Cursed

Christina Ricci. Wes Craven, dir. Dimension Films.

Excellently written and wonderfully executed - this movie had precisely the right balance of humour and scare tactics. Granted, this generation of horror movies absolutely does not take itself seriously, and most rely on satirizing old horror movie styles rather than coming up with something truly fightening and new, but this film does more than just that - it actually has some decent social commentary.

12-15-06
I feel terrible, b'c I left this review standing for 7 months, this has been in draft form since May and I really should have finished it and published it. One of my problems is completion . . . and focus.

But, suffice it to say, and kudos to this film, is that I still remember a vast majority of it, even after all this time. Usually the movies I watch simply sift into a batch of incoherent images, one scene sliding into another and characters being intertwined. But Cursed still stands very nicely.

Good scenes: Ricci's character's brother on the front porch, confronting the school bully who has come to terms with his own homosexuality. The brother is trying to come to terms with his werewolfism, and the exchange that they have regarding the disparate, but similar, issues is one of the best dialogues I've heard in teenage-centered cinema.

Also, the climactic scene of the movie, the face-off with the "primary" werewolf, was a pleasant surprise and continued the humour without shedding the sense of real danger.

Now, if I can just get my other drafts completed.

Wish me luck, friends and companions!

VG