"Behind the Mask" | Psycho-killer tale will slay you until it gets messy

It's easy to be torn about the horror mockumentary "Behind the Mask." Rent asunder, no less.

First-time director Scott Glosserman's slasher spoof plays like a cross between a Christopher Guest put-on like "Best in Show" and the shockingly black 1992 French killer-comedy, "Man Bites Dog." But unlike them, it eventually breaks character and never goes far enough.

A young documentarian (Angela Goethals, doppelgänger of actress Rebecca Pidgeon) and her two camera guys come to the small town of Glen Echo to follow a blithely cooperative young serial killer as he explains his craft. The affable Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) wants to follow in the entrails of the greats: Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers. But this body-count business is a lot of work.

"You have no idea how much cardio I do. It's ridiculous," Vernon says as he works out on a heavy bag. Among other reasons, "There's that whole thing of making it look like you're walking while everyone else is running ... ."

He shows the filmmakers how to pick targets — for instance, a slow-looking couple of dudes to pad out the numbers. And he's got a good eye for picking virgins who'll be the "survivor girl" at the end of an ordeal.

Like any field of endeavor, eviscerating teens has its own terminology. The girl who finds the first body and shrieks? She's "the starting gun." Spotting Doc Halloran (played by the real Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund) as a good guy who will stop at nothing to stop a killer, Vernon says excitedly, "We got an Ahab!"

Baesel, who played the one-armed cop on TV's now-defunct "Invasion," is great comic fun, admitting he's just messing with the crew after an ominous remark, or bursting with giddiness before he terrorizes a girl in a library. And veteran Scott Wilson strikes a nice chord as a retired slasher reminiscing about the good old days, while he and his wife chop food for a big meal.

While the humor remains mild, it's a clever satire of the horror genre's conventions and clichés — like Wes Craven's "Scream" flicks, except without just becoming another irritating example of the kind of thing it's lampooning.

That is, until it does. About two-thirds in, the movie shifts gears disastrously. Made me want to haul someone into the cutting room for revenge.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com