Christina Ricci in a Wes Craven directed werewolf movie? Too bad this doesn't live up to that. As much as I wanted to like this movie, I just couldn't. Please, avoid at all costs.
Was this really only 2005? Seems like it's been much longer since this came out. Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven's attempt to repeat the success of Scream is not a complete failure, but doesn't come close to being as entertaining. I'd say it's more on the level of Scream 3, the weakest of the series.
When I first saw the film, I considered it pretty bad, but I think that may have just been another case of high expectations and unfairly comparing it to previous films. Having just watched it again, I'd say its a pretty decent horror flick - better than a lot of the crap that comes out these days. It's got some scares, some twists, and plenty of humor. But it's not without its problems. Problem number one: Christina Ricci in the lead. Fine, cast her in some of those quirky independent films. Just keep her out of mainstream popcorn flicks - or at least out of leading roles. She's not a very good actress and she's just kinda goofy looking.
But the biggest problem with this film was studio interference. With most of the film completed, the studio demanded drastic changes and reshoots, removing whole characters and storylines, recasting roles, and altering the very plot. We'll probably never get to see the original footage, so it's difficult to say how it could have been. (Don't mistake the "unrated" version for this - it's simply the same "new" version of the film, with tiny reinstated snippets of gore or language that had been cut for a PG-13 rating.)
Legendary horror director Wes Craven takes his own shot at the 'werewolf' genre with "Cursed" starring Christina Ricci as Ellie, who on a drive back home with her brother Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) ends up being attacked by a werewolf and gets 'cursed' by it. Now to get rid of the curse they must find and kill the one werewolf who 'infected' them. "Cursed" is more of a drama-horror than anything else. The storyline is pretty silly and there is really nothing frightening or thrilling about it until by the end of the movie, but it's not all bad it has some moments. A extra star goes to Christina Ricci who is always great in her roles, and the scene with her sucking on Craig Kilborn's finger alone is worth watching.
This is a great film. I find it more of a comedy than a horror as it goes through teen life with an extra sexual appeal. I find it hilarious that turning into a werewolf is terrifying experience, that can bring humor to others.
Cheesy special effects and preposperous plot result in a laughable werewolf chiller that's everything but scary & haunting. Camp value is reasonably high and the performances are dosed with the right amount of silliness (particularly Eisenberg's), but down the line, it's the kind of stuff that annoys more than entertains once it's past the 45-minute mark. The Craven-ish humour saves the damn thing from being total crap, but I have to say I'm not very proud of Wes for being responsable for this little rotten vegetable...
Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg were great as Brother and Sister. Jimmy, played by Eisenberg was my favourite character. When he goes from being this loner to an extremely cool teen is my favourite part. The only down side to the movie was the werewolf transformation scene which was terrible. Other than that I can't get enough of it, I've watched it so many times.
I can understand why Josh Jackson and Shannon Elizabeth are in this clunker. Their careers are in the johnny flusher. But Christina Ricci is a respected actress with a great career. Must've gotten a nice payday because this movie was horrible.
Not bad werewolf horror/thriller.When brother and sister Ellie and Jimmy survive a car accident after plungeing their car to the side of the road, they get attacked by what looks like a huge dog,their seemingly normal lives take an interesting turn.They seem alot stronger,their sense of smell and hearing has heightened and they seem to have become more attractive to the opposite sex.Lucky them!But this also leads them to research a string of attacks in the city which leads to a shocking discovery.Overall,not a bad thriller and Christina Ricci puts in a decent performance as usual but the werewolf effects aren't great and although theres a few scares they could have upped the gore factor and creepy atmosphere a bit because this leaves the film with a "teen-horror" feel.Ok,but could have been better.
I think I read that this was going to be one of the scariest movies of the year. It has it's moments but me and my friend were laughing hard, becuse some things are just too much
pathetic movie on wolves. i literally wasted my 2 hours.
poor performances, week plot, poor direction, no action, no horror.
the guy shoulld stop making horror movies after this cursed release for everyone.
Wes Craven hadn?t made a film since Scream 3 in 2000, but when word hit that he was making a new horror movie with Kevin Williamson (who had written Scream and Scream 2) everyone was excited. When word hit that most of the movie had been made, and they were scrapping all of it to reshoot most of it, fear set into horror fans all around. When something like that happens, it only means the final product will most likely not be worth seeing. And that is definitely the case with Cursed. Although on first viewing I enjoyed the movie, on several numerous viewings I realized that the movie is an awful piece of crap.
The movie follows Ellie (Ricci) and her brother Jimmy (Eisenberg) as they live their lives after their parents deaths (it seems to me that Williamson loves family deaths). While on their way home one night, they hit a wolf and knock another car off the road. The person in the other car (terribly played by Shannon Elizabeth) is killed by the wolf and Ellie and Jimmy are wounded by the wolf. Soon they begin to turn into werewolves, though Ellie is in denial over the whole thing. And then the rest of the movie unfolds like any other werewolf movie out there.
It baffles me why Dimension would waste money reshooting everything in the movie. I would love to see the original footage (which reportedly starred Matthew Lillard). The script was never really finished when filming began, which just raises more eyebrows as to why they would film a script that wasn?t done. The movie is so off pace, that when it was finally released in February of 2005 (right before my birthday, as it were), that the character of Ellie works on the TV talk show The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn which by that time, Kilborn had been fired and replaced by Craig Ferguson (and rightfully so), so that confused audiences worldwide.
The quick re-shoots is extremely obvious in the special effects. The special effects in this movie are extremely bad. The worst being when the dog, Zipper, turns into a werewolf and loses his mind in the house. The special effects are just so bad looking, you would think that it was someone from the 1980s brought back to 2004 and asked to do special effects without knowing what to do.
This movie is also nothing but cliches, if you?ve seen a werewolf movie, then you?ve seen Cursed, that is how bad this movie is. How did Kevin Williamson go from writing good movies like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Faculty to writing crap like Cursed? Everyone involved in this movie should be ashamed of themselves. Christina Ricci never really recovered from this movie, Kevin Williamson hasn?t really done much since this movie either. Wes Craven had a smash hit on his hands with Red Eye later in 2005, and his numerous remakes of his own movies, and Milo Ventimiglia went on to star on the smash hit TV series Heroes and went on to star as Sylvester Stallone?s son in Rocky Balboa in 2006. Other than that, none of the other actors survived the awfulness that is Cursed.
As Bad As I Want To Rate This Movie, It Wasn't Great But At The Same Time It Wasn't As Bad As I Thought It Was Going To Be. But I Wouldn't Be One To Have It In My Collection!
sad that Wes Craven made this
mildly entertaining, but cliche and the effects are on par with a Sci-fi channel flick
good for if there is NOTHING else to do-but otherwise for horror fans, don't bring this on yourselves when you could watch a better werewolf movie
This is what I call a bubblegum horror. Its a good film to watch but won't scare you the way a great horror film should. Best part was seeing Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes in completely different role.
Driving through the Hollywood Hills one evening brother and sister Ellie & Jimmy are distracted during an argument and then hit some kind of animal on the road. Losing control of the car Ellie slams into another automobile upending it with its driver Becky, Shannon Elizabeth, stuck in the seat hanging upside down. As both Ellie and Jimmy try to get Becky out of the car the animal that they hit earlier comes out of nowhere. Grabbing Becky and after forcing her out of her car it tears her apart as well as mauls both Ellie & Jimmy.
Later that morning both Ellie and Jimmy start to feel a bit weird with Jimmy all of a sudden eating raw meat from the fridge. Ellie's sense of smell becomes so acute that she can pick up scents, like a person with a bloody nose, from almost 100 yards away. Even Jimmy's pet Dog Zipper is scared of him. When Jimm sticks his hand out to pet the pooch Zipper suddenly snaps at him and draws blood from Jimmy's finger. It soon becomes obvious to both Jimmy and Ellie that they somehow became "Children of the Night" werewolves and have to find the person who infected them to not only get cured of their affliction, by killing whoever he or she is.
Ellie who's working as a producer of the popular L.A TV talk show hosted by Craig Kilborn is putting together a big shindig at her boyfriend's Jakes popular L.A night-club "The Tinsel". She later finds out that he, the two-timing rat, was having an affair with one of her fellow workers Joanie. What she doesn't know is that it was Jake himself who attacked both her and Jimmy that evening as well as killed Becky and that he's the werewolf that's been terrorizing the L.A area.
Cursed is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not an unentertaining one in the least. I enjoyed myself, and if you so happen to enjoy bad movies for the sheer simplicity of being entertained, then you're gonna find something to like in this film too. It's dumb, it's trashy, and best of all, it's a cool ride.
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