The Good

The Bad

I didn’t find Cursed to be scary in any way. I was jolted a few times and surprised in parts, but nothing about this movie really scared me. In fact, when you have a werewolf that gives somebody the middle finger, you know at that point that the movie you have been watching isn’t to be taken too seriously. I think that ultimately, that is what undermines this film. Unlike the first Scream movie, which deconstructed the genre, this movie doesn’t seem to know that it is in on the joke. However, it tries to pull certain things off, like trying to figure things out about the werewolf and this just makes for an extremely uneven film.

The thing is, for a Wes Craven movie, there doesn’t seem to be anything here. It is as if people felt that Kevin Williamson could dash off a script, Craven could helm it and then magic would happen. Before I had even seen Cursed I remember hearing that there were massive problems with the film. In fact, I remember seeing the poster for the movie hanging in the lobby of my movie theater forever. There is a fine line between using comedy in horror films, and making a horror comedy. The comedy in Craven’s films usually works because the films are so intense and they do take themselves seriously. Comedy is used to relieve that tension a bit. Sadly, Cursed seems more like a movie that in trying to straddle both worlds, may have only succeeded in outsmarting itself.

Features

Behind The Fangs: The Making of Cursed

After watching this, I get the sense that the actors, director and everyone else went into this film thinking they were making a fun, horror film with comedic elements. What actually was shot and then edited (and probably reedited) doesn’t seem to be like anything they are describing. While I don’t think Cursed is awful, how can you have a horror movie without any horror to speak of. Sure, it seems like everyone had a good time on the set, but maybe they should have been a bit more focused on making the movie they at least thought they were making?

The Cursed cts

This featurette seems to focus on the werewolf itself. I don’t think we give enough thought or credence to the amount of work that goes into creating creature effects. Just hearing the people inside the wolf suit talk about the psychology of wolves, lets you know that you are in effect dealing with people that don’t just look at creature effects as putting on a custom and running around. There really is an art to how this is done and I think people who want to do this kind of work will really enjoy this supplemental piece.

Creature Editing 101

Patrick Lussier, the person who edited Cursed, talks about how editors can change the intent of what was shot in a movie. How editors can save a movie. How they were so hellbent on reaching a wider audience with this movie, that they kept editing and reediting it and I think that shows in this film. There is NOTHING here. In trying to make a movie for everybody, all the cooks in the kitchen ended up preparing something that nobody really liked!! Sure, it’s interesting hearing about the process, but I think that if they had just let Wes Craven make his movie, edited it according to the script, they would have had much better box office results.

Becoming A Werewolf

Jesse Eisenberg, Greg Nicotero, Wes Craven and a few others make up this semi-entertaining documentary that was made by Eisenberg himself. Basically, this looks at what it takes to make a werewolf look like a werewolf on the big screen. Everyone involved seems like they are being a good sport and just having fun, but for the most part I am wondering if this tiny featurette may have been better off not being on this DVD. Other then giving people a cursory inside glimpse into what happens on a horror movie set, I didn’t see a whole lot of purpose for this extra feature.

Selected Scenes with Commentary by Special Effects and Makeup Supervisor Greg Nicotero and Actor Derek Mears

These are really cool commentary tracks along with some selected scenes. Hearing people that are so adept at their craft, explain what they do and then having the scenes to back it up is really cool. Again, people interested in doing this kind of work should get a lot out of it, but I also think that others who may just be curious about what these guys have to say will enjoy it too.

Video

Widescreen (2.40:1) - Enhanced for 16x9 Televisions. The look of this film is actually the most impressive part of this movie. There is a bigness to this film. I don’t know how else to describe it, but the colors just seem to jump off the screen. All the characters look so big in the film and so well lit, that I felt almost bad that I did not appreciate this movie as much as I did. Wes Craven seems very intent on using very tight, confining shots and because of that, when the scares come around, they are more jolting then anything else. Here you are watching a scene in which the characters are talking, things are quiet and then all of the sudden, out of nowhere, you are jolted because your field of view has been so tightly constrained. Sadly, this film almost became predictable in it’s scares and I sort of knew,