15 Films You Didn't Realise Were Based On Comic Books
13. The Mask
In The Mask, a mild-mannered bank teller called Stanley Ipkiss finds a mask that turns him into a cartoonish zoot-suited being with supernatural powers.
And that is where the similarities end. The Jim Carrey film is a zany superhero comedy. In the comic, The Mask turns Ipkiss into Big Head; a serial killer that eviscerates his victims in glorious fashion. Remember that scene where The Mask humiliates the mechanics after they gave Ipkiss a faulty car? In the comic, he exacts his revenge on them by skewering their heads with machinery and shoving a car exhaust down their throats.
The film version of The Mask seems to use his powers against those who wronged Ipkiss. In the comic, he kills total strangers who did him no wrong.
What's more bizarre is the studio overseeing the film adaptation intended to maintain The Mask's grisly persona. In fact, studio execs saw The Mask as a horror franchise in the same vein as A Nightmare on Elm Street. They chickened out at the last minute, worried the cartoony gore wouldn't translate on-screen.