Curtains

Director - Richard Ciupka (The Hunger)
Starring - John Vernon (Animal House, Killer Klowns from Outer Space), Samantha Eggar (The Brood, Demonoid: Messenger of Death), and Linda Thorson (Tales from the Darkside, Thriller)
Release Date - 1983
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Behind every curtain, someone is waiting...something is watching"
Format - Blu-Ray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     I often wonder if trends from yesteryear were as welcomed at the time as the trends we now see people bitching about. Did most people bitch like they do with the recent supernatural found footage flicks and the generic zombie apocalypse films when they were in the middle of the 80s slasher uprising?  I was born in 86 so I was enjoying this phase during the time Craven was trying to bring it back from the dead in the mid 90s.  I was never really a fan of the slashers of the 90s because they lacked the style and characterization the films of the 80s had.  I would often rent those 80s slashers from good ol' Dewey's Video when I was younger and I always found a different 80s slasher with each visits.  However, one film I never had the privilege of viewing was the 1983 Canadian slasher Curtains.  I had heard of the film in my high school years but never saw it until I was given the chance when Synapse sent me a review copy of the film on glorious blu-ray. 
     The film opens with actress Samantha Sherwood (Eggar) as she rehearses her lines for the upcoming film Audra.  She wants to portray her character perfectly so she has herself committed to an asylum.  Time passes and being locked away starts to work on her mentally and she slowly starts to break down.  Things then look even more bleak for the talented actress once she hears word that her partner and director Jonathan Stryker (Vernon) is holding an open house for the role of Audra while Sherwood is locked away.  She has a friend break her out and she heads to Stryker's home to bust up the auditions.  However, something else is breaking up the auditions and starts killing the lovely ladies trying out for the role.  Is it Samantha Sherwood or someone else that would kill for the role?
     I love slashers that follow a particular formula.  My favorites are those that follow the "you wronged me so now I will kill you while wearing a mask" storyline. These have always been my favorite, as well as, the favorites of millions.  That is why so many of the films that used this storyline has spawned sequel after sequel.  A perfect example of this is the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm St. series.  In the original Friday the 13th series Jason's mother, Pamela, kills camp counselors because it was the counselors some years before who neglected her son and lead to his death.  After her death at the end of part one Jason picks up her bloody legacy and starts killing everyone that visits Camp Crystal Lake to avenge his mothers death.  This is similar to ANoES.  Freddy Krueger was a child murderer that was burned to death by the parents he had robbed of their children.  He then returned to the nightmares of their remaining children some years later to kill them for revenge.  The point of this is to show just how popular this type of story is.  However, this film kinda has this same story but it falls short due to poor editing and lack of direction.  This film was said to have the original director removed from the project and the producer stepped in to finish.  However, he did not know the direction this film was going and ruined parts of the story.  The film made you think it was a revenge style slasher but it mixes it up towards the end revealing a new killer.  The acting in this one is phenomenal.  The entire cast was perfect for their roles which made this one of the best acted slashers I have seen come out of the 80s.  Finally, the film does have several on screen deaths, as well as, some that take place off camera.  We also get some decent special effects making these kills really fun.  Overall, Curtains is a cool forgotten slasher that has some fun kills and characters but a horrible killer.  Check it out!