Cursed – Unrated Version
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: C+
Seen any good werewolf films lately? As far as I’m concerned, Mike Nichols’
underrated Wolf (1994) was the last one, which was funny, smart and
clever. Since digital video effects
came in, no supernatural monster has suffered more trivialization, abuse or
series of bad renderings than the reliable mauler. Wes Craven re-teams with Scream trilogy (does everything
have to be a trilogy) writer Kevin Williamson for Cursed, yet another
attempt to do a “hip” werewolf film.
Unfortunately, this team ran out of ideas a many screams ago and
the result here is one of their poorest works yet.
Christina Ricci stars as the young, lonely girl (she
always seems to be alone for reasons that never make any sense) who is looking
for a future and even has a potential boyfriend (Joshua Jackson, who has
unfortunately been stuck in this genre for too long) who might make her
happy. Too bad a werewolf is on the
loose in Los Angeles, where this kind of thing seems to happen more often than
in just about any other city.
One by one, her friends are killed, as I guess they hang
in the same fun places werewolves at night would like to go. Though not as bad as a slasher film, the
characters are underdeveloped and all of them talk the same “hip-speak” as if
they had the same mind. They also know
their share of pop culture, but it is too bad that part of the formula is
especially tired and obvious. Maybe the
werewolf just wants them to stop making such references and this is the reason
it kills.
The actors are not a catastrophe, but the film is. The weak part is the digital work, which
replaces the “hey, that’s a guy in a mask and suit” with “hey, that is some
weak digital” for bored audiences. The
supernatural aspects are laughable and the unrated portions are no help. The film simply lives up to its name; the
end of a cycle (we hope) of bad pop-culture laced scripts and monsters than
look like bad cartoons.
The 2.35 x 1 image is anamorphically enhanced and was shot
by cinematographer Robert McLachlan, A.S.C. with nothing special to see
here. In fairness to McLachlan, so much
of the work has been digitized that you wonder where his work ends and the
awful graphics begin. This lacks detail
throughout. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix
is a bit better, though nothing amazing, while Marco Beltrami’s score tries to
save the film and cannot. Extras
include a four-part visual effects segment that discusses the make-up (before
digitization) with commentary, editing featurette, effects featurette, Becoming
A Werewolf featurette and the usual behind the scenes featurette. They were often more interesting than the
film.
- Nicholas Sheffo
