Logline: While in pre-production on his new film, director Johnathan Stryker (John Vernon) decides to ditch his old leading lady (Samantha Eggar) in a loony bin and invite six younger starlets to his private mansion for an intimate weekend of auditions to take her place. Unfortunately for the hopeful young actresses, they must contend not only with the exploitation and disappointment inherent in the film industry, but also with a scythe-wielding maniac in an old crone mask, looking to pull down the curtains hastily on each of their performances.
Crime in the Past: After securing the film rights to a hot new property, an aging actress prepares for the lead role by committing herself to an insane asylum to help with her method acting. Unfortunately, the director of the project decides to leave her there.
Bodycount: 8 hams who've overstayed their welcome get figuratively yanked off stage with a figurative hook.
Themes/Moral Code: Thematically, the film attacks the effects of show business on the female psyche. Simply put, showbiz (specifically, the men controlling it) drives women insane. First, women are driven mad trying to get into showbiz when they have to deal with the backstabbing of their equally desperate female competitors and the sexual advances of the male producers and directors who act as gatekeepers to employment (and who deem the women valuable not as talent but as young, warm bodies). Then, once (and if) they've entered into showbiz, the manipulation and exploitation continues, with actresses of all ages and levels of success putting their money, careers, and bodies into the control of the same horrible men, who are eager to toss these women aside once they've grown too old or served their purpose.
This is the combined fate of all our actresses in the film. Patti (Lynne Griffin) can't get a gig because she won't sleep with her directors. Christie (Lesleh Donaldson) has talent as an ice skater, but quickly learns that the only thing that matters in becoming an actress is her willingness to give away her body. Tara (Sandra Warren) has accepted her designated role as eye candy, and allows her exposed breasts to have more screen time than her voice. Brooke (Linda Thorson), an accomplished but somewhat older actress, is forced to embarrass herself by auditioning for (and sleeping with) the director. Finally, there's Samantha Sherwood, the aging actress who literally risks driving herself insane by committing herself to an insane asylum, Shock Corridor-style, all for the sake of the role and her beloved director, only to be rejected upon her return.
Can these women be blamed for going a little nuts?
This is the combined fate of all our actresses in the film. Patti (Lynne Griffin) can't get a gig because she won't sleep with her directors. Christie (Lesleh Donaldson) has talent as an ice skater, but quickly learns that the only thing that matters in becoming an actress is her willingness to give away her body. Tara (Sandra Warren) has accepted her designated role as eye candy, and allows her exposed breasts to have more screen time than her voice. Brooke (Linda Thorson), an accomplished but somewhat older actress, is forced to embarrass herself by auditioning for (and sleeping with) the director. Finally, there's Samantha Sherwood, the aging actress who literally risks driving herself insane by committing herself to an insane asylum, Shock Corridor-style, all for the sake of the role and her beloved director, only to be rejected upon her return.
Can these women be blamed for going a little nuts?
Killer's Motivation: The killer, Patti, is driven by her willingness to do anything to win the role, even if it means knocking off the competition in the most deadly of fashions. We also know that she's lost roles repeatedly because of her refusal to play the skeevy casting couch (er, casting Jacuzzi) game with sleazy Hollywood bigshots. (Or, worse yet, she may have lost roles even after submitting to the casting couch game.) As she's also a stand-up comedian, Patti initially seems the least likely suspect among the assembled women, and also the least likely to win the coveted dramatic role of "Audra." It's clear that Patti has a hard time of things being a funny girl in a Dramatic Actor's world, but the film never convinces us that this frustration would propel her into full-bore straight-jacket insanity, instead of the clear-headed insanity of cold-blooded opportunism. Nevertheless, into the straight-jacket she goes, and the last time we see her she's giving her glassy-eyed comedy routine to a group of patients in the mental ward.
The film's quasi-red herring is, of course, Stryker's former muse Samantha, who has the best excuse for insanity and revenge. The killer's outfit, including a droopy old hag mask, is obviously meant to further this suspicion in our minds, as it could very likely represent a visual projection of Samantha's inner feelings about herself, scared as she is that Stryker is right, and that she is a worn-out old woman whose career has reached its end.
