Curfew (1989) - Will's Review

NOTE: In honour of Halloween, We're taking a break from the TimeOut 100 Greatest Best Horror Movies.

This month, reviewers have boon given a free choice of any horror movie they haven't yet seen.

2 brothers on death row escape from prison and decide to punish the men they hold responsible for their sentence.
They quickly dispatch the psychiatrist who testified against them, and the judge who passed down the sentence, but for the District attorney, they have bigger plans.
Stephanie, the DAs daughter, gets home just in time to be embroiled in the brothers' violent revenge.

If I'd been aware of this one, I'd I've probably scheduled it as part of our "Beyond Nasty" season of banned or controversial movies; it was banned by the BBFC from release in 1989 until 2002, when it was passed uncut.

Supposedly it was the movies "violent content" that gave it troubles, and while it is certainly violent in places, it's no more so than many other films of the late 80's. I suspect it was more the type, or rather location, of the violence which the BBFC found troubling. It's one thing to see a cop blown apart in future Detroit, it's quite another to see an ordinary family terrorised in their own home.

But, we've seen plenty of home invasion movies... How does this one stack up?

To be honest, I mostly found it to be a movie of missed opportunities, especially where Stephanie is concerned.

The teenager has recently fallen in with a bad crowd and plays a 'crying wolf' style joke on the local cop early in the movie, but it never really comes back to bite her in the ass in a satisfactory way. She misses her curfew, causing her to arrive home mid-invasion; but once she's there her mid-crime entrance really is irrelevant. Her 'friends' decide to pay her a surprise visit, believing her parents to be out of town; at this point I was convinced they were to become the heroes of the piece, but it want long before even their subplot is dealt with.

Although the movie isn't without its gruesome moments (the father being forced to walk on broken glass was a highlight) there are times when the director didn't have to courage not to pull punches. There are a few moment where (usually sexual) things that should really have been shown, are merely implied.

All in all, it's not a terrible movie, but it's not a great one either. If you're hankering for a home invasion movie, I'd go with Week 37's 'Fight for Your Life'