Years ago, horror director Wes Craven teamed up with screenwriter Kevin Williamson and created the super-popular film “Scream.” The pair has collaborated once again on a horror movie and the result is “Cursed,” a watchable werewolf movie that is better than most crappy horror movies that get released in theaters (“House of the Dead,” “Alone in the Dark) but falls short when compared to Craven’s earlier works.
The story follows two young people in Los Angeles: Ellie (Christina Ricci), who books talent for the Craig Kilborn show, and her brother, Jimmy, a geeky high school student who has a crush on a popular girl at school. Ellie and Jimmy get into a car accident in the Hollywood Hills and the girl in the other car gets attacked by a werewolf. In the chaos by the car wreck Ellie and Jimmy get either bitten or scratched and things start getting weird for the siblings.
It’s a good set up, but Williamson’s script is a little too predictable in places. When Ellie visits her boyfriend’s new club, a movie themed hot spot called Tinsel that comes complete with a vast horror movie memorabilia collection (including a huge model of the Elm Street house in the background) you just know that the climax of the movie will take place here. You also know that Jimmy will use his new powers to beat up the bully and wow the girl. It’s OK to know that certain dots will be connected but it seems to take a long time to get to them in this movie.
In “Scream” Williamson looked at the horror movie cliches with a very tongue in cheek attitude, while still making the film scary. “Cursed” has some intense moments but not enough of a playful attitude. It’s not enough to cast Scott Baio as himself. Perhaps if he had played someone else, like a mechanic named Chachi. I don’t know, I’m just throwing it out there.
The performances were fine but they were nothing that you would write home about and though Craven’s direction prowess really showed in the werewolf attacking scenes, most of the movie seemed to plod along and look kind of flat and ugly. The film deserves credit though for maintaining a bit of an edge while keeping the rating at PG-13. By only using gore when absolutely necessary and keeping foul language at a minimum, “Cursed” proved that you could still be a decent horror movie and not be rated R. Although, it didn’t exactly win them over at the box office this weekend, so we’ll see if studios buy into this theory or plug in more splatter in an effort to rake in more dough.
If you like werewolf movies or any of Wes Craven’s horror movies, you should check this out but if you only like really good werewolf thrillers, rent “An American Werewolf in London” or “Ginger Snaps” instead.
