Movie Masks

Movie Masks - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

There are many Movie Masks whose looks say as much about the characters as if we had seen the performers' whole faces. A mask can hide the hero's secret identity, it can enhance the menace of the villain and sometimes movie masks are just plain scary.


Masked Heros

Although they wear masks, these characters tend to be thought of as good guys. The romantic anti-heros who do bad things to right wrongs are listed here too.

• Batman, BATMAN
• Peyton Westlake/Darkman - DARKMAN
• Phillipe, THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
• Stanley Ipkiss/the Mask, THE MASK
• The Phantom/Kit Walker - THE PHANTOM
• Eric/the Phantom, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
• Spiderman, SPIDERMAN
• V, V FOR VENDETTA
• Zorro, ZORRO

Batman

Starting in the pages of a comic book and now a revived movie franchise is the famous cowl of the Caped Crusader, Batman.

Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney or Christian Bale: which one is Batman to you? (the Batman shown here is Christian Bale from "Batman Begins").

The cowl has changed shape a bit over the years, sometimes the ears are more pointy, sometimes they are are a bit shorter. Batman always has to have a strong jaw, as that's the only part of his face that really shows.

The Mask

Part special effects, part makeup, part Jim Carrey's own elastic-expressioned face

A bumbling nerd finds a mysterious mask that transforms him into a part-cartoon hero when he puts it on.

The MASK persona was created with a combination of specialty makeup applied to actor Jim Carrey and CGI effects done with computers.

Last Day Mask from LOGAN'S RUN

In the movie LOGAN'S RUN, people who reached their "last day," which was their 30th birthday, were forced to take part in an elaborate ritual that really was a cover for euthanasia.

The lifeclocks embedded in their hands would go from red to blinking red-black, and that's how they knew it was Last Day. Most of the city would turn out to watch "Carousel" as the ritual was called. The participants were all dressed in red and white outfits with white robes and these masks. As you can see, it's a very stylized skeleton-type face.

V from V FOR VENDETTA

V, the main character in V FOR VENDETTA, wears a mask of the notorious British traitor/terrorist Guy Fawkes.

There is a whole lens where you can read more about
V's Mask and Costume.

Darth Vader

Darth Vader is one of the most striking masked characters in recent movie history. A tragic villian, he is a hero fallen from grace, hidden behind a mask that is necessary for him to breathe and live.

His physical presence was portrayed by British bodybuilder David Prowse, and his voice came from well-known American actor James Earl Jones.

Jack Lint's "working" Mask from BRAZIL

Michael Palin took a rare and wonderful turn as the torturous Jack Lint in Terry Gilliam's film BRAZIL. When Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) finds himself in Lint's inner office, it turns out to be a torture chamber. As Lint says, lowering the mask in place after berating Sam for putting him in such a tough position, "ours is to be a *professional* relationship."

Jigsaw, from SAW

If a creepy game player is your thing, then you're sure to love Jigsaw. He's the evil genius behind all the mayhem of the SAW movies, and you can catch his latest adventures this Halloween.

He likes to set up situations that challenge and test people, often with the results that if they panic and don't think things out, they get killed. He'll make you live out your worst nightmare and then make you feel like it's your own fault.

Jason, from FRIDAY THE 13TH

Jason was one of the first serial teen killers. His mother thought he drowned when he was a kid, but really, he just sort of came back from the dead. A hockey mask and a big machete are his two main trademarks.

He's killed a lot of folks a lot of different ways over the years, but his hockey mask has stayed the same. Occasionally it slips, and you get to see worm-ridden flesh and gore like that, but even when he battled Freddy Krueger, the mask holds its own.