Cursed

Ellie and kid brother Jimmy are driving home late one night through the Hollywood Hills when something huge and monstrous crosses their path. One nasty road accident later, the annoyingly whiny female passenger of the car they just hit is dragged off into the woods by a mostly unseen creature which rips the woman to shreds - and good riddance. Ellie and Jimmy do not escape unscathed themselves. The creature has mildly injured them both and soon, brother and sister are experiencing heightened senses and suffering the Mark of the Beast on the palm of their hands. For Jimmy, it's a blessing in disguise as he returns to high school and battles the school bully. For Ellie, it's the first step on the path towards discovering who the real monster is, and the suspects are numerous. Will she and her brother discover the identity of the beast in time to save themselves from the curse? Or will they too become full fledged werewolves at the next full moon?

"Cursed" doesn't take itself very seriously as a horror film, or as a comedy. It seems to be trying to decide which it wanted to be, and hadn't made up its mind in time for the closing credits. There are a few genuine laughs to be found throughout, and some nifty references to the bygone days of Universal Creature Features, but for the most part this is a silly, airbrushed effort, filled with Beautiful People acting stupidly. I should have considered myself warned when I saw Scott Baio's name in the opening credits. The werewolf itself has a few good scenes, but I was kind of disappointed to see the legendary Rick Baker's name in the credits, and then find myself face to face with a CGI beast later on. And what was Christina Ricci doing in this? Did she lose a bet with Wes Craven or something?

This film might have fared better in the 80s, but it seems somewhat lifeless and unimaginative these days. I'm just glad I had a free pass, otherwise I would be feeling profoundly ripped off right about now.

I went into "Cursed" with high expectations, I'll admit. But how could I resist the re-teaming of the "Scream" team, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson? I should have known after re-shoots and delay upon delay of the film's release (It should have come out last November), that this would not be another masterpiece in the works. Though I tried to keep my hopes up, the results of this recombination are mixed at best.

Christina Ricci ("Monster") and Jessie Eisenberg ("Roger Dodger") star as siblings who are attacked by a mysterious animal in the Hollywood hills while trying to pull a woman from a wrecked car. Both are wounded by this animal and as the days go by, they begin to change. Eisenberg is most convincing as the younger brother who researches the animal that attacked them. He believes they were infected by a werewolf. The rest of the film chronicles their changes and quest to find the beast who infected them.

Aside from Ricci and Eisenberg the cast mainly consists of a smorgasbord of television actors, mostly from the WB. And I'm not sure that I'd call what they were doing acting. It seemed they mostly showed up and had a good time. Which can work, as long as the audience is enjoying it, too. However, I found myself groaning at much of the dialogue and wincing during emotional moments.

The film is slow to take off but does pick up the pace in the middle before falling off again towards the end. The computer graphics already look dated, and the werewolf makeup is most definitely sub par. A word to filmmakers everywhere, if you can't make a werewolf transformation look convincing, then don't show it at all. There's a lot to be said for implication.

Though there are several scenes where something pops up in the frame to make you jump in your seat, nothing haunts you as you leave the theater. There's no fear of bad dreams here.

Overall, the geniuses behind one of the classic fright films of the 90s (and possibly of all time) did not bring their best work into this decade. I hate to say it, but Wes Craven seems to be suffering from his own curse - the loss of fright.

For a smarter, more imaginative take on the werewolf theme, check out "Ginger Snaps" or "Dog Soldiers."

'Cursed' has already earned a place in Hollywood history for it's infamous production problems. Massive re-shoots (rumored up to 75% of the movie), recasts, rewrites, over a year of delays, basically any and everything that could possibly go wrong. Pass this off as credit to Craven as a director and Williamson as a writer that they were still able to pull off something of a fun movie.

A pair of siblings are bitten by a werewolf following a car crash that leaves one woman dead. Amidst their sudden development of new powers they must contend with the traumas the curse brings. Discovering that the only way to lift the curse is to kill the cause of the infection, they must now find out whom the beast is.

On the evolutionary ladder of Craven's films, this is above 'Shocker', below 'Scream', right about on par with 'People Under the Strairs'. Meaning there is some good, gory fun to be had if one doesn't take it too seriously. Those in the market for some blood and laughs ought to have a fine time.

