Today we have Cursed, a 2005 werewolf movie and our first request! Sad to report though, it’s barely a werewolf film. It’s more of a teen comedy with occasional werewolf action, as edited by someone who’s heard of werewolves but thinks all the mythology surrounding them is stupid and wants to make up their own.
We’re going to do something a little different and take a quick look at the production history of this film. Originally, Wes Craven was contracted to do an R-18 rated werewolf horror film that was supposed to “reinvent the genre” according to Bob Weinstein. Originally slated for release in 2003, the Weinsteins and their studio tore the movie to pieces, rewrote it and reshot it (in the case of the ending, twice!). What was released in 2005 was a PG-13 teen comedy that Wes Craven has since completely disavowed.
So, with that in mind let’s dive in! We open with…Bowling for Soup playing “Red Riding Hood”, then immediately transition to two minor characters (one played by Shannon Elizabeth, apparently doomed to die constantly in early 2000’s horror films) seeing a carnival fortune teller (played by Portia de Rossi - if nothing else, this movie is loaded with random side characters and cameos) about a guy. The fortune teller has no interest in their girly concerns though, and warns them that they will be stalked by a beast that hunts under the full moon. Have to give this opening credit though, it really does somehow set the tone for this film. And now we cut to…
Jesse Eisenberg chasing his dog down a street. Yes, Jesse’s in this film (as Jimmy), and if you guessed he was playing an awkward nerdy teenager then congratulations, you know the one role he played until he was old enough to play awkward nerdy adults. He chases his dog to his forced love interest, Brooke. No prizes for guessing she has a dickhead boyfriend, Bo (played by Mile Ventimiglia) and we get the usual teen bullying crap, complete with your standard run of gay jokes. Immediately we cut away to…
Ellie (played by Christina Ricci!), hunting her boyfriend Jake (Joshua Jackson) at the setup of a horror movie expo. Three scene cuts to introduce us to eight characters in under five minutes, only three of whom are actually main characters. I’m torn on whether this is efficient or overstuffed, given four of them aren’t going to do anything important (except die in two cases). Jake is kind of a flaky boyfriend though, so despite his love of horror films he loses points for being typical “afraid of commitment” dude.
Turns out Ellie and Jimmy are siblings, as Ellie picks Jimmy up from his random street bullying. On the way home, they manage to hit an animal, causing them to slam into another car, which is thrown into a ravine. That car was driven by Shannon Elizabeth, who promptly gets dragged out of her car and shredded offscreen, while Jimmy and Ellie pick up some scratches failing to save her. On top of an already shitty night, Jimmy’s dog bites him when he tries to pet him, clearly now afraid of the pair.
Back home and Jake appears suddenly (not sketchy at all) and while making out, Ellie has visions of ripping him to shreds. She wakes up alone in bed, not bloodied at all, which is why we’re supposed to assume it was a dream. Unless werewolf-induced amnesia comes after a shower. Meanwhile, Jimmy hops online and immediately becomes a Werewolf Truther, diving into conspiracies online. He also blacks out…and wakes up naked in the front yard. I mean, that’s probably not out of the ordinary for conspiracy nuts – maybe he’s just were-Mel Gibson?
Jimmy tries to drop his newfound werewolf knowledge (including that werewolves all have a pentagram mark on their palms called The Mark of the Beast, that the only way to kill them is to separate the head and the heart, and that killing the head of your werewolf line cures everyone in that line) on Ellie, who tells him to waste his time looking up porn like other teenage boys. In this case I’m going to call that supportive. She disproves his theory by grabbing a silver picture frame without burning and heads off to work, where she instantly creeps out her co-workers (Judy Greer and Michael Rosenbaum who looks weird with hair) by smelling someone’s bloody nose from several rooms away and immediately homing in on it.
