‘Evil Dead Burn’ Director Wants to Remake ‘The Mask’ as the Brutal Horror Comic It Was Always Meant to Be

One of the biggest missed opportunities in comic book movie history has to be New Line Cinema‘s The Mask.

Released in 1994 after sitting on the shelf while the studio waited for Jim Carrey to become a bankable star following the breakout success of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the film was ultimately a massive commercial hit. It earned strong reviews from critics and turned Carrey into an A-list movie star almost overnight.

For fans of the original Dark Horse Comics series, however, it was a very different story.

The movie transformed The Mask into a broad supernatural comedy, stripping away much of what made the comics so unforgettable. Created by John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke, the original books – including The Mask and The Mask Returns – were gleefully violent, pitch-black horror comedies that followed Stanley “Stan” Ipkiss after he discovered a mysterious mask that unleashed his darkest impulses. Bodies exploded. Criminals were butchered. Blood flowed by the gallon.

Now that I think about it, the closest modern comparison might be Art the Clown from Terrifier. Beneath all the cartoon slapstick and absurd humor was an unstoppable psychopath capable of unimaginable carnage. That’s the version of The Mask I’ve always wanted to see on screen.

Now it sounds like someone else does, too.