What hurts so much about this, and is the source of much of the films bashing, is that it could have been so much better. While the talents involved worked hard to salvage as much as they could it still feels like an overall missed opportunity. The scares are OK, but not great; the jokes are OK, but not great; the pacing is OK, but not great; noticing a pattern? Technically it's a mixed bag. Great, energetic camera work with some lively stunt work adds a lot of energy, but on/off pacing slows things down again. Characters and scenarios are OK, but dialogue lacks pizazz. And while there is some good gore being tossed around, the creature itself never looks all that believable (neither in CG or costume incarnations).

In the end this is not the ultimate failure fan-boys have tried to pass it off as; time will be kind to Craven's unfortunate child and horror fans should too.

7/10 (Note: review based on R-rated version of film)

Ellie (Christina Ricci) and her brother Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) are on their way home when they get into a car accident. While trying to help the other driver out of an overturned vehicle, the other driver is attacked by what Jimmy swears was a "huge man-like wolf". Both Jimmy and Ellie end up scratched and possibly bitten by the creature. When they begin noticing strange physical effects and behavior--including both of them suddenly becoming more assertive socially--they begin to wonder if a werewolf has bitten them. If so, will they turn into werewolves, too?

Cursed had a notoriously difficult time making it to the screen. It began production in 2002, then went through four major shoots with 90% of the material being tossed out at one point. Major characters, played by major actors--including Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Skeet Ulrich--were in and out of the film. Director Wes Craven even ended up abandoning the film altogether when Dimension Films chairman Bob Weinstein demanded a PG-13 cut rather than Craven's initial R. Someone else did the final PG-13 cut. As should be expected, these events appear to have harmed the film.

As the theatrical release stands, chunks of the film appear to be missing. For example, we see Jimmy and Ellie both pretty convinced that they're werewolves shortly after Jimmy first begins researching the symptoms and Ellie thinks he's being ridiculous. The transition is not convincing; there seems to be exposition missing. There are a number of such choppy, non sequitur moments. The film doesn't flow very well.

The most obvious material to be cut--during and after "attack" scenes--surely hurt the film, as well, although part of the problem with these scenes may have been Craven's fault. Like too many recent films, attack scenes are shot blurry, cut way too fast, and they're often too dark. Part of the idea might have been to make the CGI less obvious, but I'd rather have obvious CGI than incoherent scenes.

One final flaw was that the werewolf material in the film wasn't handled very clearly. Whether this was yet another editing problem or a script problem from screenwriter Kevin Williamson is difficult to say, but the film's werewolf "rules" are never well explained. For example, it's never quite clear why the werewolf would want to attack people again and why they wouldn't just be full-fledged lycanthropes the first time. Although this makes a bit more sense later in the film, werewolf "rules" are still implied that are never explained but needed to be.

But there are a number of positive aspects to the film. Craven shows that he hasn't lost his love of postmodernist reference and theatrical "wall breaking", the performances are good, occasionally the film is suspenseful (the car crash near the beginning is especially well done), and Williamson's story overall is intriguing in that Cursed is really a somewhat traditional thriller in which characters just happen to be werewolves.

Craven opens the film at a carnival, which is obviously theatrical, and quickly presents a psychic "performer" who happens to be a "real psychic", taking her job seriously rather than just providing entertainment. The parallel is to Craven as a horror filmmaker, which may often be seen as just an entertainer instead of a "real illusionist" approaching the job with serious intentions. Then he quickly takes us to a club, Tinsel, that's a veritable Madame Tussauds with a Hollywood theme, complete with full, detailed sets. There are numerous horror references in the club, including to Craven's own work, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). This emphasizes the artificiality of cinema in a way similar to the "real film in a film" conceit of Craven's New Nightmare (1994). To push this theatrical wall breaking further, many sets, such as the interior of Jimmy and Ellie's house, are lit and shot so as to emphasize their artificiality--almost as if the film were being made on the displays at the Tinsel club. Craven also has a number of characters working in the entertainment industry, and like New Nightmare, has celebrities playing themselves. As a humorous jab at filmic self-reference and comments about his use of the same in previous films, especially Scream (1996), a pivotal scene near Cursed's false climax is shot in a very artificial-looking hall of mirrors (and this is also literally reminiscent of a number of other horror films, including The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Dr. Giggles (1992) and The Haunting (1999)).