We immediately move on to a party/interview setup that night. Ellie gets understandably annoyed when something like 4 of Jakes exes (one of whom is the surviving girl from the carnival scene) all turn up to warn her he’s got a habit of dropping relationships the instant they start to get serious. Ellie bails, and the surviving girl from the carnival scene gets attacked by a werewolf in the carpark, chased to an elevator and killed.
I just want to take a moment to call out this scene, because it’s bizarrely well done for a side characters death. She goes low under cars to avoid the werewolf when it’s jumping around, then holds herself off the ground by door handles when it starts looking under cars for her. She even uses her car remote key to distract the werewolf so she can make a break for it. She only dies when the werewolf manages to pull the elevator doors open and get at her, and you can’t really fault her for trying that. Strangely well done and choreographed.
Anyhoo, what’s Jimmy up to? He’s…cut his hair and started dissing his bullies. Of course Jesse Eisenberg is running with the B plot. He beats up his bullies at wrestling team tryouts, to the cheers of everyone for some reason. I mean, I know they’re bullies, but we’re never giving any reason to suspect anyone actually has deep seated respect for Jimmy, or a hatred for the typical jock crowd so it’s kinda weird. He also basically drops the equivalent of “he who smelt it, dealt it” on all the guys aiming gay jokes at him, just because that’s how we deal with bullying I guess.
Ellie meanwhile gets a visit from Portia de Psychic at her work, which serves to do very little except remind the audience that the Mark of the Beast is a thing. Ellie has a complete freakout at the studio when one of the presenters cuts his finger, and when she tries to flee Jake catches up with her, revealing that he is a werewolf (no surprise) but he wasn’t the one who attacked her and Jimmy (lies!).
Meanwhile Jimmy is at home, just realising the silver picture frame from earlier is stainless steel when...Bo appears, revealing that he actually is gay and kinda thinks Jimmy is hot. Jimmy fends him off by saying it’s just werewolf pheromones, but is immediately attacked by his own dog. Who, because he bit Jimmy, is now a were-golden retriever. Which is also a thing by the way. Before I have time to process this the Very Bad Boy chases Jimmy and Bo away, and we all try to forget about the whole repressed gay plot thing because that was not well handled. They decide to go look for Ellie at the horror movie expo.
Unfortunately she’s on her way home, meaning that when the boys get there, they’re confronted by Jake, who tries to have them thrown out, and…another werewolf? Who just starts attacking everyone in sight, but homes in on Ellie when she arrives. Given she was driving out in the suburbs but the expo was in downtown L.A, I think she’s got more than just werewolf powers. The werewolf reverts to human form revealing…Judy Greer, in what was easily the films most amusing twist. In the 5 minutes she’s allowed to cut loose as a bitchy werewolf trying to get back at her ex (Jake) by murdering all his other lovers, she gets to have so much fun. Anyway, everyone fights pointlessly for a bit, and then the cops turn up.
And now we get the single best moment in the film, and possibly one of the greatest moments in werewolf cinema. Greer-wolf is in hiding among the stage props, so Ellie lures her out by describing her to the cops as having “a bony arse, fat thighs and terrible skin”. Greer-wolf, still able to respond to cattiness, responds in a manner that thankfully has been turned into a gif, because I will never not have a use for this:
Honestly, that makes the entire film worth watching on it’s own. And yes, it’s a cheap castle set in a horror expo, not a cheap castle set that we’re supposed to believe is an actual castle. Believe me, it actually helps. Greer-wolf is promptly shot to bits by the cops with their not-silver bullets, because blowing out her brains counts enough for the whole “separating the head and the heart” thing. Makes sense in context, still lame. No points.
That’s not the end of the film though! Jake was lying about Greer-wolf being the one who attacked them (no surprise), and attacks the pair at their home. In a boring fight where no one assumes werewolf form, Ellie eventually cuts Jakes head off with a shovel.
And that’s it. Brooke reappears to randomly kiss Jimmy and wander off, because we all cared so much about that side plot, and we’re done.
