him. Leslie's crew reach the same crossroads, but they decide to try to stop the killing.

Gordy Haab, who composed the score for Behind the Mask, later won awards for his music for games in which franchise?

Star Wars made Gordy Haab's name: his Battlefront score won three game-audio awards and was compared to the work of John Williams. Leslie's slasher came about a decade earlier.

Angela Goethals, the lead of Behind the Mask, is a great-great-granddaughter of the chief engineer of which canal?

Panama owes its waterway to George Washington Goethals, the army engineer who saw the project through. New York's Goethals Bridge is named after him as well.

What does Leslie Vernon doctor and plant to convince his target that her family is tied to his legend?

A newspaper article, altered to name a great-uncle of hers who never existed, is left where she is sure to find it. It sends her digging into the legend, exactly as Leslie intends.

Doc Halloran claims Leslie Vernon is really Leslie Mancuso, a patient he once treated in which Nevada city?

Reno is where the psychiatrist says he treated an ordinary, unstable man with no tie to any legend. The revelation almost makes Taylor walk away from her documentary.

Which home video distributor gave Behind the Mask its limited US cinema release in March 2007?

Anchor Bay picked the film up after its festival run and opened it in a small number of cities. The company later passed on backing a sequel, so the makers turned to fans for money.

At which Montreal genre film festival did Behind the Mask win three awards in the summer of 2006?

Fantasia gave the film its Golden Prize for best European or American feature, with The Descent taking bronze. Two more juries at the festival honoured Leslie's story as well.

The actor behind Leslie Vernon returned in character in 2021 for an episode of which YouTube series?

The Kill Count, a web series that tallies the bodies in horror films, covered the movie with its lead playing Leslie again. It was his return to the role after fifteen years.

What are the names of the two cameramen who follow Taylor Gentry while she profiles Leslie Vernon?

Doug and Todd end up in the story themselves once the crew turn against Leslie. Todd sacrifices himself by drawing the killer away from the house, while his colleague survives the night.

In the local legend told in Behind the Mask, how did the townspeople kill the boy Leslie Vernon?

Threw him over a waterfall: a mob dragged the supposedly possessed boy from his farmhouse and drowned him at Ellis Falls. Leslie says he survived and has come back for revenge.

In Leslie Vernon's legend, which farm tool was the abused boy forced to work his family's fields with?

A hand scythe is also the weapon Leslie carries on his big night. In the finale it is turned against him, when his survivor girl stabs him with it during their fight.

Makeup designer E. Larry Day based the features of Leslie Vernon's mask on photographs of what?

Human fetuses gave the mask its undeveloped, ambiguous face, fitting a character the director saw as a boy who never grew up. A wash of blue finished the design.

Under which working title did Leslie Vernon's creators first try to fund a follow-up film through fan pre-orders?

Before the Mask was conceived to send up prequels, sequels and remakes the way the original sent up classic slashers. Fans were invited to pre-order DVDs to help pay for the shoot.

On which occasion do the local teenagers come to party at the abandoned Vernon farmhouse in Behind the Mask?

The anniversary of his death is the date Leslie builds his whole plan around, knowing teenagers will come to party at the old house. He rigs the property well in advance.

What happens to the visual style of Behind the Mask once Taylor Gentry's crew decide to stop Leslie?

It becomes a standard horror film: the hand-held documentary look gives way to conventional staging, as if the crew had stepped inside the very movie Leslie was planning.

Scott Wilson, Leslie Vernon's mentor Eugene, broke through as real-life murderer Richard Hickock in which 1967 film?

In Cold Blood cast the young Scott Wilson as one of the two killers in Truman Capote's true-crime story. Almost four decades later he played a retired murderer for laughs.