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(1988) Director: Gary Winick Long time readers of The Unknown Movies will likely have seen several patterns of mine when it comes to the movies I choose to review. One of the most obvious is probably the fact that I don't like to review two or more movies of the same genre in a row - I try my best to make every new review from a completely different genre than the previous movie. That's because the last thing I want to do is make my web site one note and predictable. Another reason for this policy is to help give my reviews variety, something for every possible visitor to my site. Another pattern that long time readers may have noticed is that when I review a certain kind of movie - the best way to put it is a genre in a genre - I hold off for a long time from reviewing another example of it for many months or even years. For example, in the action genre there are Die Hard rip-offs. I've reviewed a few, though you will see that there have been plenty of reviews of other kind of films between each of those examples. The reason for that is also because I don't want the web site to become one note and predictable. However, due to a concern that my unpredictable practices are in a way becoming predictable, I am going to shake things up with the movie I reviewing right here, Curfew. I got this movie quite some time ago from my father, who knows how much I love unknown movies and reviewing them afterwards. But it was around the same time I got the movie Hostile Takeover, and that movie dealt with the same topic as Curfew does - hostage taking. I reviewed Hostile Takeover only a few months ago, but I'm deciding to review Curfew now to shake you readers and your expectations up a little. As I indicated earlier, never expect the expected with The Unknown Movies. As I said earlier, Curfew deals with the topic of hostage taking. The topic of hostage taking, though not completely ignored by B movie makers, hasn't exactly taken the B movie world by storm. This is kind of puzzling to me, because the hostage taking genre has a lot of attributes that I think many B movie makers would be attracted by. Although there are the occasional exceptions like Die Hard, most hostage movies tend to spend the bulk of the running time in one general place - this means less sets have to be built, or less actual locations have to be secured. Another attractive feature of many hostage movies is that the majority of the hostage taking time involves people simply talking - which means less money and time has to be budgeted for special effects or action sequences. Anyway, while there are attractive things about the hostage taking genre for both B and A movie makers, I would like to talk about one certain kind of hostage taking movie. And that is the hostage taking movie that takes place in a home. It's been done by mainstream movie makers, (like the two Desperate Hours movies) as well as B movie makers. I have to confess that these particular hostage taking movies - dare I say it - tend to hit home for me. The reasons for that I think are pretty simple. Home is where you tend to feel safe and secure, and to have that safety and security shattered is a real shock. Also, in these movies the hero character's fellow hostages are not just acquaintances or fellow workers - they are his own flesh and blood. If one of them were to be hurt or killed, it would be a more devastating blow than suffering by a non-family member. Setting up a hostage taking movie in a home certainly
gives you an instant boost, if you ask me. Of course, you still need to
give the project some care. You need a good screenplay that makes the
protagonists I have to admit that I had pretty high hopes for Curfew.
Though it was an independent production, it had been picked up for
distribution in North America in 1988 by New World Pictures, which was
a respectable sized distribution label at the time. If they thought it
was worth picking up, chances were that the movie was worth something.
