Harefooted Halloween: Cursed

What I Liked: They went for a human sized wolf that stands on its hind legs which is probably my favorite type of design when it comes to these creatures.  When you can get a decent glimpse the elongated snout and teeth and muscular body are menacing features.  Even though this guy passed through many different effects artists (I’ll explain soon) the final product turned out surprisingly good.

When there are practical werewolf effects they’re kinda cool looking.  I mean when it’s a guy in a suit (Derek Mears (Friday the 13^th (2009))) maybe it’s a little too obvious and cheesy (although that could’ve been how they decided to shoot and edit) but to have someone in the room for real goes a long way and is very charming.

It’s really all about the second half of the film.  Once we have a better idea of what’s happening things start to get a lot more fun.  The protagonists are discovering their newly acquired powers, villain motivation garners a neat twist, the fight scenes are energetic and choreographed alright and some characters become less annoying to the point of fully redeeming themselves.

*Mild spoiler on this last point* I really appreciate that the finale doesn’t involve a bunch of full on werewolves battling each other but rather humans with some super power werewolf abilities.  This is a clever way for the audience to follow the action.  Otherwise it would be furry animals bouncing all over the room and we wouldn’t be able to tell who the fuck is who.

What I Didn’t Like: In order to get to the more enjoyable second half you unfortunately have to sit through an abysmal first half.  There’s uninteresting characters, internet sleuthing, a bad dream sequence, a strained romance and stupid high school bullying leftover from the 80’s.  Everyone is either bland or annoying.  Our leads Ellie (Christina Ricci (The Smurfs 2)) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale)) exhibit both those qualities.  They’re brother and sister living in a house in LA by themselves which isn’t explained, they have no chemistry, everyone’s kidna mean to both of them, Eisenberg’s fast talking schtick is grating, Ricci looks checked out and it’s just terrible.

Most of the CGI doesn’t look so great.  It’s mainly the transformation scenes that are the ugliest with the body and face distorting in cartoony ways.  When it’s the werewolf running around it blends shockingly well with the practical effects but not well enough to totally shed the plastic shiny ragdoll appearance.

In some spots the editing is ridiculously coked up and absolutely horrendous.  I think the editing is too fast paced in general here but in three or four spots it goes off the fucking rails into Saw territory.  Boy, that mid 2000’s style hasn’t come around to being nearly as funny as I want it to be yet.  How much longer do I have to wait?

This is such a fucking dated movie.  Ellie works for Craig Kilborn’s late night talk show, Scott Baio (Zapped!) has an oddly large role as himself, there’s an angsty nu metal-esque soundtrack, Jimmy goes emo when he becomes a werewolf by straightening his hair and letting it hang in front of his face, primitive (by today’s standards) internet websites, there’s a bunch of gay jokes and the aforementioned CGI.

Overall Impressions: Ok so here’s the deal, this picture went through the fucking wringer with the original script being almost completely shot before the Weinstein’s at Dimension and Miramax decided none of it was any good.  So after several rewrites, three rounds of reshoots, a bump down in rating from R to PG-13 and various characters being dropped (whose scenes were already filmed) what should’ve been a couple of month process took two and a half goddamn years!  What may have been the biggest crime is the legendary Rick Baker did the original effects but none of them wound up in the film.  After that another illustrious effects house, KNB, were brought on to the project but apparently most of their practical shit also got cut from the movie and was replaced by CGI.  Jeez Louise.

So that explains why this thing definitely feels like a mess.  But it’s not all bad which is the curious part.  You can see flashes of cool ideas, entertaining moments and yes, bits of badass effects.  Stuff like starting the third act earlier than normal and not letting up until the end credits helps.  But it in no way erases the awful crap you have to sit through before that.

I don’t know if I can recommend this one.  It’s Wes Craven’s werewolf picture so of course it has to be seen if you’re a big horror fan.  If you’re looking for a study on a train wreck of a film this wouldn’t satisfy though.  It was essentially entirely remade so there isn’t much figuring out how the filmmakers tried to glue the old and new fragments together to form a Frankenstein concoction.  So the piece ends up in a real messed up strange area.  Everyone got screwed on this job, Wes Craven, writer Kevin Williamson (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty), the actors who got cut (Skeet Ulrich, Mandy Moore, John C McGinley), the effects work that didn’t get shown off, my ears and eyes for some questionable soundtrack and editing choices, etc.  But you know, fuck me.  It was right there in the title.  The movie truly is cursed.