Shortly before committing suicide, archaeologist Michael Radin (Martin Lavut) mails a strange South American mask, an exhibit from the Museum of Ancient History where he works, to his psychiatrist Allan Barnes (Paul Stevens). Barnes is compelled to put on the mask, and discovers that wearing it has terrible consequences.
The plot for this strange, early'-60s 3D movie shares similarities with the better known '90s Jim Carrey vehicle of the same name, both films concerning an ancient mask that drastically transforms the personality of the wearer.
In the Carrey film, whoever possesses the mask becomes a mischievous character with cartoonish superhuman abilities, but in the '60s movie, the result is more sinister, the mask accessing the darkest recesses of the mind, magnifying the evil in the wearer, driving them to kill. Donning the mask also allows director Julian Roffman to get really trippy with his film, the wearer experiencing strange hallucinations that feature floating skulls, avant-garde dance, disembodied hands, fireballs, a zombie ferryman with a coffin-shaped boat, and a rubber snake, all of which is shot in glorious 3D.
The 3D sequences were clearly the selling point of the film: in some theatres, masks were handed out to viewers, the movie prompting them to 'put on the mask' whenever Barnes puts on the titular artefact. The 3D content is fun at first (even when viewed in 2D), but soon becomes repetitive and tedious; however, it is nowhere near as dull as the stuff in between, which comprises of lots of mundane 'filler', as Barnes' pretty fiancée Pam tries to convince the doctor to give up the mask, Lieutenant Dan Martin investigates Radin's suicide, and Barnes makes a move on his sexy secretary Miss Goodrich (Anne Collings), who he only notices is attractive when she takes off her glasses and lets her hair down!
In the end, Barnes forces Pam to wear the mask so that she can experience its power, but being so pure and innocent, it has no effect on her. There is also some suggestion that the film is an allegory for drug addiction, with the wearer of the mask becoming hooked on its hallucinatory effects, the ultimate price being death.
4/10.
The plot for this strange, early'-60s 3D movie shares similarities with the better known '90s Jim Carrey vehicle of the same name, both films concerning an ancient mask that drastically transforms the personality of the wearer.
In the Carrey film, whoever possesses the mask becomes a mischievous character with cartoonish superhuman abilities, but in the '60s movie, the result is more sinister, the mask accessing the darkest recesses of the mind, magnifying the evil in the wearer, driving them to kill. Donning the mask also allows director Julian Roffman to get really trippy with his film, the wearer experiencing strange hallucinations that feature floating skulls, avant-garde dance, disembodied hands, fireballs, a zombie ferryman with a coffin-shaped boat, and a rubber snake, all of which is shot in glorious 3D.
The 3D sequences were clearly the selling point of the film: in some theatres, masks were handed out to viewers, the movie prompting them to 'put on the mask' whenever Barnes puts on the titular artefact. The 3D content is fun at first (even when viewed in 2D), but soon becomes repetitive and tedious; however, it is nowhere near as dull as the stuff in between, which comprises of lots of mundane 'filler', as Barnes' pretty fiancée Pam tries to convince the doctor to give up the mask, Lieutenant Dan Martin investigates Radin's suicide, and Barnes makes a move on his sexy secretary Miss Goodrich (Anne Collings), who he only notices is attractive when she takes off her glasses and lets her hair down!
In the end, Barnes forces Pam to wear the mask so that she can experience its power, but being so pure and innocent, it has no effect on her. There is also some suggestion that the film is an allegory for drug addiction, with the wearer of the mask becoming hooked on its hallucinatory effects, the ultimate price being death.
4/10.