It’s beyond pointless to bang on about the death of the knowing horror – the sub-genre where nubile young things get picked off while spouting flippant po-mo insights gained from viewing slasher movies – so we won’t. Sadly, we all played our shameful parts in the making of the Scream franchise, not knowing that no one would see fit to call time on the nudging and winking. In any case, such criticisms are academic with respect to Cursed, a cack-handed Wes Craven werewolf movie that evokes such pre-revival, low-faluting follies as Wishmaster far more readily than any of the director’s earlier collaborations with the now dreaded Kevin Williamson.
True, the film contrives to stage chase scenes through a gallery of memorabilia from Universal Studios horror classics (oh look, there’s Freddy in the background – how very novel…) and after bites from a rubbish CGI hairball leave them feeling decidedly more feral than before, our heroes (Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg) promptly consult their comic book collection. Mostly though, Cursed is less knowing schlock than trad-schlock aimed squarely at a tweenie market eager for silly, bloodless cut-away horror involving girls with breast implants, nose jobs and oppressive orthodontic work. Those old enough to have body hair, meanwhile, are unlikely to be so enamoured with this mangy beast of a movie, and will almost certainly spend the duration wondering when the Wayans are going to enter stage right and deliver a bad stoner joke.
To be fair, lycanthropy isn’t the easiest theme to reanimate. Where the Frankenstein myth lends itself easily to eco-geno-terror scenarios and vampires do perennially fashionable things with sex and blood, only maggoty, pitchfork-wielding peasants are likely to be bothered by the thought of marauding werewolves. Shame no one informed Messrs. Craven and Williamson before they blithely fashioned a dreadful straight-to-video quality flick, where the only scares come from Portia de Rossi’s intolerably shrieky voice, Joshua Jackson’s shockingly fluffy facial hair and the great big blotch left on Ms. Ricci’s CV. What the hell was she thinking, lending her waxing-moon-faced loveliness to this accursed crap?
Pass me that silver bullet, please…
Running Time 90mins. Cert 12a. Opens April 22nd