Furniture warehouses are not built to frighten anyone. Their long aisles of floor-to-ceiling pallet racking exist for storage. Spend enough evenings alone among them, though, and they start to feel like something else.
Toronto filmmaker Mark Trifunovic did exactly that. The result is “Curtains,” a horror short film about a masked killer who stalks two set dressers through a cavernous warehouse.
The film leans on familiar slasher tropes and plays them with confidence. It is lean, fast and fun to watch, with a streak of camp running through it. Its director, however, says that was never the plan.
“Oh, that’s funny – I never saw it as campy in tone. It’s interesting how people respond to the material differently,” Trifunovic said.
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A Location Found on the Job
Trifunovic, who is originally from Leeds, U.K., shot “Curtains” while working as a set dresser on a Canadian TV show. The warehouse in “Curtains” is that show’s furniture lock-up. It sits in a separate building from the studio. Crews load trucks there and drive furniture over to dress the sets.
The space has two entrances, which made it easy to imagine someone else being inside. Trifunovic spent much of his working day roaming its aisles, and the script grew out of that routine.
“After you spend a couple of evenings in that kind of a space on your own, your mind starts to wander into the scarier ‘what ifs’ of life,” he said.
One of the first images he had was the attack in the curtain room. He had spent a long stretch in that small space measuring and organizing racks of curtains.
“I’m not particularly claustrophobic, but working in a small, cramped space with another person can turn anybody murderous!” he said jokingly.
The Killer Behind the Mask
Trifunovic sees the masked killer as a symbol of chaos. The character stands for the idea that nobody can fully know where danger is coming from.
“There can be danger anywhere, even in the places where we assume we are safe,” he said.
The mask itself has a history. It was left over from an earlier ghost story he wrote about a frightening old woman. That film went in another direction, and the mask went unused.
He kept thinking about it. He liked its creepy look and decided to bring it into “Curtains.”
Learning From Halloween
The biggest influence on the film was John Carpenter’s 1978 classic “Halloween.” Trifunovic calls it a masterclass in suspense. It builds atmosphere slowly and often puts viewers in the position of the watching killer.
He also points out that “Halloween” is surprisingly bloodless for a film credited with launching the slasher genre. Its power comes from the build-up, not from a high body count.
Budget pushed “Curtains” in the same direction. Gore effects and repeated takes of bloody gags were out of reach.
“When you don’t have any money to do gore effects or repeated takes of bloody gags, you have to deliver your scares in some other way,” Trifunovic said.
His answer is perspective. He frames shots that seem to show the stalker’s point of view, as if someone is watching the set dressers. Then a worker walks to a spot where they should be able to see the watcher, and no one is there.
“I’m constantly creating and then subverting expectations about who is where, and what is just a shot and what is a person’s perspective,” he said.
How the Curtains Horror Short Film Was Shot in One Day
The entire shoot took a single day. There was no crew, only Trifunovic and three actors.
Two of those actors, Krista Barzso and Steve Mackey, play the workers. They are married in real life, so they arrived with an easy rapport. An actor named Mark Brombacher plays the killer.
The production was entirely do-it-yourself. Trifunovic recorded dialogue on the Voice Memos app, using a lapel mic plugged into a phone in each actor’s pocket. With no clapperboard or camera assistant to slate a shot, the actors clapped on camera so the sound could be synced later.
“Some actors might have walked, but Steve and Krista, and Mark in the mask, were totally game to jump in with two feet and give it their all,” he said.
The hardest part was pulling focus himself. Trifunovic is not a camera operator by trade, and much of the footage was shot in low light. He had to keep the actors sharp while also watching performance and dialogue.
“There were multiple perfectly good performance takes that were lost to soft focus,” he said.
Why He Keeps Coming Back to Horror
Trifunovic grew up watching horror movies and telling ghost stories. His first film was “BALLS!,” a comedy-horror about a beach ball possessed by an evil spirit. Given that start, a little camp may have crept into “Curtains” by instinct.
His writing usually begins with a simple question about what would scare him in a particular place or situation.
As a viewer, he loves the feeling of bracing for something bad. He says he enjoys that dread most when it stays safely contained on a screen.
“I absolutely love being scared, especially when it’s from the comfort of a movie theatre or my sofa,” he said.
What Comes Next
Trifunovic is shopping a feature script called “All the Dead Cowards.” It is a darkly comic crime drama set in northern England, where he is from.
He is also working with another writer to develop “Curtains” into a feature. He calls the process fun but difficult.
“‘Curtains’ was so stripped back that it requires a lot of work to figure out which direction to take it,” he said.
While those projects develop, he plans to shoot another horror short called “Doom.” The film will look at the dangers of social media for children.
“Watch this space,” he said.
