The Last Drive In comes through again in introducing me to a movie that I should have seen years ago but didn’t for some reason. I was familiar with CURTAINS, but only from that one still of the person wearing the hag mask standing in the snow, which was creepy enough to pique my interest but apparently not enough to make me seek it out right then and there.
I’m glad I finally got to see it. What looks like it could be a throwaway slasher from the Golden Age of them turned out to be a fun and interesting little flick. This is even more impressive considering that the production was troubled and the original director left halfway through, essentially shelving the film for a bit until everyone could get back together to complete it.
The movie starts with an actress named Samatha (Samantha Eggars) getting herself committed so she can understand mental illness for the lead in a movie called Audra. The director, Stryker (John Vernon), leaves her there so he can audition other actresses for the role instead by taking them all to a house up in the mountains and give them his personal attention. You know, as one does. Samantha is a doer and manages to escape the asylum so she can join in the fun.
It doesn’t take long for mayhem to start. In fact, one of the actresses doesn’t even make it to the mountain hideaway as she is killed in her apartment by someone in a hag mask after having a dream where she is murdered on the way to the auditions.
At the house, the girls have assembled and are surprised when Samantha shows up there as an uninvited guest. With all the players assembled, the cast starts getting whittled down one by one. But is it Stryker? Or is it Samantha? Or is it one of the girls? You’ll have to watch to find out!
CURTAINS feels sort of like BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, in that you have a bunch of beautiful women in a house getting picked off one by one. It’s not quite as stylish as that, but it definitely has more of that giallo feel to it rather than an outright slasher. There’s a sequence in a prop storehouse later on that wouldn’t be out of place in a Bava film. The aforementioned ice skating set piece is the standout in the movie for a good reason. It’s got a weird start, with the hapless actress finding an odd doll (taken from the apartment of the girl who didn’t make it) and then getting stalked across the ice by the killer in the hag mask. The black outfit of the killer being a stark contrast to the snowy background makes for a striking image and it’s little wonder that image is the one used so often when discussing the movie.
The cast is solid. Vernon is great as the icy and manipulative director, and Eggar is awesome as the possibly insane Samantha, who really might be doing all she can to get the part. I think Lynne Griffin as Patti is the standout for me. She plays a stand-up comic who is auditioning for the part and feels like a fish out of water but always has a quip ready. It was fun to see a young Michael Wincott as the groundskeeper, Matthew, though he isn’t in it for long. Maury Chaykin pops up as an agent early on as well.
Having two directors works in the movie’s favor, as the tonal and stylistic shifts add to the off-kilter atmosphere that permeates the situation and turns what could be a by-the-numbers slasher into something special.
All in all it’s a fast and fun slasher with a great mask and a cast that is game for the experience. Check it out.
