Leslie Calls the Shots: His Rise Begins

“It is going to get wet in here tonight. Lace your boots up, kiddies.”

I will go into depth a little later on how the above is set in motion, but the film's whole "uh oh" setup has a documentary crew of three following a young man who goes by Leslie Vernon. He's energetic, enthusiastic, chatty, available, prepared, seemingly approachable, quick witted, and active. Taylor Gentry (Angela Goethals) is the microphone interviewer and face of her "tail the star" documentary about following a serial killer "in the vein of Michael, Jason, and Freddy". Taylor and her two camera operators who do the actual tailing have no idea that Leslie is in fact as real as advertised, although they think this is all a gas. Leslie gives them an inside look at how a killer operates, who he might confide in (a married couple who encourage and mentor him into the fine art of pure evil!), and how he works during the process of stalk and slash. They are carried away into it, not realizing that Leslie will include them in his list of victims! That's the rub: Leslie gains their trust and gradually draws them into his very real world. They are lured into Leslie's entrapment. Potential lambs to the slaughter.

The scene above is carefully hatched and planned exactly as Leslie wanted: he places a computer created article in a microfiche to fool a pretty co-ed visiting the library into believing he is her long lost relative, an incest product of an awful rape. One article is prepared by him and left out in the open where she can find it. This is to draw her to the microfiche, so she can research this faux article. Zelda Rubenstein of Poltergeist (1982) fame is the librarian who knows the whole sick story, and her storytelling skills are on full display as the "final girl" listens on attentively. It is exactly as a lot of the old slasher favorites. That's the point. This is a parody that understands its inspiration. Leslie understands those that came before him, and he's a practitioner that has studied the masters thoroughly. The fact that Leslie is completely serious about everything he says and does while Taylor and her crew are following along figuring this is all a farce is a real gem of a joke. When I read that many found this film to not be worth much, I could only "smh" in disbelief. I personally think the whole presentation and slasher satire is quite brilliant.

And Robert Englund as the man out to catch the killer...how much more irony and inspired casting could this be???