Cursed:A film that rose above
This past Friday,February 25th,Wes Cravens werewolf pic "Cursed" opened. The film came in fourth place at the box office, and really didn't make much noise at all.
Still, ignoring it's weekend intake, which was meek for the most part, this is one film that rised above all the trials and tribulations it went through. From day 1, when this film was announced, it built anticipation from the horror movie fan community. That anticipation grew over time. From me included. Then, it happened, changes of epic proportions. Cast members were cut, scenes were tossed to the wayside, to be reshot for new scenes with new actors. The ending was labeled as too expensive to produce, so filming was even shut down at one point until the ending was rewritten for the current budget. Thus it's release date was changed many many times. This is obvious in one scene where Christina Riccis character Ellie is getting Craig Kilborn ready for his late night TV show. Kilborns been off the late show for a year and a half now. This film was originally scheduled to be released a year ago, but with all the problems it suffered in production, that just was not possible. Once the film was finally done, and as if it hadn't suffered through enough roadblocks,the Dimension suits decided to stick their hands in the cookie jar, by trimming the films content to fit the dreaded PG-13 rating, thus including profits from a larger audience, mainly teens. Director Wes Craven was strongly against it, but his objections went unheard. The film as we all know hit theaters at PG-13. The story of "Cursed" can be very discouraging to filmmakers. Filmmaking is never an easy job, but "Cursed" is a prime example of what happens when theres too many chiefs and not enough indians. Some people wanted this to be changed, others wanted that part of the script to be changed. The numerous rewrites conflicted with the schedules of many of the films originally chosen cast. Thus why half of the film (thats 50 to 51%) was reshot,with casting replacements from R&B singer Mya stepping in for Mandy Moore (an improvement IMO) to Omar Epps, and Skeet Ulrich being dropped from the film altogether. When it was all said and done though, the film managed to rise above in a few ways. It did manage to get released, and in my opinion, was a pretty good werewolf picture. Even now looking at various messageboards, the opinions on this film pretty much even out on both sides of those who did and didn't like it, for the time being atleast. Filmmakers always have to deal with the studios influence on the film, such as wanting some things changed here and there, but Dimension influenced this movies production way too much. It had all the elements to be an actually scary werewolf movie, rather than just an entertaining one. But the universal language in Hollywood is money, and most studios think genuine scares compared to cheap thrills will get you an "R" rating. Thus teens, the largest ticket buying audience won't be able to get their hands on a ticket to see the film. We all know this is bullshit, seeing as how "Constantine" raked in the moolah 2 weekends ago, but studios don't like to take those kinds of risks too often. Still the question remains, will we ever get to see the original version of the film? How about all the scenes which were cut to achieve a PG-13 rating? Most likely, NO is the answer to both of those questions. However with "The Exorcist:The Beginning"'s 2 versions being released, Renny Harlins watered down version this past summer, and Paul Schraders original more hardcore version hitting DVD soon, you can never say never when it comes to these sorts of things.
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Note this topic is also posted in the Mr HoRrOr's 2 Cents board of the HM&S forums.Visit the forums to comment on this topic.
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