The Etruscan Mask (Ted Nicolaou, 2007)

I've been eyeing The Etruscan Mask for quite a few years now. I once downloaded but deleted it, sick of guilt and afraid of being caught by the dreaded internet police. So now I finally bought it directly from Italy, because that seems to be the only place it's out. So why the interest for this obscure film? It's quite simple:

1. It's directed by Ted Nicolaou, a talented guy.

2. It's an Italian horror movie. Say no more.

3. It involves Etruscan stuff, and that's always cool. Just watch Burial Ground.

It's also quite closely related to Charles Band's old Empire Pictures and Full Moon. The producer is Robert Bressi, the composer is Richard Kosinski and Nicolaou himself is the man behind the Subspecies series. So it's a fun team behind the movie. The question is of course if it holds up compared the old classics.

Not really, but it's not without merit. I've seen better movies, but I've seen a lot lousier stuff to. The story is very simple: some exchange students accept a job to deliver newspapers to foreigners around the city. In one of the apartments there's an old Etruscan mask who wants to find a new owner. The current owner is old and dying and the owner before that shot himself after selling the mask. So it has a troubled past. What our heroes don't know is that the mask is possessed by an Etruscan demon, some kind of devil, and now he's gonna kill them all - and in the end find the perfect person to take over his legacy of death!

Sounds fun, yeah? It's quite fun, but doesn't deliver all the way through. I think we can blame most of the problems on the script. It have good ideas, no question about it, but spends too much time together with the kids and their lifes and they are quite boring to be honest. It's not until they get more involved with the mask and the curse it gets better.

Shot on a very low budget - I can't imagine how low - Nicolaou struggles with keeping up the production values as much as possible. It's easy to see where his heart was, in the ancient ruins, in mysterious old apartments, in sacrifical chambers - that's where the passion is. That's where we see the good old Ted Nicolaou we love so much. Except the not so interesting personal dramas of our heros the actually horror scenes are stylishly shot, lots of shadows and darkness. Quite a lot of (cheap) gore, both practical and digital - some of it good, some of it bad. We're getting a belly sliced wide open, decapitation, stabbings, cut throat etc. The standard stuff. It's shot digital on a Sony HDV Camera, looks great - but I find the picture a bit too over-processed. 

Was it worth the wait then? I don't know. I'm happy I own it, I'm happy I spent the time doing this review - but it could have been better. It has a cool killer, some graphic violence, Italian ancient mysticism - stuff that I love. But I think it could have been better with a higher budget and a rewrite or two.

But for you who need it all, go get it. It's cheap at Amazon.it.

Comments

[Megatron]

"1. It's directed by Ted Nicolaou, a talented guy."

I haven´t seen any of his films.

"Sounds fun, yeah? It's quite fun, but doesn't deliver all the way through. I think we can blame most of the problems on the script. It have good ideas, no question about it, but spends too much time together with the kids and their lifes and they are quite boring to be honest. It's not until they get more involved with the mask and the curse it gets better."

I get it....too much personal stuff, maybe too much drama.

"Quite a lot of (cheap) gore, both practical and digital - some of it good, some of it bad. We're getting a belly sliced wide open, decapitation, stabbings, cut throat etc."

Sounds good to me.

"Was it worth the wait then? I don't know. I'm happy I own it, I'm happy I spent the time doing this review - but it could have been better. It has a cool killer, some graphic violence, Italian ancient mysticism - stuff that I love. But I think it could have been better with a higher budget and a rewrite or two.

But for you who need it all, go get it. It's cheap at Amazon.it."

Well.....I think you should be glad you saw it.....I would never heard about this if you hadn´t done a review, and who knows....I might see one day.

Good review and thanks.