| "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Single cover |
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| Single by Alice Cooper | ||||
| from the album Constrictor | ||||
| Released | 1986 | |||
| Recorded | 1986 | |||
| Genre | Hard rock, New Wave | |||
| Length | 3:49 | |||
| Label | MCA Records | |||
| Writer(s) | Alice Cooper, Kane Roberts, Tom Kelly | |||
| Producer | Alice Cooper | |||
| Alice Cooper singles chronology | ||||
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"He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" is a song from American shock rock musician Alice Cooper's 1986 album Constrictor, and the theme song of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, a slasher film and sixth part of the Friday the 13th film series released in the same year. The song celebrates the return of the Jason Voorhees character, after being killed off in The Final Chapter, the fourth film, and being entirely absent from the fifth installment, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Two other songs from Constrictor, "Teenage Frankenstein" and Cooper's song "Hard Rock Summer", which did not appear outside of the Jason Lives soundtrack, are also featured in the film.
The song features the famous '"ki-ki-ki mah-mah-mah" sound effect, a trademark of the Friday the 13th series.[1]
"He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" was a minor success, popular among fans of Cooper's later work and enthusiasts of slasher films. It has been called "strangely New Wave-ish"[2] and said to "perfectly enscapulate the Friday the 13th films and the era in which they came to prominence."[3]
A demo version of the song, with a slightly rockier and much more upbeat feel, as well as the final release version, were featured in the four-disc retrospective boxed set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper, which chronicles Cooper's career. The song was also available on a compilation album of songs from his two late-1980s MCA albums, Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell, entitled Prince of Darkness.[2]
The song has been covered by some other artists. Finnish metal band Children of Bodom recorded a version in 2002, but it was never released, and "He's Back" has been performed live by another Finnish metal band, Lordi.[4] In addition, the song was covered by One Man Army and the Undead Quartet, which was released on the Swedish death metal group's 2007 album Error in Evolution.
A reference to the song is made in the 2005 Friday the 13th tie-in novel Friday the 13th: Hate-Kill-Repeat; while attending a party, a character notices that the song being played is by Alice Cooper and that the premise of it involves "something about a man behind a mask".[5]
The song is well-known for its music video, which combines clips from Jason Lives with original footage featuring Cooper performing the song and Jason Voorhees (played, as he is in the film, by C. J. Graham) menacing teenagers at a midnight showing of Jason Lives. This video is not present on any of the DVD releases of the film, most likely due to licensing issues.