by Frank Calvillo
Box Office Alternative Column
Box Office Alternative is a weekly look into additional/optional choices to the big-budget spectacle opening up at your local movie theater every Friday. Oftentimes, titles will consist of little-known or underappreciated work from the same actor/writer/director/producer of said new release, while at other times, the selection for the week just happens to touch upon the same subject in a unique way. Above all, this is a place to revisit and/or discover forgotten cinematic gems of all kinds.
The reaction to the much-anticipated Batman vs. Superman has certainly proven the film to be one of the most polarizing of superhero movies ever to hit screens. For every review complaining about its bloated runtime and sluggish pace, there are plenty praising its striking visuals and eclectic performances. Regardless of what other new releases come out this week or next, it’s pretty much a given that Batman vs. Superman will remain the top film at the box office and on people’s lips.
With that in mind, I thought I’d take the opportunity to give a shout out to one of the film’s biggest attributes, namely Jesse Eisenberg, who gives a wildly fun turn as Lex Luthor. The role is definitely a tour-de-force performance for the actor, who has come quite a long way since I first saw him over a decade ago in Wes Craven’s troubled, yet very worthy werewolf film Cursed.
In Cursed, television producer Ellie (Christina Ricci) and her teenage brother Jimmy (Eisenberg) are driving home one night through the Hollywood Hills, when a large dog causes their car to collide with another vehicle. When the two rush to help out the driver of the other car (Shannon Elizabeth), they are attacked by the same creature who caused the accident. Over the next few days, the two begin exhibiting strange signs and behaviors, which leads Jimmy to suspect that they might be turning into werewolves. What’s more, it seems that someone they know may be the cause of their transformation.
Most horror movie aficionados will know the extremely troubled history of Cursed. Written by Scream scribe Kevin Williamson, the film was originally meant to be a tale involving three strangers linked by a werewolf attack, who try to track and kill the beast in question before their transformation is complete. Though initial filming was completed in late 2002, studio executives were unhappy with the results and insisted that Craven reshoot major parts of the film. When certain cast members proved unavailable for reshoots, their parts were either recast or written out altogether by Williamson, who found himself having to rewrite large sections of his script. After filming was finally completed over a year later (with over 80% of Cursed being rewritten and reshot), the studio took the movie away from Craven, making further edits to the point where the director didn’t even recognize his own film and ensuring that Cursed had truly lived up to its name.
In spite of all the turmoil, however, the movie remains an extremely fun entry in the werewolf genre.
The film has some really great sequences such as Jenny’s (Mya) cat and mouse-like chase with a werewolf in a parking garage and Elizabeth’s beautifully graphic death scene. Meanwhile, notable set pieces, including a smoke-filled chase through a hall of mirrors and the delightfully overblown finale in a Hollywood wax museum provide the kind of grandiose feel that most classic horror films were famous for.
Maybe it’s because the time between initial filming and reshoots saw movie technology advance, but there’s a wonderful mix of old school creature effects complete with that classic Rick Baker touch and cutting edge (for the day anyhow) CGI. It’s fantastic to see a film embrace both forms of effects, and whether it’s a large man in a dog suit, or computer generated teeth growling into the camera, the werewolves of Cursed never disappoint.
Finally, it goes without saying that werewolf movies have always provided great allegories for the harshness of the real world. Here, it’s Hollywood which provides the backdrop for Cursed’s ideology. The idea of a town and an industry such as show business which is as dog eat dog in a way that very few other cities and corporate structures are, is very much in keeping with the highly vicious and animalistic nature of the werewolf.
Horror films can oftentimes get so caught up on delivering chills, that they can sometimes forget to let their actors actually ACT. Thankfully this isn’t the case in Cursed. Ricci brings a relatability and down-to-earth quality that can sometimes be lacking in the more complex roles the actress is typically drawn to. Meanwhile, Eisenberg shows the kind of game energy and commitment that would eventually become his trademark.
For the rest of the cast (those who made the final cut, anyhow), everyone does well with their roles, in particular Judy Greer, who enjoys her most fun and showy role to date, stealing every scene she’s in as a bitchy publicist.
With more attention given to the troubled production rather than the actual end product, Cursed bombed at the box office upon its February 2005 premiere. Critics, even those who had championed Craven and Williamson’s previous collaborations, were likewise turned off. After spending just a short number of weeks in theaters, and with only a handful of returns to show for its overblown production budget, the film quickly became the biggest flop of Craven’s career.
There was a (very) small silver lining when Cursed found its way onto home video through an unrated director’s cut, showing all the omitted violence, gore and scares edited out by the studio. Even Craven himself was reported to have commented that the DVD version was truly the film he made. I remember showing said version to some friends of mine, who quickly embraced the film and recognized Cursed for what it remains today: an extremely decent and entertaining homage to werewolf films of the past and a true, if decidedly minor, Craven classic.
