Contrary to popular belief, good horror movies are still being made nowadays, but we can't really deny that the 1970's and 80's were the greatest and absolute most profitable decades for the genre. The 70's resulted in numberless amounts of nasty & experimental exploitation movies whereas the 80's pleased us with a wide variation of grotesque and often downright demented slasher movies. Richard Ciupka's "Curtains" is one of the prime examples to state why the insanity of the 80's horror industry will probably never be equaled ever again. It's a thoroughly weird and unconventional low-budget shocker, and even though the plot is full of holes and completely implausible, the film literally bathes in an atmosphere of genuine creepiness and morbidity. The script is poorly written and very incoherent, nearly forcing the viewers to link bits & pieces of the story together themselves, but somehow the far-fetched events featuring in "Curtains" are fascinating and suspenseful to behold. Horror-regular and utter cool guy John Vernon ("Killer Klowns from Outer Space", "Sweet Movie") stars as an eccentric and slightly crazy director who's about to realize his ultimate dream, namely a theater-adaptation of the famous "Audra"; the tale of a remarkable female psychiatric patient. His regular lead actress Samantha Sherwood is so obsessed with getting the titular part she even has herself committed in an actual asylum to research the role. While Samantha is stuck in the asylum, Jonathan Stryker bastard that he is recruits six young and inexperienced actresses to audition for the role instead of Samantha. They're all invited to spend the weekend up at Stryker's remote mansion in the hills, but naturally a maniacal killer joins the party as well and immediately begins to wipe out the six contenders for the part. Did Samanta escape the asylum for revenge? Is it one of the women who can't deal with competition very well? Or perhaps Stryker finally went totally berserk? You don't require an IQ of 150 to figure out the killer's identity rather quickly, but Ciupka manages to maintain a respectable level of tension until the very last sequences and particularly the deaths of the girls are memorably gruesome. Most notably, there's one scene where the killer skate-stalks his/her screaming victim over a frozen pond, menacingly waving around a sickle! The isolated filming locations add a great deal of claustrophobic atmosphere to the movie and it also features a lot of effectively sinister scenery, like creepy old dolls, secondhand theater attributes and of course the killer's uncanny mask; which shows the face of an old witch with protruding eyes and a wide-open mouth. With a slight bit of imagination, you could even say that the mask used in "Curtains" predates the one in Wes Craven's "Scream" with more than a decade! Even though the dialogs are laughably inept, John Vernon still manages to deliver an engaging performance and he even compensates for the actresses' lack of talent. Also, keep an eye open for the brief supportive role of Michael Wincott, who later moved on to better Hollywood films like "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and "The Three Musketeers". "Curtains" is once again a Canadian horror production, like so many other guilty pleasures of that decade. The list is nearly endless, with "Visiting Hours", "Prom Night", "Humongous", "Happy Birthday to Me", "Bells", "Funeral Home" and "The Pit". Essential viewing if you consider yourself a fans of cheesy 80's goodness, you can't afford to miss "Curtains".
