A brother and sister are attacked by a creature when they attempt to help a woman that has been in a wreck. When they begin to experience changes, they are determined to find out what or who attacked them and what they are going to become.
Ellie (Christina Ricci) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) play the brother and sister combo in Cursed. A giant creature runs in front of their car in the Hollywood Hills, causing them run another car off the road in the process. They try to save the woman from the wreck who is dragged away by the creature, but not before it scratches Ellie and Jimmy.
Now they are experiencing more assertive personalities and heightened senses, forcing Jimmy to research what is happening to them, leading to the assumption that they are turning into werewolves.
Cursed had all of the right elements to make it a decent horror movie. It features the successful horror director/writer combo of Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson that brought us the Scream franchise, a long list of big named actors like Portia de Rossi, Christina Ricci, Joshua Jackson, Derek Mears, Milo Ventimiglia, Nick Offerman and Shannon Elizabeth, and it’s about werewolves! Even bad werewolf movies are kind of good, right?
The film was pushed back so many times and, ultimately the movie was butchered to give it a PG-13 rating, leaving massive plot holes and missing much needed strong language and scares. The CGI werewolf was a flop and could have been handled better considering the budget. Had they spent less money casting so many names that were big at that time, they could have afforded a better werewolf.
The film is funny, I’ll give it that. Kevin Williamson never forgets to add in some clever humor despite the completely unoriginal and predictable plotline, which is unusual for Williamson who tends to stump his viewers.
The attractive cast of big names is obviously a ploy to distract the viewer from the disappointment they are ultimately going to feel from this film. Is the film horrible? No, but it certainly isn’t any American Werewolf in London or Ginger Snaps.
In the end, Cursed is fun to watch for the comedy and pure hokiness of it all. The unrated version is far superior, so if you go to pick up a copy, grab that one but don’t be disappointed when it is still pretty cheesy.
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Ann Hale is the horror editor for Pop-Break.com and a senior contributing writer, reviewing horror movies and television shows. She is also the American Correspondent for Lovehorror.co.uk. Ann attended East Carolina University, majoring in English Literature. She is a collector of Halloween (the film) memorabilia and is a self-admitted opinionated horror nerd. You can follow her, her collection and her cat, Edward Kittyhands on Twitter and Instagram @Scarletjupiter
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