Tuesday, July 12, 2011

It's CURTAINS for you!


Slashing through the snow, stabbing you in the brain, here comes Curtains; a Canadian slasher where a group of aging and wannabe actresses get caught up in a (literal) cut throat competition for a movie role of a lifetime.  Secluded in a wintery mansion getaway, grizzled director Jonathan Stryker beckons a group of six rising and fading starlets to display their talents in a winner take all competition to get the lead part in his famous “Audra” movie series; a franchise apparently focusing on the life of a neurotic woman.  The actress previously filling the role fakes insanity and has herself committed herself to a mental asylum to see what it’s really like in a nut house.  After having her fill of random tickling and jigsaw puzzle piece thievery she’s ready to fly the coup, but Stryker forbids it “Daaaarrrrrling…save it for the movie.” 

Although it’s never apparent exactly why Stryker invites the six women into his home (watch them perform interpretive dancing maybe?), one can only assume by his actions that his motives lay below the belt-line; he shags through the women in short order like a greased up Spartan.   While Stryker coyly manipulates each woman in the house on to his casting couch and into caressing each others joy bubbles “No, no, no, no, NO!  Seduce her!  Think like a man!” a killer wearing an old hag mask is cutting out the competition Tonya Harding style; during the one of the film’s feature murders showcases the slasher villain attacks an unlucky girl with a home made hand sickle while ice skating.

Curtains sure is a kinky minx.  There’s a scene where a rape scenario unexpectedly turns into a couple’s misogynistic sex game:

Guy -“Next week I’ll be the pizza delivery guy.”
Broad –“The pepperoni always gets stuck to my ass.”
Guy - “That’s the only way it stays warm!”

There’s a brooding character named Mike with zero lines whose sole existence in the story is seemingly to bang hopeful starlets off the side of Stryker’s Jacuzzi and swig vodka.  He’s so insignificant to the story that he dies completely off camera and without mention from anyone in the cast.  If the movie seems more sporadic than sniper fire from Stevie Wonder, well you’re probably right.  The Canadian production was reportedly a huge stinker with a lot of issues for the tissues, but somehow I think it’s better for having all those chefs in the kitchen.  The unpredictable nature of the movie plays well into the whodunit dynamics of the script, and despite the illogical, teleporting killer and unexplained droopy eye doll that inexplicably shows up at every kill scene, the movie manages to chug along and entertain.  Although I find myself calling the final girl “Chick that got nailed in the Jacuzzi” the characters that the movie spends the most time with are interesting and well acted.  The rarity of it being a winter-time slasher film also makes it quite the gem to hardcore slashheads.               

Friday, July 8, 2011



Lucio Fulci is no shy-guy director.  Always more than willing to serve up all the sleaze the audience can stomach and then some, Lucio takes his no holds barred gun-ho gore maestro style and applies it to the guess-who giallo genre in a little dish called New York Ripper.  If the New York Ripper had a common thread it’s the focus on the desecration of the female body, mind, and spirit.  Nearly every scene dregs up some imagery of a woman getting violated, marginalized, or dismembered; the camera settles on each offense without a hint of reproach.  One can imagine a swarthy grinning Fulci in the director’s chair, mouth spread in a toothy Cheshire cat grin, inwardly laughing at the audience in his mind’s eye, writhing in their seats at each proceeding offense more ghastly and gut wrenching than the last. 

If you break down the movie into its pieces it’d be impossible to imagine how this cyclone of slime could all fit together.  There’s a foot rape scene, a subplot about the hunt for a 42nd street jiggalo who’s missing two fingers, the sexual debauchery of a married couple that get their jollies recording live smut shows, and a killer with a duck voice.  The title is a freeze frame of a dog holding a badly decomposed severed hand in its mouth after playing fetch-the-body with its owner; which should be indicative of the kind of creep-around-the-seat-with-your-ass-cheeks images that Fulci will be pounding us over the head with like an Acme anvil for the next hundred odd minutes.  This is a movie where razors fly through the air making airplane noises before severing a woman’s nipple in half; trailing up the body through her soft, plump eyeballs as if moving on its own sadistic accord.  This is where forensic scientists crack lines like “He used a blade…stuck it up her joy trail”, women are called “chicken brains”, and detectives are too grizzled to look like they’re interested in anything, even sexy time explosion.  And the hits will keep coming; whenever you think things have hit a lull Fucli is around the corner to hit you over the cantaloupe with his trusty bag of barf; like a prayer answered by the gods of grunge. 

In the end, after all the shit is done hitting the blender and all the sleaze cinema thrills have sequestered, Fulci reminds us that real life horror is more tragic and terrifying than anything he can conjure up for cheap thrills; a young girl, fatally ill, calls out to a father who will never come back again.  Feeling abandoned by all she once loved, sitting on death’s door, she weeps and we are left with the image of innocence completely chewed up by real world circumstance, innocence that never even had a chance to live.  It’s a tragedy deeper and a horror more profound than anything in the movie preceding it and left me feeling exhausted and empty; exactly the kind of gut punch a horror movie should deliver.