director
Wes Craven
screenwriter
Kevin Williamson
producers
Marianne Maddalena
Kevin Williamson
cinematographer
Robert McLachlan
music
Marco Beltrami
editor
Raúl Dávalos
Gregg Featherman
Patrick Lussier
Lisa Romaniw
cast
Christina Ricci (Ellie)
Jesse Eisenberg (Jimmy)
Joshua Jackson (Jake)
Judy Greer (Joanie)
Portia de Rossi (Zela)
Mya (Jenny)
Shannon Elizabeth (Becky)
Scott Baio (Himself)
mpaa rating: PG-13 or unrated
running
time: 96m
u.s.
release: 2/25/05
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other wes
craven films
reviewed on this website:
- the
hills have eyes
- last
house on the left
- red
eye
- scream
- scream
2
- scream
3
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There's nothing much a horror
fan can do with the dead-on-belated-arrival Cursed other
than attend the wake, pay respects, pat Wes Craven on the arm,
and say "Sorry for your troubles." Craven, who hasn't
had a film in theaters in five years (the lame Scream
3 in early 2000 was the last to bear his signature),
chose for his comeback an overly touchy-feely script by Kevin
Williamson, who wrote his and Craven's biggest hit, the original
Scream.
The result has become semi-legendary among horror buffs for its
tortured backstory (shelved for over a year, about half of it
was reshot, then watered down to a PG-13 for mass teen consumption).
It really never deserved to be more than a quickie TV-movie on
the WB, where it would've aired around Halloween and then faded
into oblivion.
Christina Ricci, attempting
her own comeback (2001's Prozac
Nation, the drama that was supposed to do it for
her, remains unreleased), takes a deep breath and dives into
the cheese. She's playing Ellie, an assistant on the Craig Kilborn
show, an indignity perhaps even greater than turning into a werewolf.
But the latter appears to be in her future, after she and her
teenage brother Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) are scratched by a lycanthrope
one night. Soon, they share a craving for raw meat, an aversion
to silver, and a willingness to deliver bad Kevin Williamson
dialogue. Who knows why this werewolf story is set in Hollywood,
on the margins of a late-night show that was cancelled last year?
Who can explain the presence of Scott Baio, who gamely appears
as himself and comes on to Ellie when she starts throwing off
full-moon pheromones?
Cursed may once have been a nastier affair, even verging
on the incestuous (why else bother to have a brother and sister
share a blood curse?). What we get, though, is any number of
subplots that barely make sense, such as the one in which a homophobic
jock taunts Jimmy and then, allegedly shockingly, turns out to
be gay himself (Williamson's seen American
Beauty one too many times, I suspect). Ellie has a boyfriend,
a bearded designer (Joshua Jackson) putting together a horror-movie-themed
restaurant/club, just so that we can get many shots of people
framed next to a Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf Man statue. The wit
of 1980's The Howling (which featured a shot of Allen
Ginsburg's Howl) and 1981's An American Werewolf in
London (prankishly edited to the rhythm of several moon-related
tunes) is far beyond Williamson's reach.
Speaking of American Werewolf,
Rick Baker -- who won an Oscar for his groundbreaking transformation
effects on that film -- is mentioned here in the credits as "special
make-up artist," which, on the evidence of the movie, must
mean "applying eyeliner to Christina Ricci." Looking
at the badly executed werewolves in Cursed, which
move as unconvincingly as any computer-generated werewolf ever
has, I refuse to believe that Baker had any more to do with these
critters than minor consultation by phone: "Yes, they are
supposed to have fur and fangs. Send the check to..." In
theory, a Wes Craven werewolf movie with Rick Baker on board
should have been dark magic, but Craven long ago seemingly resigned
himself to making diversions for high-school kids.
Most of whom, I would think,
will skip this (Cursed earned a non-whopping $9.5 million
last weekend) and wear out their copy of 2000's Ginger Snaps,
a sharp and deadly werewolf movie that happens to center on teenage
girls, but offers something to any demographic: intelligence,
wit, great sarcastic dialogue, and genuine fright. After that
film, as well as other cult favorites like Brotherhood of
the Wolf and Dog Soldiers, a werewolf story
needs to bring more to the table than a tired sexual metaphor
(the culprits are a womanizing jerk and his jilted ex-lover).
If the movie is saying that life in Hollywood is red in tooth
and claw -- that people move in packs, feed remorselessly on
the weak, and turn into beasts after dark -- we've got any random
E! True Hollywood Story to tell us that. If Craven and
Williamson don't like it in Hollywood, they should get out; Williamson
may be lost to the mainstream, but Craven has made at least three
outlaw classics outside the system (Last
House on the Left, The
Hills Have Eyes, and A Nightmare on Elm Street),
and he still could, if he learns from this experience, hires
a group of grubby unknowns, and sets out to scare us again.
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