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Beyond the Mask (2015) is a historical Christian adventure/romance set in the 18th century. As I’ve previously mentioned, I have a quest to watch all the 18th-century-set films in existence. But, of course, there are clunkers I constantly put off! This is one of them, so I decided to suck it up for snark week and dip my toe in this fiesta of not-great.
The costumes were designed by Marilyn Mooney, who has done only one other film, Pendragon: Sword of His Father (2018), another Christian historical film. On both, IMDB notes that she’s credited as “Marilyn Burns.” Don’t ask me, I just work here!
In a complicated set-up, sometime in what I believe must be the 1770s, William Reynolds is leaving the East India Company, where he has done some truly awful things. Charles Kemp (John Rhys-Davies aka Gimli in The Lord of the Rings) is his boss and sets him up to take the fall for a scandalous report that’s coming out about the company’s evil doings in India.
William wears a suede?? sort-of military jacket with truly questionable trim; Gimli gets a seriously shitty shiny white wig that looks right off Amazon:
A long complicated scene ensues where Gilmi arranges to have William’s carriage blown up. Another guy (a pastor) dies and William switches identities with him by swapping necklaces.
William shows up, passed out on his horse, at some family’s house. Said family includes a conveniently ingenue daughter, who is upper class but is repairing the deck herself?? She’s wearing a striped jacket and skirt with princess seams, made prominent by those stripes:
William falls off his horse into the lake, ingenue rescues him, she and her mother and grandmother nurse him back to health.
Grandma gets the short end of the stick, costume-wise:
The doctor has called, and yeah it’s an emergency, but I always question things like a guy having his nipples out in front of an unmarried lady — wouldn’t mom and grandma want to shelter her from the knowledge that men have nipples?
All the exterior shots are clearly bad (okay, dated) CGI, and between the warm filters and gentle music, it feels like upper-class Hobbiton.
William has healed and gets to wear a shirt with random contrast blanket stitch. Which seems weird to me, given that this was an era in which your whites were supposed to be WHITE (it demonstrated the quality of your washing and the purity of your soul).
William is pretending to be the newly arrived parson. He gives a terrible sermon while Ingenue has bridal hair and mom wears a placemat on her head:
Ingenue’s hair reminds me of when you’ve curled your hair with a large-barrel curling iron and then clipped the curls to your head to cool before brushing them out. Plus flowers from Michael’s and plastic pearls.
Cue montage of William and Ingenue spending chasteful time together, while Ingenue wears a stupid dress with stupid sleeves and an even stupider hat.
Finally, William is compelled to speak of his love, while Ingenue rocks the Katniss side braid with bobby pin and elastic.
He tries to kiss her, they fall in the pond, it’s wacky.
William has befriended a servant, a former employee of the East India Company. The servant rocks a jacket with a machine-embroidered motif that’s supposed to represent the EIC.
William knocks on the Fancy House’s door in the middle of the night, Ingenue is the one to answer? They don’t have servants? She calls him “Steven” (his pretend name), he calls her “Charlotte,” I clutch my smelling salts at the thought of nice unmarried 18th-century people using each other’s first names. He proposes, she says she’s into it, but she’s not sure as she’s supposed to go with her uncle to America and needs to consult with him about such a Big Picture Decision as her father is dead. Can he wait to meet her uncle at Christmas?
Christmas has come! Ingenue gets a festive red dress with stupid olden tymes cuffs, her hair is in Honey Boo Boo curls.
Uncle has arrived, and dun dun DUN! It’s Gimli! His wig is SO bad, people, and he’s rocking the Joann’s poly eyelet lace bib instead of a proper cravat. He also has a beard, which is a total no for the period (watch for a post later today on this very subject!).
Gimli confronts William, who pushes some books away to reveal a custom cut-out shelf for his gun.
Gimli has brought soldiers, and a dust-up ensues, but I’m mesmerized by the bad CGI snow:
At one point William pauses to notice this lineup of dump watching the fight:
Gimli plots with a henchman who has a similarly shitty wig, just luckily not in white:
William gets away with the help of his servant friend, who’s been shot? stabbed? I don’t know, because we’re too cheap to pay for an actual wound, just some blood on William’s hand:
As the servant dies? he tells William to seek redemption instead of revenge. Vowing to do so, William goes to America, I’m unclear why. When he arrives there, he’s greeted by this extra in red with another deeply tragic wig:
William goes to Benjamin Franklin’s print shop looking for work. Franklin says he’ll hire him, and gives him money to go to the local pub for dinner for absolutely no reason. Just as I’m noting that Franklin gets jaunty music, my subtitles (hey I’m old) announce:
William randomly starts spouting revolutionary sentiments in the pub and gets kicked out, then suddenly he’s lurking in a garden while Ingenue and Gimli are inside at a fancy party. I guess he went to America for Ingenue? Clearly I need to pay more attention.
Gimli decides to rile up the local populace against the revolutionaries; according to Evil Henchman, it’s some kind of cover. Gimli’s coat fits him SO BADLY the neckline hangs halfway down his back and his wig queue (the ponytail curls) are INSIDE the neckline:
Fuck, I’m only halfway through this! Part 2 coming tomorrow, I need time to stick a fork in my eye.
Find this frock flick at:
Subtitles use the strangest words sometimes to describe music. “Jaunty” is one of the more believable ones!
PMSL
I had to look that up! I’m officially an old!!
I just don’t understand paying to CGI a house instead of just renting one for a day or two to film some establishing shots. It’s not like there’s a shortage of Tudor houses in the UK!
I was going to say maybe it was cheaper, but this was 2015, so?
Kendra, this is so very kind of you. Between Donald and family health worries, January has not been amusing, and if it weren’t for Snark Week and Rachel Maddow, I would go mad. Such delightfully bad hair on every person in every photo.
(But what the fuck is Rhys-Davies doing in this dreck?)
We had to schedule Snark Week when we did because gestures all around we needed it too!
This isn’t the only Christian movie he’s done, so I’m thinking he may be Very Religious?
And, solidarity.
He does appear to be Very Religious, along with Deeply Islamophobic.
I believe the traditional term is “Working for hire” (Or, put another way, “They’re paying me chew scenery”).
Heaven Forbid that Historical Characters look reasonably historical!
I’ve never heard of this movie, but I thank you for your sacrifice in watching it so we don’t have to!! God, I can’t believe how bad Ingenue’s brown gown is. Looks so cheap, and the sleeve cuffs look like JoAnn fleece!!
I was thinking craft felt!
The hero and the ingenue both look like the grown up version of the main character and his love interest from”Hocus Pocus”. And now that I’ve seen it it’s all I see. Except for Gimli’s godawful wig, that stands out too.
Fun fact: Apparently the Christian audience praised the “period” costumes in this film.
This makes sense. Christians praising historical revisionism is par for the course.
On the one hand I seriously doubt that 18th century persons were quite so squeamish about male nipples as their Victorian descendants (Good grief, this was THE Hellfire Club’s heyday), but on the other hand … the horror … the horror.
I mean if they’d associated Mr John Rhys-Davies with the Hudson Bay Company and claimed he went feral at some point in the fur trade, that would have made more sense, but the East India Company had to deal with the Moghuls and I’m reasonably sure those fellahs would have parlayed such a sartorial humiliation into another century of power if it had ever been sighted East of Suez.
Oh I just burst out laughing, it took me watching part two, then half of part one to realise why the bad guy is called Gimli. Honestly that is so funny! Thank you!