It look less than 10 minutes for the Kickstarter campaign for the recently announced Behind the Mask II: The Return of Leslie Vernon to smash through its goal yesterday, suggesting that horror fans are hungrier than ever for the return of Leslie Vernon. A sequel to the 2006 film has been teased a few times over the years. This time, it’s DEFINITELY happening!
The stars of the 2006 movie Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon will reunite for the upcoming sequel, with Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals and Robert Englund confirmed to return as Leslie Vernon, Taylor Gentry, and Doc Halloran, respectively. Scott Glosserman is also back to direct Behind the Mask II, with David J. Stieve back to write the film.
To be clear, the team promised that Behind the Mask II: The Return of Leslie Vernon was happening no matter what, but the Kickstarter was designed to a) get the fans directly involved in the movie, and b) increase the budget to allow for the film to be even bigger and better.
“We’re making the movie either way,” Glosserman promised earlier this month when the film was announced. “But the more the audience gets involved, the bigger we can make it. Bigger set pieces. More cameos. More surprises. This has always been a fan-driven film, and it still is.”
At the time of this article being written, the campaign has already raised $133,851 from 479 backers in less than 24 hours(!), and 28 days still remain for more fans to get involved.
Head over to Kickstarter to help bring Leslie Vernon back to life!
Glosserman previews, “For twenty years, people have asked if Leslie would ever come back. Fans kept this movie alive by sharing it, quoting it, introducing it to their friends, and treating it like something worth holding onto. This sequel is happening because of them.”
In the 2006 meta-slasher, aspiring slasher icon Leslie Vernon gives a documentary crew exclusive access to his life as he plans his reign of terror over the sleepy town of Glen Echo. What’s Leslie Vernon been up to in the past 20 years? And what’s next for the character?
“You know, in 2006, what we did was very novel,” Glosserman tells Rue Morgue. “But then the whole meta self-referential thing not only super-saturated horror, it permeated myriad other genres. So it’s not enough to just be self-referential; we have to dig a lot deeper now, while preserving that commentary about the conventions and archetypes of what we’re exploring.”
“Fortunately, we have entire cycles of horror over the last two decades to pontificate about. And also, we can reflect on our own lives, what we’ve been up to for the last 20 years and how that corresponds to our characters and what they’ve been doing,” he teases. “Was Leslie a success, and according to what benchmarks? Did he become the next Michael Myers? Well, not commercially, but he’s respected by the community in his world, as he is in the real world. So a lot of the narrative focuses on what has happened since then.”
Paper Street Pictures, led by Aaron B. Koontz and Cameron Burns, produces the sequel. Adam F. Goldberg (The Goldbergs, Shelby Oaks) will also serve as an executive producer.
Expect Behind the Mask II: The Return of Leslie Vernon in 2027.
