Curtains

Curtains (1983)

This is a pretty cool little slasher from the 80s that stars a couple familiar faces. John Vernon (Animal House) plays famous director Jonathan Stryker and Samantha Eggar (The Brood) is his leading lady Samantha Sherwood. When Samantha enters a mental asylum to prepare for a part she really does lose her mind. Stryker takes this opportunity to giver her part away to the “winner” of a weekend of auditions at his house. Things get tense when Samantha breaks out of the asylum and shows up to claim her part. One by one a masked killer is taking out the competition, but is it Samantha or someone else? If it is someone else then who and why are they doing it?

In many ways this is a by the book slasher film with the conventional stalk and kill setup kicking in as soon as everyone is at the isolated house. Before I continue I must warn everyone that the movie does start off very slowly as we get a montage of Samantha losing her mind, but it does pick up later on. So back to what I was saying before I sidetracked myself. Even before we get to the house we are treated to a dream sequence and a boyfriend sneaking up on his girl. I don’t really think of these as spoilers because they are obvious to anyone who has watched these kinds of movies. It actually takes 27 minutes before we get our first real kill! But once the killing starts the movie is a blast and a lot of fun. There are several creepy scenes with the killer, whose mask is very freaky looking. The final stalk and kill in the movie is really fun and entertaining as well. The reveal and final twist is a great way for the movie to end and is very satisfying. The performances are pretty decent, but beyond Vernon and Eggar not terribly memorable.

From a special effects standpoint Curtains is pretty tame. Most of the kills happen off screen and what we see is fairly bloodless. If you are the kind of fan that requires a lot of the red stuff in your horror movies then you might not be too into Curtains. I did like the setting of the house, which is really just another way to isolate the characters before the mayhem begins, but it works for me. The look of the killer’s mask is very simple, but quite creepy as well. The fact that is shows up later as a prop makes things even better! Camera work, lighting, and sound are all okay, but nothing great.

I’ve been on a real kick tracking down slasher movies that I’ve not seen before and Curtains falls on that list. I’m sort of surprised that I never got around to checking this one out as I remember the VHS on the shelves of my local video store. But then I’m glad I didn’t because most of the unknown (to me at least) slasher movies I’ve checked out lately have been disappointing. Curtains is a fun little movie that while light on the gore still delivers a few good kills and is worth checking out. I recommend it.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer