It's disheartening to see three so extraordinary talents as Craven, Williamson, and Ricci create so distinctly ordinary a product.
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The question we have to ask going in is whether it's really possible anymore to make an effective werewolf picture. I mean, the genre has been around for close to a century, starting all the back in 1913 with the silent short, "The Werewolf," followed by literally dozens more of the same, including some pretty good parodies.
The answer to my question, if this movie is any indication, is probably not. If the team of pros who put 2005's "Cursed" together couldn't manage it, I doubt anybody could. The film was directed by Wes Craven ("Swamp Thing," "A Nightmare on Elm Street," Scream") and written by Kevin Williamson ("Scream," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "The Faculty"). What's more, it stars a young woman who was born to play a werewolf, Christina Ricci, looking more like Wednesday Addams than at any time since her old movie series ended. Yet "Cursed" doesn't work, not even in its unrated form, which adds a couple of more minutes not seen in theaters.
Let me put it this way: If a monster movie is not scary or thrilling, that only leaves funny or boring. And "Cursed" is not funny.
I don't believe Craven and Williamson left a single horror-movie cliché untouched, which at first led me to believe they were going for satire. Yet there are only a couple of instances of what appears to be intentional humor in the film. Instead, what we get are serious riffs on other monster-movie material: An opening song, "Lil' Red Riding Hood," that is reminiscent of "An American Werewolf in London." An amusement park scene straight out of "The Lost Boys." A fortune teller exclaiming "Beware the moon," as in "The Wolf Man." A wax museum from "The Mystery of the Wax Museum" and its clones. A hall of mirrors from Welles's "The Lady from Shanghai." A sense of disbelief from everyone who listens to the main characters' tales of seeing monsters, as in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." And so on. The film is like a patchwork of scenes from all the horror and suspense movies ever made, with a passel of Hollywood in-jokes tossed around for good measure.
Ricci plays Ellie, the producer of a late-night television talk show, who's been living with her younger, teenage brother, Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg), since their parents died. In movies about high school kids it's essential not to have parents hanging around. Parents not only interfere with the action, the movie's teenage audience doesn't like them. So Ellie and Jimmy are essentially the main characters in the film, the ones who become involved with werewolves.
They're driving along one night on a lonely mountain road when they get in an accident. Then, what transpires is what happens to everyone stranded in the woods at night. They're attacked by a werewolf. And being bitten by a werewolf means you become one yourself. Yeah, we know all that. What we didn't know is that a silver bullet doesn't actually kill a werewolf; it only hurts him. To truly kill a werewolf, you have to sever its head from its body. Take note. Severed heads are also more visually appealing in a horror movie.
Clichés, continued: Nobody notices how cute Ellie is because she usually dresses in black. But when she puts on brighter clothes, all the guys take a second look at her. It appears to be a rule in horror movies that all males must be either blind or stupid. Jimmy, the younger brother, is something of a geek, and most of the boys in high school pick on him. But when he attains werewolf strength and prowess, he kicks the crap out of all the bullies. Honestly, if this weren't done with a perfectly straight face, it would have made a wonderful comedy.
Then there's Jake Taylor (Joshua Jackson), Ellie's boyfriend and the creator of the Hollywood wax museum known as "Tinsel." He's weird all the way around, and any romance between him and Ellie that the filmmakers intended never gets off the ground; it's a fizzle, a dud. So we're not too concerned about Jake's safety (or anyone else's for that matter). There is also Joanie (Judy Greer), a snobby, snippy TV publicist, who just happens to be Jake's old girlfriend. We doubly don't care what happens to her. A couple of other pretty women show up briefly along the way, a sure sign they're going to have their throats ripped out fairly soon. Jenny (Mya) is involved in a chase scene that goes on way too long for a peripheral character we care nothing about, but Becky (Shannon Elizabeth) is thankfully dispatched with greater efficiency. Bo (Milo Ventimiglio) is one of the bullies who picks on Jimmy, yet he has a secret of his own. And Scott Baio shows up as himself, to lend a note of authenticity to the talk-show angle.
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[release]15911[/release]