Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Cursed (2005 American)

Title - Cursed
Language - English
Genre - Horror, werewolf













On their way home Ellie and her brother Jimmy hit an animal in the road causing them to crash in to another car which they knock off the road.  Whilst they are trying to help the other driver they are attacked by the animal.  Ellie and Jimmy get away but, over the next few they begin to realise that they are changing into something else.  The race is on to find out who the werewolf who attacked them is and to kill them to stop the change and the killing.


Cursed is a Werewolf film directed by Wes Craven and it deliberately plays along the lines of a standard werewolf film, for a bit. As with a lot of Wes Craven's films it has a dark sense of humor and a sense that it doesn't take itself totally serious.  The standard setup is the same as a lot of werewolf films, the main character, or in this case two of the main characters get bitten by a werewolf and then they have to deal with the consequences.  The one advantage of having two victims of the wolf attack is that we are shown two ways of dealing with the change.  First up there is Jimmy, the younger of the siblings who is slightly nerdy and often accused of being gay, which he isn’t.  It doesn't help that he is interested in Jenny the school jocks (Bo) girlfriend.  As in other werewolf/vampire films of this type Jimmy has a convenient collection of werewolf comics to help in his research into what is happening to him and, of course no one believes him, even Ellie to begin with.  Jimmy's story line takes a 'Teen Wolf' approach to coping with the wolf curse, pushed by Bo's bullying he ends up at tryouts for the wrestling team where he shows that he is stronger and more athletic than the rest, although unlike Teen Wolf he does not need to turn into the wolf to do so.    
Ellie, on the other hand has trouble believing that they are cursed, to begin with she refused to believe that the original attack was by a werewolf but as time moves on she can’t deny the changes that are happening to her.

There are parts of Cursed that seem to use traditional vampire law instead of the recognised werewolf law for instance silver will hurt a wolf but not necessarily kill it.  To kill the wolf you only need to separate the brain form the body.
To end their curse Ellie and Jimmy find they have to kill the wolf who turned them but who is it.
Cursed is a good film, it does not take itself too seriously and has a good story.  Most werewolf films have a victim coping with the curse and not necessarily trying to end it or have a pack of wolves terrorizing a community/group of people but Cursed we have the victims trying to end the curse without doing too much damage themselves and this works well as there are more there is more than one wolf. 

We also have Christina Ricci gothing up and looking cute so that’s always a bonus.

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