The long-awaited sequel to Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (Before the Mask: The Return of Leslie Vernon) has been a passion project for director Scott Glosserman for some time, but every time it seems like progress is being made, a road block inevitably presents itself. In a recent interview with Scaredycast, the director opened up about the future of the sequel. While he didn’t seem entirely confident that the project will get off the ground anytime soon, he did reveal that he still wants to make the film and also announced a 10 year anniversary release of the original.
“The script itself captures that mid-aughts period, in the midst of the torture porn/found footage genres,” Glosserman said. “It had a lot of interesting things to say. Today, that script, that film, is almost like a period piece because I don’t necessarily want to bring it up to current day, and yet, certain things may feel a little bit old or period, depending on how you look at it. I think we captured the essence of what was happening several years ago. If we do get the opportunity to make the film, I’m not sure I’d want to make the screenplay any more current. It’s a little bit of a conundrum.We have ways of explaining that away. So for instance, that footage was shot at the time and then embargoed, and it’s only coming out now. It’s footage that was discovered in 2007. We can write that into the narrative. Or we can literally do a whole rewrite and bring it up to modern day. There are new conventions of horror. There’s just so much more material. That’s why I’m excited to hopefully have the opportunity to do another one.”
“This is the 10th anniversary. We’re gonna release a 10th anniversary edition of the movie. And put some new special features, more of which I’ll be announcing at [next month’s SXSW film festival]. I’m debating whether to put the [deleted] courtroom epiloque on. It would be a bonus feature on the DVD/Blu-ray. I never recorded a director’s commentary. At this point I think it’d be kinda nice to reflect on the film and go through it.”
“Hopefully the year culminates with getting the right people interested to shoot this script,” Glosserman continued.
Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon was a sleeper hit that no one saw coming in 2006. It barely played in any theatres and was then dropped on home video. But over time, it has built a fanatical cult following and is continuing to win new fans all the time.
A crowdfunding campaign was launched and an attempt at pre-selling copies of the Blu-ray was even made. But in spite of all of his efforts, Glosserman was unable to get the film made. Accordingly, the project was abandoned for some time.
The original follows a documentary film crew as they follow notorious serial killer Leslie Vernon through his killing rituals.
