It is a performances centric movie

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Cursed (2005): Dir: Wes Craven / Cast: Jessie Eisenberg, Christina Ricci, Joshua Jackson, Judy Greer, Portia de Rossi: Graphic horror film about infection. A brother and sister are in a car accident where they are bitten by a very large creature. As expected their bodies go through changes and people start dying leading to two ridiculous climaxes where only great makeup present any form of entertainment. Directed by Wes Craven who knows the werewolf clichés and is aided by effective werewolf effects. He previously made the far superior A Nightmare on Elm Street as well as the disturbing Last House on the Left. Christina Ricci works as a talk show executive. Her brother is played by Jesse Eisenberg who is bullied at school. They are attacked early on and begin to sense change not just in their appearance during a full moon, but also in their abilities and daily living. Joshua Jackson is flat as Ricci's boyfriend who is suspected as being as werewolf. Judy Greer is the typical sexpot who is also cardboard. Portia de Rossi has an embarrassing role as fortune teller but unfortunately it never worked on her when it came to auditioning for this film. This all concludes with the typical werewolf battle, which even resorts to one of them giving the finger. That is just as well since nothing else seems to contain much thought. Gore is plentiful leaving viewers cursed with yet another encore of senseless violence. Score: 4 / 10

Bullied teenager Jimmy (Eisenberg) and his Hollywood executive older sister Ellie (Ricci), are attacked by a werewolf one night when driving home on a curiously empty Mulholland Drive. They both start showing signs of becoming a werewolf themselves and Jimmy can't get anyone to believe him. In a nauseating twist we find out that Ellie's too-busy-for-her boyfriend Jake (Jackson) is indeed the werewolf. This long delayed and Studio tampered with werewolf film from the "Scream" and "Scream 2" duo of Writer Kevin Williamson and Director Wes Craven is an absolute atrocity. It's hard to believe this much talent was involved in this lousy CGI werewolf film that couldn't scare a 13 year old by accident. Williamson's script is full of terrible clichéd characters and unbelievable plot twists that get stupider as it goes. Most attempts at humor fall flat and even horror master Wes Craven's direction seems to be going through the motions. Lead Christina Ricci acts most of the film like she is embarrassed being in it and who can blame her? In all fairness to the film makers, the Studio (Dimension) cut and chopped the movie up to make sure it got a PG-13 rating for the kiddies and both Williamson and Craven are on record saying they were disappointed with what the executives did. With that said, it's still hard to imagine this mess being anything good or even watchable for anyone. Everyone should skip this.

There's no reason why Cursed couldn't have been a good movie, especially considering some of the big name talent on hand. The film certainly looks good, and if nothing else it's a slick, visually appealing movie. Once you get past the production values, though, Cursed falls apart. The script tries way too hard to be "hip" in the Scream fashion, but even if you assume that's a valid aspiration, it fails miserably. There's a lot of really silly comic relief, and if you rent this movie looking for a few good scares, forget it, they aren't here. The only real bright spot in the production is Christina Ricci, who delivers by far the best performance and tries to make her character work as something other than a joke--if only a few of her co-stars had taken a similar approach. This is more of a teen comedy of manners than a werewolf film, so if the latter is what you want, look elsewhere.

I could make all kinds of jokes about the title and the movie's long history in development hell and sordid shoot. But I won't. I could even talk about how it got castrated at the movie theater by getting slapped with a PG-13 rating and bombed financially. But I won't. Instead I'll simply talk about what's being presented on this DVD. Simply put, the unrated (and originally intended) version of Cursed is a gleefully over-the-top gorefest with some hammy acting and decent special effects. All in all, it's an easy Saturday night with some friends enjoying the gruesome spectacle that Wes Craven tried so hard to keep control of, but seemingly failed on a couple of levels. It's not a bad film at all. I'll agree that dumping a PG-13 rating on it and sending it off to fend for itself in the wilds of the box office jungle was a pretty bad idea. I mean, true horror fans want their gore, well, gory...right? By cutting out what drives people to these movies in the first place, they in turn shot themselves in the foot (they being Miramax/Dimension). Christina Ricci and Joshua Jackson are passable as the leads, but Jesse Eisenberg as Ricci's brother steals the movie with an often amusing and interesting character who's coming to terms with his own "curse" much differently (and much more fun) than his sister. The special effects for the werewolf transformation sequences are quite effective and there is plenty of gore to be found throughout the film, all well done and squeam-inducing to boot. This is not a realistic film by any means. Nor is it believable even one bit. If you can set your differences aside with the back-story behind the creation of the movie and just take it at face value, I'm sure you will see it for what it actually is: a fast-paced, bloody, silly, sometimes campy werewolf movie with an above average cast and some neat gore and effects.