Overall, it’s a mess. I think this writeup might make the film seem more coherent than it is. It has a couple of good moments, but the only consistently good bits are Christina Ricci and Judy Greer, who were clearly getting into it and having fun. Eisenberg is every character you’ve ever seen him play, and Josh Jackson…has he ever not been the most boring person in anything he’s done?
You can see the studio interference everywhere. Fast scene cuts, side plots everywhere, an ending that is just tacked on and stupid…I’m not surprised Wes Craven hates it. The fact that it’s watchable at all is a minor miracle (almost entirely carried by Greer and Ricci), given how hard it tries to avoid having actual werewolves. Overall though, it’s still pretty bad. Try not to pay too much for this one if you can avoid it.
Jesse Eisenberg chasing his dog down a street. Yes, Jesse’s in this film (as Jimmy), and if you guessed he was playing an awkward nerdy teenager then congratulations, you know the one role he played until he was old enough to play awkward nerdy adults. He chases his dog to his forced love interest, Brooke. No prizes for guessing she has a dickhead boyfriend, Bo (played by Mile Ventimiglia) and we get the usual teen bullying crap, complete with your standard run of gay jokes. Immediately we cut away to…
Ellie (played by Christina Ricci!), hunting her boyfriend Jake (Joshua Jackson) at the setup of a horror movie expo. Three scene cuts to introduce us to eight characters in under five minutes, only three of whom are actually main characters. I’m torn on whether this is efficient or overstuffed, given four of them aren’t going to do anything important (except die in two cases). Jake is kind of a flaky boyfriend though, so despite his love of horror films he loses points for being typical “afraid of commitment” dude.
Turns out Ellie and Jimmy are siblings, as Ellie picks Jimmy up from his random street bullying. On the way home, they manage to hit an animal, causing them to slam into another car, which is thrown into a ravine. That car was driven by Shannon Elizabeth, who promptly gets dragged out of her car and shredded offscreen, while Jimmy and Ellie pick up some scratches failing to save her. On top of an already shitty night, Jimmy’s dog bites him when he tries to pet him, clearly now afraid of the pair.
Back home and Jake appears suddenly (not sketchy at all) and while making out, Ellie has visions of ripping him to shreds. She wakes up alone in bed, not bloodied at all, which is why we’re supposed to assume it was a dream. Unless werewolf-induced amnesia comes after a shower. Meanwhile, Jimmy hops online and immediately becomes a Werewolf Truther, diving into conspiracies online. He also blacks out…and wakes up naked in the front yard. I mean, that’s probably not out of the ordinary for conspiracy nuts – maybe he’s just were-Mel Gibson?
Jimmy tries to drop his newfound werewolf knowledge (including that werewolves all have a pentagram mark on their palms called The Mark of the Beast, that the only way to kill them is to separate the head and the heart, and that killing the head of your werewolf line cures everyone in that line) on Ellie, who tells him to waste his time looking up porn like other teenage boys. In this case I’m going to call that supportive. She disproves his theory by grabbing a silver picture frame without burning and heads off to work, where she instantly creeps out her co-workers (Judy Greer and Michael Rosenbaum who looks weird with hair) by smelling someone’s bloody nose from several rooms away and immediately homing in on it.
We immediately move on to a party/interview setup that night. Ellie gets understandably annoyed when something like 4 of Jakes exes (one of whom is the surviving girl from the carnival scene) all turn up to warn her he’s got a habit of dropping relationships the instant they start to get serious. Ellie bails, and the surviving girl from the carnival scene gets attacked by a werewolf in the carpark, chased to an elevator and killed.
I just want to take a moment to call out this scene, because it’s bizarrely well done for a side characters death. She goes low under cars to avoid the werewolf when it’s jumping around, then holds herself off the ground by door handles when it starts looking under cars for her. She even uses her car remote key to distract the werewolf so she can make a break for it. She only dies when the werewolf manages to pull the elevator doors open and get at her, and you can’t really fault her for trying that. Strangely well done and choreographed.
