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Curfew
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Vinegar Syndrome Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (17th February 2022). |
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The Film
 Stephanie Davenport (Halloween's Kyle Richards) is at that age when she is pushing back not only against her parents district attorney Walter (Innerspace's Frank Miller) and housewife Megan (Jean Brooks) but also town representatives like Judge Collins (Douglas Robinson) who points out that what she wears and how she acts reflects upon her father's image in the community. Unfortunately, the night she breaks curfew to go out with hunky quarterback John (The Last Starfighter's Peter Nelson), halfback Pete (Niels Mueller) and cheerleader Monica (The Lost Boys' Nori Morgan). When John gets a bit too handsy in the front seat of his convertible, Stephanie uses the excuse that she needs to get back home right away before her parents leave for their trip. What she comes home to is a pair of escaped criminals brothers Ray (The Klansman's Wendell Wellman) and Bob (Jaws 3's John Putch) who her father put away for the rape and murder of a young girl. She manages to escape them but is escorted home by deputy Sam (The Brady Bunch's Christopher Knight) who is sure that she is crying wolf after earlier pranks by John and Pete, and delivers her into the custody of her parents who, unbeknownst to him, are being held hostage by the brothers who plan to exact their own form of justice against the entire family, having already done away with the judge and the psychiatrist (Helter Skelter's Guy Remsen) who testified against them. As her mother and father are subjected to various torments, Stephanie must use her own wits and play on Bob's attraction to her to get the upper hand. An obscure New World Pictures pick-up that hybridizes the slasher and home invasion genres not unlike although definitely superior to New World's earlier Torment Curfew is really more the latter than the former, with an emphasis on the terrorizing of the main characters over the often quick and brutal dispatching of the other victims, with the shockingly casual reveals of two such victims seemingly suggesting that the killers found them unworthy of their time. The film is strongest when focusing on the brothers and the main family, with it being quite obvious among the supporting cast who is going to be a victim within moments of their introduction; indeed, apart from perhaps two or three victims with the least screen time, the filmmakers do not endeavor to make any of the other victims likeable. John, Pete, and Monica do not show up at Stephanie's house because her revelation that her parents will be away means the perfect opportunity for a party, they go there because John is not one to be refused and he plans to teacher Stephanie a "lesson", Pete does not seem to question the blood on the kitchen floor on his way to the dinner table for a bite, and Monica has other idea about what to do in Stephanie's room when John discovers it empty. Wellman and Putch do a good job of conveying the codependent relationship between the brothers perhaps more so than the script gave them but it would have been nice to have shown Stephanie more deftly exploiting the cracks in that relationship as they become apparent rather than just appealing to Bob's attraction to her. On the other hand, Brooks is underrated in her simultaneously terrified and defiant reactions to her treatment at her tormentor's hands. The obligatory coda nightmare sequence is effective both in undercutting the notion that Stephanie has learned her lesson by lengthening her skirt and promising to be home on time, and in privileging the acknowledgment of her ongoing trauma rather than a jump scare. Curfew was the last in a run of seventies and eighties genre films with future Real Housewife Richards who had also appeared with her sister Kim Richards in The Car, was terrorized by Neville Brand and a mechanical crocodile in Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre-follow-up Eaten Alive, and was also menaced by The Watcher in the Woods (a Disney film from the director of The Legend of Hell House). Director Gary Winick later helmed the teen comedy 13 Going on 30, Paramount's CGI Charlotte's Web, the romantic comedy Bride Wars, and the saccharine Letters to Juliet before his untimely death in 2011. Writer Kevin Kennedy scripted Winick's second film Sam the Man as well as actor Mueller's directorial effort The Assassination of Richard Nixon. 
Video
Given a brief theatrical release in 1989 by New World, Curfew gathered dust on VHS and was one of the minor New World titles that skipped the DVD era entirely apart from a few imports that utilized tape masters debuting on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome in a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer from a 2K scan of the original 35mm interpositive. Made by a bunch of American Film Institute graduates on a fair budget, the film looks slick if a little more TV movie than theatrical feature with some light diffusion evident in the sunny daytime exteriors. Bloodshed pops but mostly due to the eighties color schemes and the available locations. Shadow detail fares better in the more considered and controlled lighting setups while the night exteriors exhibit some underexposed grain in the deepest blacks. 
Audio
Although both the New World VHS and the back cover of Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray cite a stereo audio, the default DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track as well as the Dolby Digital 2.0 track selectable via the remote control audio button is monaural, delivering a rather basic mix for the budget with a few machete slashes, neck snaps, knife stabs, and gunshots standing out from rather sedate atmospherics and a supportive if not particularly standout synth score by Cengiz Yaltkaya (Deadly Manor). Optional English SDH subtitles are also included.
Extras
Extras are sparse no Kyle Richards interview in spite of her return to horror with Halloween Kills but informative, starting with "Mind Games" (17:58), an interview with actor Wellman who recalls the early days of his acting classes with Lee Strasberg and the actors studio under Peggy Feury where he met Putch son of All in the Family's Jean Stapleton as well as Nelson and Mueller, getting into screenwriting with partner Alex Lasker with the script for Foxfire for Clint Eastwood who then cast him in Sudden Impact and got him an agent. Of Curfew he recalls working with Putch on their characters and hanging out with Nelson and Richards, and picking up girls with Mueller.  In "Still Scary" (13:36), editor Carole Kravetz Aykanian (Devil in a Blue Dress) recalls her AFI days, finding work editing other peoples' films while working on her own, and the opportunity to work on Curfew. She is a tad dismissive about the genre but her observation that they were attempting to tick all of the boxes to make a film that would sell may perhaps be why it is alternately clichι and casually ruthless. The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer (1:35).
Packaging
The cover is reversible, although the inside theatrical cover art may be less familiar to viewers since the VHS utilized a different motif.
Overall
Indifferently marketed with slasher taglines and theatrical and video artwork suggesting different genres, the slasher/home invasion hybrid Curfew is uneven and not entirely-satisfying as a thriller but may still be a pleasant discovery for those who think they've seen all eighties American horror has to offer.
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