Noite de Agonia

Young teenager Stephanie Davenport is expected home by 10pm. This is one Curfew she will want to be late for as a group of psychotic brothers are at her house waiting to attack.

The movie starts with the introduction of two brothers (Ray and Bobby) who are serving a prison sentence for murder. They escape captivity and decide to murder all the people responsible for putting them away. This includes the judge who presided over the case, the psychiatrist who declared them mentally sane, and the District Attorney.

We then meet the DA's very beautiful and young teenager named Stephanie Davenport.The movie makes the point to let us know that her curfew is a strict 10pm, thanks to her overprotective father. She does typical teen things like hang out with her friends, play pranks on the adults in town, and disobeys her parents wishes. After dispatching the judge and psychiatrist, the brothers focus their attention on Stephanie's dad the DA. It'll be up to Stephanie to save her parents from the two psychotic brothers while they spend the night terrorizing her and her parents.

I found Curfew to be a very average late 80's horror thriller overall, but one that had a bit of charm to it. It definitely kept my attention throughout. Curfew is a pretty violent movie, even though most of the murders occur off screen. What makes it violent is the treatment that the brothers (Ray in particular) gives to Stephanie's parents. They slap them around a bit, spray paint the mother, really cruel and humilating things.

There are some downsides to the movie like Stephanie's immature friends who are only there to add to the body count and the silly jocularity that these kinds of movies gives. The acting wasn't amazing, but I thought those involved did a pretty decent job for being in such a low budget film. Wendell Wellman who played Ray was effective as the badder of the two brothers, often times being very violent and verbally abusive. I found the performance of the mother very well done, played by Jean Brooks. That character Megan had to endure it a lot of physical trauma at the hands of Ray and I thought Brooks played it brilliantly. Other than that, we get a very young Kyle Richards who played the little child from Halloween who ended up being babysat by Jamie Lee Curtis. Richards did a fine job in the lead role.

All in all, Curfew isn a very skippable late 80's movie in the horror genre. Almost being next to impossible to find on DVD, you'll likely never come across it. But if you do, give it a viewing for it's gritty and violent home invasion vibes and late 80's cheesiness.

4/10

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.

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.

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.

I bought this film as part of a '5 movies on 2 discs' pack, and was fully expecting it to be bottom-of-the-barrel stinker (my expectations were set way low having recently watched Bachelor Party Massacre and The Choke, two other awful efforts in the same set); I am happy to report, however, that although this late-80s home-invasion flick might not be the most offensive or sleazy movie in the genre (see 70s classic Fight For Your Life or Ruggero Deodato's House On The Edge of The Park for more extreme examples), it does provide enough dubious fun to warrant a watch.

Kyle Richards plays Stephanie Davenport, the big-haired, big breasted (but not really that attractive) teenage daughter of a district attorney. After a night out fending off the amorous advances of her high-school quarterback boyfriend, young Steph returns home to find that her parents have been taken hostage by two violent escaped convicts, Ray Perkins and his younger brother Bob (played by Wendell Wellman and John Putch), who are seeking revenge on those responsible for putting them behind bars. Having already murdered the judge and psychiatrist involved in their case, the vicious psychos now intend to dish out their own brand of justice to the Davenports.

After humiliating and torturing the family (including spraying the mother with paint and forcing the father to walk on broken glass), the two thugs decide to execute their prisoners; however, the appearance of Stephanie's drunk school pals, and the unexpected arrival of a policeman makes finishing the job harder than they expected.

A pretty tasteless film packed with assorted moments of gratuitous nastiness (and a little bit of nudity for good measure), Curfew might not be to everyone's taste, but if you like exploitation, then you could certainly do a lot worse. Admittedly, the story is occasionally too clichéd (Stephanie working her womanly charms on younger brother Bob was very predictable) and some moments are rather questionable (the victims are locked in a cellar full of tools, yet fail to arm themselves), but as low-budget trash goes, this one's really not that bad.