Anyhoo, what’s Jimmy up to? He’s…cut his hair and started dissing his bullies. Of course Jesse Eisenberg is running with the B plot. He beats up his bullies at wrestling team tryouts, to the cheers of everyone for some reason. I mean, I know they’re bullies, but we’re never giving any reason to suspect anyone actually has deep seated respect for Jimmy, or a hatred for the typical jock crowd so it’s kinda weird. He also basically drops the equivalent of “he who smelt it, dealt it” on all the guys aiming gay jokes at him, just because that’s how we deal with bullying I guess.
Ellie meanwhile gets a visit from Portia de Psychic at her work, which serves to do very little except remind the audience that the Mark of the Beast is a thing. Ellie has a complete freakout at the studio when one of the presenters cuts his finger, and when she tries to flee Jake catches up with her, revealing that he is a werewolf (no surprise) but he wasn’t the one who attacked her and Jimmy (lies!).
Meanwhile Jimmy is at home, just realising the silver picture frame from earlier is stainless steel when...Bo appears, revealing that he actually is gay and kinda thinks Jimmy is hot. Jimmy fends him off by saying it’s just werewolf pheromones, but is immediately attacked by his own dog. Who, because he bit Jimmy, is now a were-golden retriever. Which is also a thing by the way. Before I have time to process this the Very Bad Boy chases Jimmy and Bo away, and we all try to forget about the whole repressed gay plot thing because that was not well handled. They decide to go look for Ellie at the horror movie expo.
Unfortunately she’s on her way home, meaning that when the boys get there, they’re confronted by Jake, who tries to have them thrown out, and…another werewolf? Who just starts attacking everyone in sight, but homes in on Ellie when she arrives. Given she was driving out in the suburbs but the expo was in downtown L.A, I think she’s got more than just werewolf powers. The werewolf reverts to human form revealing…Judy Greer, in what was easily the films most amusing twist. In the 5 minutes she’s allowed to cut loose as a bitchy werewolf trying to get back at her ex (Jake) by murdering all his other lovers, she gets to have so much fun. Anyway, everyone fights pointlessly for a bit, and then the cops turn up.
And now we get the single best moment in the film, and possibly one of the greatest moments in werewolf cinema. Greer-wolf is in hiding among the stage props, so Ellie lures her out by describing her to the cops as having “a bony arse, fat thighs and terrible skin”. Greer-wolf, still able to respond to cattiness, responds in a manner that thankfully has been turned into a gif, because I will never not have a use for this:
Honestly, that makes the entire film worth watching on it’s own. And yes, it’s a cheap castle set in a horror expo, not a cheap castle set that we’re supposed to believe is an actual castle. Believe me, it actually helps. Greer-wolf is promptly shot to bits by the cops with their not-silver bullets, because blowing out her brains counts enough for the whole “separating the head and the heart” thing. Makes sense in context, still lame. No points.
That’s not the end of the film though! Jake was lying about Greer-wolf being the one who attacked them (no surprise), and attacks the pair at their home. In a boring fight where no one assumes werewolf form, Ellie eventually cuts Jakes head off with a shovel.
And that’s it. Brooke reappears to randomly kiss Jimmy and wander off, because we all cared so much about that side plot, and we’re done.
Overall, it’s a mess. I think this writeup might make the film seem more coherent than it is. It has a couple of good moments, but the only consistently good bits are Christina Ricci and Judy Greer, who were clearly getting into it and having fun. Eisenberg is every character you’ve ever seen him play, and Josh Jackson…has he ever not been the most boring person in anything he’s done?
You can see the studio interference everywhere. Fast scene cuts, side plots everywhere, an ending that is just tacked on and stupid…I’m not surprised Wes Craven hates it. The fact that it’s watchable at all is a minor miracle (almost entirely carried by Greer and Ricci), given how hard it tries to avoid having actual werewolves. Overall though, it’s still pretty bad. Try not to pay too much for this one if you can avoid it.
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