Is Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot

A slasher with a publicist's attitude

The movie plays as a documentary in a world where the killers from famous slasher films are real historical figures. Taylor Gentry is a journalist, and she and her cameramen Doug and Todd follow Leslie Vernon as he gets ready to join their ranks. Leslie says he is the boy from a local urban legend, who was possessed, killed his family and was killed by the townspeople, except that he actually survived. He walks the crew through his plans in detail but won't explain why he is doing any of it.

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A farm rigged like a stage set

Leslie plans to carry out his killing spree at what he says is his family's old home, a run-down farm out in the woods. He wants to slaughter a group of teenagers there before facing his chosen survivor girl, a seventeen-year-old local named Kelly Curtis, whom he has picked because he thinks she is a virgin. He keeps to a strict training regime and studies theater techniques to set the right mood. He has also rigged the farm in his favor: he has sealed off the exits in the house, mapped the routes his victims will take, set up the electrical system to fail, and tampered with weapons in the barn. He also describes how people tend to behave in these situations, such as huddling together without protecting themselves, tripping on flat ground, and hiding in obvious, dangerous places.

A psychiatrist arrives with Leslie's real file

Leslie introduces the crew to his mentor, Eugene, who explains in vague terms why killers like him do what they do: they act as evil in order to bring out the good in the world. Eugene's wife offhandedly says Leslie should get rid of the town librarian, Mrs. Collinwood, as an opening stinger to draw Kelly in, and Eugene agrees. Then a psychiatrist, Doc Halloran, interrupts the crew and says Leslie is nothing special, just a man with mental problems named Leslie Mancuso, whom he treated in Reno, Nevada. Taylor confronts Leslie, who turns aggressive. She thinks about ending the documentary, but makes up with Leslie and keeps filming his preparations.

The crew develops a conscience on the night of the murders

On the night of the murders, the crew's consciences catch up with them. They beg Leslie to call it off, but he refuses, since he believes his survivor girl will find out who she is by confronting him. He invites the crew to leave, and they decide to stop him instead. At this point the film stops looking like a documentary and starts looking like a standard horror movie. Taylor tries to rally the teens and use what she has learned against Leslie, but his preparations seem to have expected her. The group looks to Kelly for leadership, and she turns out not to be a virgin, then dies while trying to escape. Todd draws Leslie away from the house, which is one of the few disruptions Leslie had warned could ruin his plan.

The apple press, as scheduled

Taylor realizes that she is a virgin too, and that she herself was the survivor girl he had in mind from the start. Leslie picks off the group one at a time until only she is left. Near the end she faces him and beats him in exactly the way he laid out for her, by crushing his head in an apple press. She then burns down the shed he was beaten in, which should have finished him. This is the scene the movie builds toward, and it goes the way Leslie planned. Outside, Taylor finds Doug and Doc Halloran, who both survived their encounters with Leslie.