With production problems, delays, and reshoots; Cursed managed to live up to its title while being made. And this second collaboration between director Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson (who did 1996's Scream together and kickstarted the entire trend of "teen horror" still being used today) certainly suffers from it as it comes across as a sloppily thrown together effort with obvious moments and scenes that look to be cut down (such as the entirely pointless psychic character and the fact you can tell they chopped some blood to get it a lower rating).

On their way home in the Hollywood hills siblings Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg get into a car accident after some sort of animal hits their vehicle. When they go to save the driver of the other car they see her dragged away by some sort of giant creature and end-up being bitten themselves.

Soon enough they find out that the creature they saw was, in fact, a werewolf and soon they are beginning to start to transform. People start showing up dead, Eisenberg attempts to win his high school dream girl in the lame sub-plot, and their bodies start to slowly transform. In order to break the curse they need to find the person who attacked them - and the script proceeds to throw-out multiple red herrings until the obvious and predictable finale.

Cursed is the first truly awful horror film of 2005 - and I'm not using the word awful lightly.

The reason this movie doesn't work is that it's just a series of ridiculous moments (including when their dog "turns" and attacks them), poor attempts at "hip" humour by Williamson (it may have worked in Scream but here it doesn't), and a general feeling of familiarity to the entire thing. While watching this I saw so many scenes cribbed from other werewolf movies I started to lose count - heck, they even went as far to borrow a scene from the 1985 comedy Teen Wolf! And the current trend of making all Hollywood horror movies PG-13 continues as we're denied seeing shots of some gory moments that might have made this a little more bearable (including a moment in the finale involving a shovel) as they're relegated to occurring "off screen".

Despite all the talent behind this one, it just doesn't work - it's too silly, not at all entertaining, and packed with groanable moments. And like I said it plays out like it went through a troubled production.

Probably the best thing about this is the CGI werewolf effects and even they are somewhat passable. That fact is made even more frustrating to horror fans when we notice in the opening credits (and think to ourselves "Hell, yeah!") that make-up maestro Rick Baker was involved in the movie - this is a guy who won the first ever Oscar for effects for An American Werewolf In London - and the transformations in this movie come nowhere near matching those... and that movie is over twenty years old! (Chris Hartley, 2/27/05)

Directed By: Wes Craven.
Written By: Kevin Williamson.

Starring: Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg, Joshua Jackson, Milo Ventimiglia.