Troubled Production: By all accounts the film was a nightmare behind the scenes:
Most of these production difficulties stemmed from Creative Differences between director Richard Ciupka, who imagined the film as more of a psychological thriller, and producer Peter Simpson, who wanted a more conventional slasher picture of the kind en vogue at the time. According to actress Linda Thorson, the tension between the two became so great that her fellow cast members became unsure whether or not the production would ever move forward at all.
Eventually Ciupka quit the project after about 45 minutes' worth of footage had been shot, resulting in Simpson having to take over the shoot. Over the course of the next year or so, production was put on hold, during which time there were numerous script rewrites and re-shoots, which explains the finished product's choppy feel.
In preparation for the film's ice skating sequence, actress Lesleh Donaldson was sent for skating practice by the producers as she had very little training in the field prior to shooting and had fellow performer Anne Ditchburn help her practice her choreography. Once filming of the scene commenced, however, Donaldson tripped on uneven ice and injured herself, resulting in a body double being used for her long shots.
The climactic scenes were filmed more than a year after the initial production, by which time the cast and crew had begun to lose faith in the whole project. The constant re-writes and re-shoots also resulted in numerous scenes being shot that never actually made it into the finished product.
Upon completion of production, Richard Ciupka took his name off the project, instead being credited as "Jonathan Stryker", the name of John Vernon's character in the film. In the end, Curtains received generally poor reviews and even worse box office figures, and became relegated to the history of Canadian horror cinema soon after. In recent years, though, it has developed a small cult following, with many citing the aforementioned ice skating scene as a memorable highlight of the film.
Troubled Production: Both Peter Stone and Fred Ebb died before the writing process was completed, forcing Rupert Holmes to step in and both finish the book and contribute lyrics.
