Movie Haiku - Cursed

www.miramax.com/cursed

Dir: Wes Craven

Cast: Christina Ricci, Joshua Jackson, Jesse Eisenberg, Shannon Elizabeth

Werewolves by Scream team
film so bad they made it twice
dreadfully funny

It's worth remembering here that Wes Craven was the man who gave us A Nightmare On Elm Street and introduced us to Freddy Kreuger, a horror icon who's caused sleepless nights for many impressionable teenagers. His latest film is Cursed, written by Kevin Williamson who also wrote his last big box office hit, Scream. Sadly the resulting movie lacks any of the terror of the former film, and lacks any of the post-modern humour of the latter. To say this is a bad movie is an insult to bad movies. This shoddy, misguided affair defines a whole new level of badness. The plot follows Ellie (Ricci) and brother Jimmy (Eisenberg) after they're attacked by a wolf following a car accident on Mulholland Drive. Have they been bitten by a werewolf? And who's responsible for the death of a number of young women in the area? And more importantly, with such an unappealing cast and cliched script, do you really care? Apparently 90% of the film had to be reshot, and then Miramax insisted the resulting product be re-cut down to a PG-13 rating. It shows. The story is so uneven, with scenes of (supposed) suspense jarring alongside scenes of high camp. Certain scenes - like those with Shannon Elizabeth - seem to come from a whole different movie altogether. Craven seems to have forgotten how to scare audiences and just uses the "character-walks-into-shot" jolt far too many times; on this evidence he'll be making direct-to-video trash for the rest of his career. As for the creature make-up and special effects, well they really are laughable and pathetically poor, the infected dog notably coming across more like an angry Garfield than a savage flesh-ripping beast. There is one saving grace however - the movie is not boring, and if I'm being totally honest I quite enjoyed it - but for all the wrong reasons. If you want a comedy masterclass in how not to make a scary movie, then this is the one - it really is the Showgirls of the horror genre. It really does beg the question: with a movie this shit, just how bad was the first version? Now that is a scary thought...

soulmining rating *