Curtains (1983)

Trailer:

What’s It About: Samantha Sherwood, an aspiring actress, has herself committed to an insane asylum for character research for an upcoming movie with the help of a famed movie director (John Vernon). The director leaves her there for good and Samantha then learns that he is auditioning the role to other actresses. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and Samantha escapes the asylum for revenge. Meanwhile at the director’s mountainside mansion, the other aspiring actresses gather there except for one who we see get stabbed to death in her apartment. Samantha also shows up at the mansion uninvited. Slowly but surely the other girls are tormented and/or killed by someone in an old hag mask.

Is It Actually Scary: Curtains is a slasher film; the famed horror sub-genre started by Psycho and the modern-day template was molded by John Carpenter’s Halloween. It is a game of cat-and-mouse with most of the mice victims not knowing they are in a game. We, as an audience, are in the dark of who’s the murderer with most times red herrings steering us away from the big reveal or twist in the finale. Because this is a tired and popular sub-genre they fail to be scary and reach the point of being so formulaic that most audience members can predict most scenes and scares. Curtains is no exception.

Scariest Moment: Like I said, most kill scenes in this and most other slasher films are predictable hence not making it too scary. However, Curtains has two creepy elements working in its favor. One being the aforementioned hag mask the killer wears as he/she stalks and dispatches the victims. The other element is this sad and creepy little girl doll that belonged to the first victim and shows up at some of the other kill scenes.

How Much Gore?: Very little. Most of the kills are implied or only shown at an angle that doesn’t show much of anything except an anguished and despaired look on the victims’ faces. Shame because in some kills the murderer uses a sickle which is an under-utilized murder weapon in the slasher genre.

Dumbest Moment: Surprisingly not too dumb for a slasher movie. The girls never have a “I-heard-a-strange-noise-but-I’ll-just-forget-about-it-and-take-a-nice-hot-soapy-shower” moment but are all more-or-less shocked that they get killed out of nowhere. The only dumb moment comes early in the film when the first victim is alone in her apartment reading her script when a rapist with panty-hose over his head attacks and subdues her but within a minute we learn it’s just her boyfriend spicing up their love-life. Okaaaaaay.

Any Nudity: Some; but either from far-enough-away or from an angle that you can’t really see anything. Plus the copy of the movie I had was a converted VHS which was grainy beyond any boob recognition.

Overall: Not a terrible slasher film but not a very worth-while one either. Sure it was nicely acted and the twist was somewhat decent but the kill scenes are very long, drawn-out and ultimately boring. In this very hackneyed sub-genre a movie needs to up the ante at least in original kills and Curtains didn’t deliver on that so it just tries too hard to build tension but making a stalk-and-kill scene 12 minutes doesn’t necessarily build tension…it just bores the viewers.

Brian: I’ve never seen this, so I don’t have anything to add except the old hag mask looks eerily like Ann Coulter.