Curfew

The Perkins brothers, Ray and Bobby were sent to prison seven years ago for the brutal rape/murder of a sixteen year old girl. They manage to escape death row, and head back to the town to exact revenge on the psychiatrist, Judge and DA who sent 'em there. During the night, the DA's daughter Stephanie arrives home to meet her curfew, to only find that she and her parents have unwelcome guests wanting to make their night a living hell.

Nasty, quite often sleazy and sometimes effective little low-budget film, without showing a whole lot of explicit images to brew up its sadistic edge. You could say it's more tame then you would expect. Its formula is a typical psychotic madmen wanting revenge in the most deranged way. In saying that the concept has its moments, like the way the captors are slowly tortured and humiliated for basic kicks. The script takes itself rather seriously, although are moments of dark mocking humour or the occasional unintentional slip-up of just trying too hard. The story is made up of bits and pieces, with plenty of clichés tacked on. Director Gary Winick goes about things in a mechanical fashion and can't seem to sustain much suspense, however there's a steady pace throughout and the heartless attacks/killings (some off screen) have a random touch to them. The atmosphere might not be heavy, but there's always a stroke of ominous cruelty in the air and it does seem to get a little tighter when the action centres in the homestead. Wendell Wellman plays the dominating older brother Ray with plenty of grunt, while John Putch is the dim-witted younger brother Bobby. They weren't bad, but still there were scenes, which are quite laughable. Kyle Richards looks stunning, but also manages to provide a savvy and intelligent heroine out of Stephanie. Frank Millar and Jean Brooks were engaging in their strongly fine performances as Stephanie's parents. Peggy Poe and Robert Romanus also contributed to amusing minor support. Cengiz Yaltkaya's music score is very much a bloated clunker of generic cues with the odd quirky lashing. Since it bombards the film, it basically telegraphs most of the action and can annoy. Focused cinematography of Makoto Watanabe fits the grimy style. The editing can get sloppy. Nothing great eventuates, but this psychotic fodder is a decent time-waster.

This film was apparently banned until 2002 but watching it now it's pretty hard to see why. Although plenty of nasty and sadistic stuff happens it's nearly all off screen and implied.

There is a strange lack of tension which even the low budget shouldn't explain. Saying that although the acting is not of a high level the two brothers (Wendall Wellman and Jon Putch) do at least try hard to inject some horror to the situation even if they don't always succeed.

The one thing I did find amusing about the film was that Deputy Dewey from the Scream movies seems almost an exact copy of the young policeman in this film.

You shouldn't and probably won't watch this with anything but the lowest expectations and as long as you do that then this isn't the worst trashy movie to while away an hour and a half.

A dull home invasion thriller with only the novelty of featuring Halloween star and current Real Housewife Kyle Richards in one of her few adult roles. She's given little to do here and comes across better than some, but the story is repetitive and the two lead psychopaths seem to be trying and failing at trying to be funny. There's never a lot of urgency or suspense and characters behave in the dumbest ways imaginable.

My review was written in June 1989 after watching the movie on New World video cassette.

"Curfew" is an uninvolving update of the format of "The Desperate Hours", substituting sadism for dramatics. It's a very minor direct-to-video title.

Wendell Wellman and John Putch portray two brothers who break out of jail to terrorize the judge, district attorney, etc., and their families responsible for sending them up for raping and killing a young girl.

They take the d.a.'s family hostage and pic dwells predictably on the psychological and physical torture inflicted as well as the victims' attemp[ts to turn the brothers against each other.

Title refers to sexy heroine Kyle Richards (the d.a.'s daughter) having to be home by 10 p.m. According to her parents' strict rules. This is contrasted heavy-handedly with the severe treatment met4ed out by the brothers.

A subplot of pranks by Kyle's high school classmates has little force except to set up a "boy who cried wolf" gimmick.

Acting is acceptable, though Wellman is overly theatrical as the domineering older brother, Richard is styled intriguingly as an innocent sort of bombshell, but her performance is unimpressive.

Curfew reminded me of the great slashers of the 80's and 70's. And if you like those movies, you will not like this. Its a movie that presents itself as something that might be cult worthy but curfew is nothing more than some terrible acting and terrible killings that almost seem unessery. When the perkin brothers get out of jai. Were they released or escaped. We dont know as its not clear. As for teenager stephanie she is out and if she skips curfew of 10pm all hell will break loose. As the perkins terrorise the neighbour hood, killing those reponsible for their arrest its never really clear the whole time why they even want to kill them. Overall curfew is still good to watch but is nothing more than that.