However, the hag mask could as easily have relevance to Patti and her feelings about her own age and the state of her career. While not as old as Samantha or the also accomplished Brooke, Patti isn't exactly young anymore either, and her complete lack of success as an actress probably has her fretting when she sees a younger crop of actresses, like Christie, enter the scene. Patti knows that the time one has to flourish as an actress in Hollywood is very limited, and that even the relatively young can be seen as grotesque hags after too long.
The film's quasi-red herring is, of course, Stryker's former muse Samantha, who has the best excuse for insanity and revenge. The killer's outfit, including a droopy old hag mask, is obviously meant to further this suspicion in our minds, as it could very likely represent a visual projection of Samantha's inner feelings about herself, scared as she is that Stryker is right, and that she is a worn-out old woman whose career has reached its end.
However, the hag mask could as easily have relevance to Patti and her feelings about her own age and the state of her career. While not as old as Samantha or the also accomplished Brooke, Patti isn't exactly young anymore either, and her complete lack of success as an actress probably has her fretting when she sees a younger crop of actresses, like Christie, enter the scene. Patti knows that the time one has to flourish as an actress in Hollywood is very limited, and that even the relatively young can be seen as grotesque hags after too long.
Final Girl: The last girl standing is our killer, as there's no room for final girls in the cutthroat world of show business, wherein any moral superiority is soon corrupted. Early on, Christie, in her youthful naivete, seems the likeliest candidate for elevation to final girl status, but almost as quickly as we begin to think so, we find that she has jumped into bed with Stryker. The aftermath might leave her in tears of regret, but those will only get you so far in a slasher film. Specifically, in Christie's case, as far as the next scene.
Evaluation: In the storm of press that followed Curtains' recent and much-needed Blu-ray and DVD release from Synapse Films, many reviewers adopted the opinion of the film's cast and crew (as detailed in the special feature interviews and commentaries) that the film is an utter mess, the slipshod and barely comprehensible result of a troubled (director replaced! cast shake-ups!) and prolonged (3 years!) production. I think anyone who believes Curtains to be a trainwreck hasn't sufficiently plumbed the chaotic depths of low-budget horror cinema.
Certainly, the film is saddled with some dangling ends (what's Michael Wincott doing here?) and abrupt switches of tone and style (massive re-shoots with a different [non]director will do that), but what continues to surprise me most about Curtains is how complete of a film it feels, despite its production problems. Patchwork as it may be in reality, there's a coherent story in the finished Curtains that builds to a cheekily morbid crescendo. Along the way, the film is dotted with surrealism, satire, melodrama, cheesy exploitation, tasteless fake-outs, genuine chills, flashy setpieces, and mind-numbing chase sequences. The film crams in every commendable and lousy attribute that characterized the early '80s slasher, and the truly remarkable thing about it is that this strange brew feels intentional, as if it were all business as usual in the constricted, hysterical world populated by the vile Stryker and his batty ingenues. Editors Michael MacLaverty and Henry Richardson deserve a lot of credit for molding the disparate footage they had into the film's relatively cohesive whole.
Unlike the fun but fairly rote Prom Night (producer Peter Simpson's other major contribution to slasher cinema), Curtains is a unique and (mostly) classy affair, steeped more thoroughly in the austere tradition of classic Agatha Christie murder mysteries than in contemporaneous dead teenager flicks. (Mark the hallmarks: a mostly adult cast of characters! a posh, isolated mansion location! wicked betrayals! bitter jealousies! a Ten Little Indians plot structure!) Add to this sense of class a healthy dose of self-awareness (the film proper is credited on-screen to the director within the film! the plot of the film itself appears to mirror that of Stryker's script! meta fake-outs galore!) and a handful of masterfully constructed slasher setpieces (icecapades! doll in the road!), and you're looking at one of the most satisfying, stylish oddball slashers of the subgenre's halcyon days. Even if its seams show.
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