The fact that Williamson has really constructed a thriller, and it just appears to be a werewolf film, is a kind of late-film twist that provides another level of "wall breaking". It's a clever idea that has some similarities to Williamson's I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) script, which continually flirted with the gray area between thrillers and slasher flicks. Williamson also spends time exploring the dramatic consequences of Ellie and Jimmy's newfound power.

However, given the final result, at least with the cut I watched, these more intellectual touches from Craven and Williamson may have ended up being too hip for the film, which Dimension apparently wanted to sell as a more by-the-numbers horror flick geared to pull in younger teens (and a surprising amount of pre-teens in the showing I attended). I'm not usually one to complain about the existence of PG-13 (or even tamer) horror, as I do not think that gore, language, etc. are necessary for a good film. It's not that I dislike gore, but I love the first three Universal Frankenstein films, say, as much as I love the Evil Dead series, Romero's zombie films, or any of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films (and certainly more than I like, say, Andreas Schnaas' work, which has the gore but not much else). But when the result of studios pushing for PG-13 results in such an apparent botch-job, I have to add my voice to the protesters.

The very name of this movie seems all too appropriate. For all the reshoots, redesigns, and other creative decisions that were forced, and all the problems that hounded the production, it sounds like a horrid mess long before one ever sits to watch. Its reputation well precedes it, unfortunately, and still there comes a point where one just has to watch for themselves. To sit and do so, I'm not really sure that there was much chance of this coming out especially strong. I don't know what the dividing line is between the original vision and the rehashed material, and I don't know how much it matters. I think there are some terrific ideas here, some real cleverness - a little bit of the comedy earns a good laugh, some of the horror facets are well done - and I'm always up for a new werewolf movie. Yet so much of this film is heavy-handed, over the top, and maybe outright kitschy, such that whatever value 'Cursed' may have to offer, it's counterbalanced by many other qualities that are rather questionable.

The root concept of most notions here are fine. As in many genre flicks, the characters oscillate between struggling with the changes they're undergoing, and reveling in them, and that's a great dynamic to play with. The narrative is fundamentally strong, the dialogue is mostly just fine, and much of the characterizations and scene writing are splendid. Yet some of those rounding facets of the shooting script are nonetheless far less witty or humorous than they're intended to be, just frankly feeling cheap; other little details throughout, meant to help give shape to the end product, just don't come off well. Some choices even of hair or makeup raise a skeptical eyebrow, and select instances of cinematography are needlessly embellished. In execution some moments or decisions of direction are entirely too on the nose (even the opening scene), and others are altogether tiresome. And all this is to say nothing of the CGI. If only seen at a glance, the digital creations are okay. The more they are emphasized in a sequence, however, the more glaring and awful they appear, and this is never more true than when we get a detailed look at a transformation - to be honest, The Asylum has done better work. Even some blood and gore is transparently inauthentic.

Truthfully, this isn't altogether rotten. 'Cursed' is actually better than I thought it was going to be. The cast make an earnest effort, and it quite seems like they're having a good time for the most part. Judy Greer is especially having a blast, and Christina Ricci probably turns in the single best performance of the film. The end product is, to my surprise, modestly enjoyable. It's just so unfortunate that the movie overexerts itself in trying to be slick, cool, fun, and modern, when all it actually had to do was tell a compelling story. The harder it tries, the worse it fails, and it's almost certainly longer than it needed to be. For whatever aspects of horror or comedy are done well, at large these are not nearly sufficient enough to genuinely inculcate broad feelings of thrills or amusement. At length the result to greet us is a somewhat middling affair that constantly rides a line between welcome and boorish, and that occasionally places one foot on either side of that divide. I see what this could have been, but that's just not what we ultimately get. There are definitely worse things one could watch (Wes Craven himself has made some of them), but unless you're a diehard fan of someone involved, the need to check this out is minimal.