The Final Curtain

(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!

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.

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

I watch a lot of indie horror films especially the ones that are released by lions gate films and I am disappointed a lot of times too by the low budget and predictable story. This one didn't have a predictable story entirely but it did drag out for the first hour and it failed to have enough excitement to wake me back up towards the final 42 minutes. I have seen much worse from lions gate, but then again I have seen much better. I really wouldn't recommend this to anyone because it really bored me a lot and the ending was really cheesy. I mean I didn't see it coming or anything but it was still stupid and the acting isn't very good in the film either but I don't look at that as much if its a good story but this movie was just a plain old sleeper compared to the awesome horror films I have seen in the past.

So anyways this movie isn't worth your 3 dollars to rent it and surprisingly its not made by Ulli Lommel. In case no one knows him thats reading this, he is a complete idiot that wouldn't know directing if it smacked him in the face. Anyways I give this movie a 3 out of 10.