Sweetening thing further was a report I came across when I was doing
research on the movie, the report being that back in 1988, the British
Board of Film Classification banned the movie from getting released on
video in England. True, the BBFC has often proven to have grossly
overreacted to content in movies (and they did allow the movie to be
released on DVD fourteen years later) but news of this lengthy ban
did give the movie a glimmer of promise. I am sure that this news of
the ban is the aspect of the movie you are most curious about, so I
will first answer the question as to if the movie's ban had any
justification. Well, for the most part, the answer is no. Although I
saw the full length version of the movie, I was struck by how most of
the brutality the Perkins brothers inflicted seemed to be directed in a
manner that could be labelled "good taste". The mother's torture by
electricity is heard but not seen. The rape and murder of a friend of
Stephanie is
also not seen, and we only realize what happened when we see the
undressed corpse after the fact. An elderly man is beaten, but the
camera focuses on the witnessing Stephanie for almost all the blows
that are inflicted. Don't get me wrong - there is some on-screen
violence that is not directed with restraint, but even in those scenes
the violence is no more graphic than your usual R-rated B movie
production. So why did the BBFC ban the movie for such a long period? I am not sure, except maybe they though that the criminal violence that the Perkins brothers inflict might inspire real life viewers to inflict violence on innocent Brits. If that was the reason, I would have to say "hogwash", because there is much about the movie that makes it hard to believe what's going on. This includes the production values. The general look and feel of the movie has an unconvincing taste to it. If you are familiar with movies from PM Entertainment made around 1990, you'll have a good idea of how much of Curfew comes across. The interiors often have shabby set dressing despite much of the movie taking place in the homes of upper class citizens. The unprofessional cinematography adds to the cheap feel of the entire enterprise, and the recording of the dialogue often sounds hollow in a way that your ancient camcorder's microphone gave the sound for your old home movies. But it isn't just what's behind the camera that often makes the events of the movie hard to take seriously, but what is in front of the camera as well. You haven't heard of any of those actors I mentioned two paragraphs ago? There's a reason for that. For the most part, the amateur cast members of Curfew give very amateurish performances. In fact, there are times when you'd swear that some of the actors never acted before in their lives and it's their first time acting that you are witnessing. The level of acting is so bad at times that it's hard to get involved with many of the characters, and that includes the central Davenport protagonists. While Kyle Richards gives a mediocre performance as the daughter, it shines next to the actors playing her parents, who more often than not greatly restrain their emotions instead of going all out in a situation that would warrant such great emotion. In fairness, I will say that not everyone in the cast is bad throughout. Some praise has to go to Wendell Wellman and John Putch as the Perkins brothers. At the beginning of the movie they do seem a little unsure of themselves, resulting in their acting tough coming across as stilted and almost laughable. But as the movie goes on, their acting does improve considerably, and by the second half of the movie their characters become genuinely creepy and come across as a real threat. As the acting by Wellman and Putch was improving, I
couldn't help but wonder what on earth made this aspect of the movie
change for the better. One possible theory might be that the movie was
shot in sequence, and as the shoot went on, the two actors eventually
found their groove. It would also explain why much of the rest of the
movie greatly improves as time goes on. I have to admit that some parts
of the second half of Curfew
did manage to land a wallop. For example, there is a sequence when the
Perkins brothers force Walter to walk barefoot through broken glass. It
has a very effective build up, and while we never see Walter's feet
stepping on the glass, director Gary Winick (13 Going On 30)
pumps up the energy of the sequence so we feel Walter's excruciating
pain. Later scenes with the Perkins are equally tense, and the question
as to if the Davenports would survive crossed my mind several times. As
you can see, there are some really good sequences in Curfew,
but at the same time the movie has some sequences that will have you
groaning out loud, mostly in the first half. Stephanie's clueless
friends several times harass the local sheriff, who, by the way, never
thinks of arresting them for abusing him and the law. Later, when
Stephanie momentarily gets away and flags down a car, minutes later she
and the driver bump into one of the Perkins driving on the opposite side of the road instead
of him catching up behind.
The movie even resurrects the tired old supposed shock of a noisy cat
suddenly
jumping into the frame. It was mostly dumb scenes like those that got
me preparing to write an overall negative review of Curfew
some time before the closing credits scrolled on the screen. Yes, the
second half
of the movie does sometimes deliver the goods, but what happens before
that
point is more often than not so dumb, and has been made to be so cheap
and unprofessional, that I think many viewers will turn off their
televisions before discovering the genuine merit the movie has to offer. Check
for availability on Amazon (Blu-Ray) See also: Clownhouse, Hostile Takeover, If I
Die Before I Wake |
sympathetic and the
antagonists to be real louts. Then you
need some good actors who are able to successfully interpret their
scripted parts so they become alive and believable. And you need a good
director to both unfold the events of the screenplay in a satisfying
manner, and get the actors to give it all that they've got. It's a lot
of work, but if you really nail it you can make something as good as 
