Written by Nicholas Corea; Produced by Robert Bennett Steinhauer;
Directed by John McPherson
On campus of University at Prestonville young blonde women/students are being killed by an unseen assailant. David is helping out at the university library as he begins attracting some unwanted attention from the male students, who appear to be on the verge of forming a lynch mob: David's unknown face is a prime candidate for murderer in their eyes. The police chief becomes aware of his presence and also wants to talk to him, but one night when David is nearly killed himself as the real murderer attempts to attack one of the girls who David is with, he is thrown into the limelight of suspicion and arrested in a media frenzy.
Deathmask (thus named because the murdered places a blank face-piece on each of his victims) wanders surprisingly close to slasher movie territory. John Carpenter's Halloween had been massively successful in the two years or so before, so possibly that may have been an influence over Corea's story, but it also places this one more firmly into adult viewing than many of the other episodes had been. The atmosphere builds up a sense of tangible menace as David's predicament spirals out of control. It is also underpinned by a surprising turn by Gerald McRaney as the chief with some major psychological issues of his own. McRaney is one of those prolific TV actors who could turn up multiple times in a series as different characters (previously he had appeared in The Incredible Hulk episodes Death in the Family, Ricky, and The Disciple, each time as a different character!). His character's private conversations with David take the concept of Deathmask to darker depths than would be the television norm for the era in which this was made.
Number of Fists: *****
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