By Jason Anderson--Eye Weekly
February 25, 2005
Tormented by multiple re-shoots during the troubled production of Cursed, at some point writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven must have lost their minds. How else to explain what the team behind Scream has wrought: a werewolf horror-comedy that goes several steps beyond self-parody toward total self-immolation? Unapologetically incoherent and clearly high on its own fumes, Cursed somehow finds room for buckets full of old-fashioned gore, a few truly regrettable CGI creatures, a queer teen wrestler, homages to Teen Wolf, the pivotal use of a sterling silver cake slicer, repeated plugs for the now non-existent The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn and Scott Baio as himself. I repeat: Scott Baio as himself.
In the eye of the storm is the appropriately moon-faced and admirably unflappable Christina Ricci. She plays Ellie, a Late Late Show flack, who's driving home with her brother Jimmy (Roger Dodger's Jesse Eisenberg) when they have a car accident in the Hollywood Hills. While trying to rescue the other driver (American Pie's Shannon Elizabeth, soon to be bisected), they are attacked by a hairy creature. Ellie and Jimmy's heightened sense of smell and much improved hairstyles are two indications that they have been cursed by the beast. Jimmy's internet research confirms their burgeoning werewolf-dom. "Why can't you just download porn like other teenage boys?" counters his skeptical sister.
The idea of doing for the werewolf movie what Scream did for the slasher flick is badly flawed. The sub-genre hasn't been taken seriously since the days of I Was a Teenage Werewolf and lycanthrope staples like An American Werewolf in London and The Howling eagerly flaunted their parodic elements. And what with former Dawson's Creek aurteur Williamson now giving his characters lines like, "The woman's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" Cursed barely brandishes the sharp wit of Ginger Snaps. Hell, even Mike Nichols' woeful Wolf had more bite. But at least Cursed displays some gusto in a chaotic nightclub sequence that's so over the top, it doesn't matter which laughs are unintentional. The cameos by z-list celebrities (Lance Bass!) add tot he retro-'90s-pomo vibe. Soon-to-quit talk-show host Craig Kilborn inadvertently reveals his own dementia when he tells Ellie he's bumping Scott Baio from the show in order to accomodate another guest. "Carrot Top's rehearsal was funny," he says. "I'm gonna let the Top go long."
