Cursed (2005)

Trying to do for the werewolf picture what Scream did for the slasher genre; scripter Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven really botched this one. Big time. Plagued by rewrites out the ass and more studio interference than you can shake a pentagram marked palm at, Cursed is simply one horrible movie. I hate to throw the blame here solely on old Wes, but even if he was able to make the "film he wanted" I still think this thing would have blew. You see, I’m not a fan of the Williamson penned Scream and the trend of "hip" horror that Scream induced. I don’t want my horror "hip" and what’s cool with the kiddies, I want it scary and disturbing. When you start calling film’s "horror" when your target audience is aimed at viewers of the WB, me thinks there is a problem.

Christina Ricci (Zombo loves you) plays a career minded chick trying to raise her geeky teenaged brother as best she can after their parents death. Driving home one night the two hit an animal on the road and are in turn attacked by the unknown beastie. Both are soon exhibiting lycanthropic tendencies like pentagrams on the palm, heightened senses, and in Ricci’s case, causing her to unbutton her blouse just a tad more. No complaints here. But wait, wouldn’t you know it, the beast that attacked Ricci and her baby bro is still on the prowl, offing various fools around them and on an apparent mission to gobble up the New Wolves on the Block. Aroooooo!!

Cursed is just bad. To Craven’s credit I’m sure the constant re-writes and re-shoots (almost the entire film was redone) didn’t help, but I’m not sure if this thing ever had a chance. The performances are flat, especially by the two leads that really don’t act like their infected with rabid wolf blood, maybe a bad cold or something, but not wolf blood. Ricci looks cute and all, but something was flat about her performance (sure wasn’t her chest!), sorta like she didn’t care. Come to think of it, neither did I. The main plot was really frazzled to go along with various other subplots (homosexuality) and characters (Scott Bao) that seemed tossed in here and there with no dimension and seem like padding if nothing else. And if you are going to choose an actor to play the lead baddie, don’t choose that asshole from Dawson’s Creek, ok? He doesn’t cut it. The FX is just cheesy as all hell, though to be fair, the early shots of Rick Baker’s monster suit looked somewhat decent. To bad this one goes the CG route for 90 percent of the movie, and boy does it look shitty. If you can nab the unrated cut you will be treated to a decent amount of gore, especially the opening wolf attack sequence...you’ll know it when you see it. Besides the gore in the unrated cut, there is a fairly nifty parking lot attack sequence, but you know, that’s all the niceties I can think of. Hey...ever see a werewolf flip someone the bird? Well, you have now. Screw this crap. Go rent The Howling or An American Werewolf In London for some true werewolf scares.