Release Date: February 25, 2005
Starring: Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg, Joshua Jackson, Milo Ventimiglia, Kristina Anapau, Shannon Elizabeth, Mya
Directed by: Wes Craven
Written by: Kevin Williamson
Distributed by: Miramax Films
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (horror violence/terror, some sexual references, nudity, language, a brief drug reference)
Five years passed between the release of Cursed and the release of the director Wes Craven’s previous film, Scream 3, and since no one will ever confuse Craven with Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg (even though he made the cult classic A Nightmare on Elm Street), it’s hard to see this film as anything other than Craven’s half-hearted attempt to keep himself relevant in the sphere of pop culture. If this is true, he picked a dubious vehicle -- a werewolf movie -- to do it with. Much of the time Craven labors under the same old poking-fun-at-genre-clichés yoke that he already ground into pulp throughout the three films in the Scream franchise. Occasionally, though, he lets loose, and his trademark sense of dark humor provides some much-needed levity in an otherwise predictable movie. Overall, the results are mixed.
Christina Ricci, whom pop culture is also threatening to obsolete, is the star of the show -- Ellie, a member of the production staff on “The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn.” She has a tenuous relationship with Jake (a bearded Joshua Jackson), a Los Angeles nightclub promoter whose new faux-gothic club, Tinsel, is about to open, and an equally strained relationship with her geeky younger brother, Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg). Jimmy has problems of his own: He has a crush on Brooke (Kristina Anapau), a pretty girl at his high school, but Bo (Milo Ventimiglia), her overbearing boyfriend and captain of the wrestling team, never misses an opportunity to take the piss out of Jimmy, as the British say. All of these concerns become secondary, however, when a werewolf attacks them late one night while they’re driving on an isolated stretch of Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills -- soon they start exhibiting wolfish characteristics themselves, and with a full moon approaching they must quickly discover how to end the curse.
Mixed in with this are a number of scenes in which we get to see the werewolf that attacked Ellie and Jimmy going after and devouring a number of other hapless supporting characters, including two bimbos from Santa Monica played by Mya and Shannon Elizabeth. These really have no purpose when it comes to the plot proper, other than that it wouldn’t be a Craven film without some kind of whodunit suspense -- you’re supposed to guess who the werewolf is (naturally it’s one of the half-dozen characters in the film’s tightly-knit group) because it turns out that in order to de-werewolf themselves, Ellie and Jimmy must decapitate the werewolf who bit them in the first place. But those who give Cursed even a fraction of their full attention should quickly be able to guess who the werewolf is -- only because this is Hollywood, Lon Chaney’s Hollywood, where facial hair and lycanthropy go together like peas and carrots.
Still, Craven knows that this film, which was written by Kevin Williamson, who collaborated with Craven on the first two Scream movies, will never be taken seriously, and you can tell that he is mostly loose and subtly jovial in directing it. There is a funny scene near the beginning of the movie when Ellie and Jimmy, who do not recall at first that they have been bitten by a werewolf, find themselves munching on slices of uncooked meat (Jimmy even takes time to salt his). And it turns out that there is actually a reason why Bo favors homosexual slurs when giving Jimmy a hard time -- though I couldn’t decide whether gays would find this narrative twist funny, or simply more derogatory. Moments like these underscore the importance of balancing horror with cheap, nervous laughs: the experience of watching a thriller is heightened if the director provides the audience with the occasional release. No one will ever call Craven the next F.W. Murnau, but at least he understands that much.
Cursed sags on the back end, which is not saying much since it is only about 90 minutes long. But like most horror and thriller directors, Craven is much better at making a mess than cleaning one up. The ending is both overblown and overdue, and since it is also inevitable and predictable it makes the preceding movie feel like a waste of time, even if it is not entirely disagreeable. But then Craven’s movies have always been overblown and with endings that are long overdue, which is probably a good indicator of the film’s market. Craven fans should enjoy it, and everyone else should stay away.
-- Craig Roush (craigroush@hotmail.com)