Mild spoilers below for Black Phone 2 and for the 1983 slasher, Curtains, so be warned if you haven’t seen either film.
Though not nearly as dark and foreboding a film as its predecessor, Scott Derrickson’s stellar sequel Black Phone 2 is obviously no walk in the park, with Ethan Hawke’s child killer, The Grabber, reaching out to Mason Thames’ Finney to wreak havoc from beyond the grave. The film pleased most critics, and it won its first weekend at the box office, making it clear that Derrickson was right to follow up one of his own films for the first time.
Arguably the most memorable shot in snow-covered film, as teased in the trailers, sees the masked monster in ice skates, gliding across frozen water with entirely surreal menace. Taken out of context, it’s a bafflingly whimsical shot, but that whimsy somehow remains intact even when all of the context is added in, especially when showcased through the grainy warmth of 8mm film. As it turns out, that shot was directly inspired by a lesser-known Canadian horror from the early ‘80s, Curtains, which I’d somehow never seen before. So, let’s dig in.
Black Phone 2's Ice-Skating Grabber Is Indeed A Direct Nod To A Scene In The Movie Curtains
For all my horror fandom and knowledge, I was completely clueless about any inspirational source material while watching Black Phone 2 during its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025. I just continued thinking it was pretty random for a malevolent phantom to be so graceful. As such, I was especially intrigued and thankful when, during the post-screening Q&A, director Scott Derrickson confirmed that the skating Grabber visuals were influenced entirely by the 1983 slasher Curtains, a movie that was previously only familiar to me through its VHS box cover and being namechecked in convos alongside Sleepaway Camp and other cult faves from the era.
To be sure, Black Phone 2 wears a lot of its horror influences on its long snow-covered sleeves, and goes heavy on A Nightmare on Elm Street's sequels, but an ice-skating masked killer holding a weapon goes far beyond just a thematic homage. So, as soon the temperature here in Texas dropped to "I won't sweat just standing still," it felt like the perfect time for a screening.
I Watched Curtains, But I Still Don't Know WTF I Watched
Ostensibly a movie about madness, ego, and...more madness, Curtains centers on a group of women staying in the mansion of a manipulative filmmaker while vying for a part in his new movie about a mentally unstable woman. His entire mode of directing seems to follow Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock's methods of putting actors and actresses through legitimately stressful experiences for the sake of a performance. Then the bodies start dropping, and in ways that are pretty impossible to predict by slasher movie standards.
Here are a few of my quick observations:
- "Stryker" is without a doubt a kickass name for a main character, but a weird one for everyone to use when talking to a movie director.
- John Vernon sounds uncannily like Leslie Nielsen, and with his name being Stryker, it make me want to rewatch Airplane!
- The women in this movie scream uncomfortably loudly for an uncomfortably long amount of time. If I'd hear this movie coming through a neighbor's window, I'd think someone inside that house was overdramatizing their own murder.
- Stryker telling Samantha to seduce him while wearing the hag mask is one of the weirdest things I've seen in a movie this year, or any year.
- People getting shot to death in a slasher movie always feels a little like genre blasphemy.
- I cannot believe after the doll stuff earlier in the movie that the climax takes place in a room full of mannequins.
- I halfway suspected one of Curtains' reveals but did NOT expect such an odd double twist.
To be clear, those were the thoughts I had that weren't just "What the fuck are they talking about?" and "Why is she just standing there looking at that?" which happened often enough. All in all, despite being very rough around the edges and the middle and other spots, Curtains kind of rocks for being so brazenly unlike the bulk of masked killer thrillers. It's not a vibe I'd frequent, but one I'd welcome when the time is right.
The Movie's Behind-The-Scenes Problems Were Definitely To Blame (Or Champion) For Its Uneven Charms
I won't go into full details here, but suffice to say Curtains did not have an easy road from conception to completion. Screenwriter Robert Guza Jr. and producer Peter R. Simpson crafted the story to more or less adopt the same tone as recent hit Prom Night, though director Richard Ciupka had different goals in mind, with a vision that skewed closer to Italy's giallo films. (Lots of hands, gloved and otherwise.)
Such conflicts of interest are far from rare, but in this case, Ciupka was driven to quit the project entirely during the middle of filming, and to later have his credited name replaced by that of the character Jonathan Stryker. Over the next two years, Simpson and others went through multiple script rewrites and reshoots in order to both reshape what was already shot, and to actually finish the rest of the movie.
Despite being largely panned upon its release, Curtains has quite a dedicated fanbase behind it these days, with Black Phone 2 director Scott Derrickson being a noteworthy member. Now, finally, I can join that group as well. I cannot ice skate for shit, though.
