The Final Curtain

I like to give indie movies their chance. Low budgets, I can live with it. Lack of experience, well, sometimes. In this case, the first forty-five minutes sustained my interest. The acting seems kinda uneven. Like, say, they learned to act through the process. Unfortunately, the movie was shot out of order, so, basically, the acting seems of random quality. At least, they tried. As for the story and the editing... when you see most of names three of four times on the credits, you know you are swimming in freaking low budget sea. But let's be fair. You can find something interesting in the in the first half of this movie. After that, when they try to get some action and the story moving, everything goes to clichéland. I can live with low budget, new-to-the-work director or sort, a kind of lack or originality, but now too much in the same plate. I tried to give this movie its chance. They just won't let me.

(2007) Acts Of Death/ The Final Curtain HORROR

Saw this film as "Acts of Death" and not as "The Final Curtain", a movie that is music supervisor, camera operator, sound designer, co-set designer, edited, cinematography, co-produced, co-written and directed by Jeff Burton, directing a straight to rental flick that starts out with a group of teens sneaking into the campus for a little hazing, partying and to prepare for a theater play! The dean's son, Chase Masterson (Nathaniel Nose) had other plans by taking advantage toward one of his female peers by spiking Angela Watson (Erin Scheiner) drink with the date rape drug. She starts to foam and upon leaving her for a few minutes, she conveniently hangs herself on front of the dean's son resulting them to cover it up by stuffing her body into an unused grate, which is in the basement and that is when the killings start!

Obvious influenced by "Prom Night", "I Know What You Did Last Summer?" and the "Scream" movies to name a few which the movie turns into a simple guessing game about whose doing the killings, except that it's convoluted lacking a lot of logic and common sense!

This movie could have been a blast! It had potential...but the idea got lost somewhere! Its just plain bad...the acting was horrible...the dialogs where cheesy! I've seen Independent/Low Budget movies...some are good, some are bad...this is in the category of bad...but this movie created a new way of bad...if there's anything below bad...this movie belongs there! But the only thing that made me want to take out my eyes...cook them and eat them...then sit in front of my TV with this movie on and blow my brains out was the special effects! Im telling you this is more than bad! I think the only good thing was the twist at the end...but the movie was so ruined we don't even care! Watch it if u wanna see a really bad movie...or if ure completely bored! I saw this movie cause I saw the box art and it looked interesting and I bough it in a DVD Store for like $2.50 and u wanna know what...I want that money back! If u wanna see a good Independent/Low Budget Horror Movie...see HACK! Its not the best but has some good entertaining parts! :D

I watch strange and "under the radar" movies all the time. I have to. Most Hollywood movies in my opinion, rely on special effects rather than innovative story plots. I will be the first to agree that special effects are a great thing and a necessity for some demographics, however, if the viewer knows what is going to happen, before it happens, the sensation of true enamorement is lost.

This is why I liked this movie. Acts of Death, though probably didn't use a $20Million budget, sure was refreshing when it came to delivering the ending (not to give anything away). I would surely purchase the next movie made by Jeff Burton. Tallyho! And hey,..if Hollywood sees us spending $ on indie films,..perhaps,..just perhaps they will get the hint and start making truly great films,..like they once did.

A perfect example of a film with an intriguing sounding plot--very similar to "The Clown at Midnight" and "Stage Fright aka Deliria" that was executed, or at least written, very poorly. Certainly this isn't the first film to do this, but that makes it even more problematic because by now filmmakers should know what to do and what not to do, particularly when you are working with the slasher genre. And one thing you DON'T do is make a boring slasher film, which is exactly what "Acts of Death" is.

The film centers around a group of college theater students who decide to initiate new students by playing a prank on them while they are in the theater. Unfortunately, something goes horribly wrong, and a'la "I Know What You Did Last Summer," some of the students decide to cover up their act. Bad idea. See, the next night, the same group of students get locked in the theater and begin getting picked off one by one by a mysterious killer.

The Bad: Sounds decent enough for a slasher film, right? Well, lets just say that for the first 45 minutes of this film I was BORED OUT OF MY MIND. Nothing happened except talking talking and more talking. By the time the action starts, I really didn't care because (a)I hated the characters and (b)I was half asleep. The plot meanders along with no real purpose, even when the killing starts. The acting is hokey, even for a low-budget horror film--I did not, for a second, believe these were college theater students. The twist comes out of left field and the, the film ends abruptly in a very unsatisfying way. It's a shame because this film could have been a decent slasher film if the director had remembered that is what he was making...not a WB teen drama.

The Good: Um....a cool death scene? Seriously....involving a wire and a pulley-like device. Pretty cool. Other than that....not much. I suppose the film looks OK and the setting is pretty effective, but really, the pacing and bad script sink this film.

Could have been better, but just isn't very good. There are much much better DTV slashers out there if you look. Avoid this unless, of course, you need something to put you to sleep. Trust me, it's not addictive.

My Grade: F