Skull: The Mask (Portuguese: Skull: A Máscara de Anhangá) is a 2020 slasher film written and directed by Armando Fonseca and Kapel Furman. It stars Natallia Rodrigues as a detective investigating the ancient mask of Anhangá—a vassal of a pre-Columbian god—who is incarnated and embarks on a sacrificial killing spree. The film is an international co-production of Brazil and the United States.[2]
Skull: The Mask premiered digitally as part of the Chattanooga Film Festival on 22 May 2020.[3] The film is available for streaming on Shudder as of 27 May 2021.[4][5][6]
In 2018, Cinestate acquired the rights to distribute Skull: The Mask in the United States through the Fangoria label.[9][10]
Skull: The Mask premiered digitally on 22 May 2020 as part of the 7th annual Chattanooga Film Festival.[1][3][11][12] The festival took place online as a virtual event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[13]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9/10.[14]
Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting called the film "a gloriously carnage-fueled horror movie nestled deep within a messy web of entangled plot threads. A lot of it doesn't work, but it's hard to be too upset about a film that brings an insane amount of gore and intriguing new monster mythology to the table."[3] Screen Anarchy's Andrew Mack praised the film's gore as "fantastic" and "top notch", though he noted: "It feels like two separate films were made then there was an attempt to edit them together and make a cohesive whole."[15] Jacob Oller of Paste Magazine complimented the film's prop design but criticized its choreography and staging, writing that "Skull: The Mask just isn't shot in a way to fully appreciate the nastiness its creators so clearly enjoy."[8] Nick Allen of Roger Ebert.com gave the film a score of one-and-a-half out of four stars, finding faults with its characters, editing, and sound mixing.[16]