Movies
‘The Mask’ Was Originally Going to Be a Horror Movie?!
Chuck Russell has made some pretty cool movies throughout his career. He’s of course known in the horror world for directing A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Blob (1988), one of the best horror sequels of all time and one of the best horror remakes of all time. He subsequently directed Jim Carrey-starring comedy The Mask, centered on a man who turns into a crazy green freak after putting on a mysterious mask.
Hey wait. That sounds like a horror movie, doesn’t it?
Well, it was originally supposed to be!
Speaking with Xfinity in advance of this past weekend’s Bloody Disgusting co-presented Horror Fest at Wizard World Philly, Russell revealed that the 1994 family film was originally conceived as a very Elm Street-esque slasher flick. Stanley Ipkiss, well, he was going to become New Line’s new Freddy Krueger!
“It’s a great example of really fighting for your vision in a film. We changed it from a horror film into a comedy,” Russell revealed. “It was originally conceived as being a horror film. That was a real battle. New Line wanted a new kind of Freddy movie. By coincidence, I had seen the same original Mask comic they ended up buying, and I thought, ‘That’s really cool, but it’s too derivative of Freddy Krueger.’ It really was. He would put on the mask and kill people. And have one-liners. It was a really cool, splatterpunk, black and white comic. They’ve redone the comics to be more like my movie, but the original comics were really cool, dark and scary.”
He added, “But I knew, as a film, it would be very reminiscent of Freddy Krueger.”
What would The Mask look like as a horror movie? Find out below!
Exclusives
‘Home Bodies’ Image & Poster Introduce Isolated Twins in Sci-Fi Nightmare [Fantasia 2026]
Sci-fi thriller Home Bodies is set to unsettle audiences at the 30th edition of Fantasia, and our exclusive image introduces a peculiar pair of twins at the center.
Home Bodies makes its World Premiere July 23, at 9:30 PM at Cinéma du Musée in Montreal, with the filmmakers and cast in attendance.
An eerie new poster created by Justin Erickson of Phantom City Creative heralds the film’s premiere.
In the film, “Red and Blue, twins raised in total isolation by an automated house, live according to the rules set by Papa, a disembodied voice behind a locked door who provides food, shelter, entertainment, and order. Their carefully controlled world is disrupted by the arrival of Pal, an enigmatic humanoid stranger whose presence begins to fracture the only life the twins have ever known.”
It’s a premise that calls another Canadian creeper to mind and has us intrigued: Pin.
Emma Ho, Ian Ho, and Ess Hödlmoser star.
Home Bodies is directed and produced by Casey Walker, who returns to Fantasia more than a decade after his horror-comedy A Little Bit Zombie screened at the festival in 2012. He’s since gone on to produce a number of defining Canadian genre films like In a Violent Nature, The Void, and Pyewacket.
“I started my career in Montreal and Fantasia has been part of my life ever since,” said Walker. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to return to where it all started and share Home Bodies on such a special anniversary of the festival.“
Karen Harnisch (Infinity Pool, Sleeping Giant) also produces. Executive producers are Todd Brown (The Raid, Mandy) and Chad Archibald (undertone).
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