The Cursed is a foggy, sluggish variation on the old-school werewolf movie
Old-fashioned Gothic horror mingles with modern creature effects in this slow-burn creature feature
Film Reviews Cursed
Although The Cursed is set in France, it’s so gray that you might assume it takes place in England. That’s no slight against the British—they’ll be the first to tell you that their homeland is a foggy, overcast place. Would they feel at home in the colorless countryside of this monster movie, which at times almost appears to be shot in black-and-white, with only the red-orange glow of an angry villager’s torch lighting up the somber color palette? (The Cursed is big on mobs of angry villagers.) The English accents further confuse the matter, as does the film’s resemblance to the stuffed-shirt Gothic period pieces that were once specialties of British studios like Amicus and Hammer.
We open against the hellish backdrop of a WWI foxhole, where a soldier is lifted onto an operating table, blood gushing from multiple ammunition wounds. As a French army doctor begins the delicate work of extracting metal from flesh, he finds something unusual embedded deep in the man’s chest: a silver bullet. Cut to a title card reading “35 years earlier.” Now we’re watching the story of village elders who bring some well-deserved hell down on themselves by slaughtering a band of Roma families with a legitimate claim on their land.
Putting on our “all horror is metaphor” glasses for a moment, the political reading of that particular plot line is obvious. Imagery of bloodthirsty maids attacking wealthy landowners should be the stuff of a George Romero-style allegory about the downtrodden rising up to destroy their masters. But writer-director Sean Ellis is so focused on constructing an old-fashioned Gothic tale that he doesn’t seem to have noticed the rich subtextual gift he’s given himself. Not that The Cursed is totally oblivious to its themes. Early on, it explicitly points out this is the tale of children paying for the sins of their parents.
Once it gets around to setting up the core cast of characters, led by village boss Seamus (Alistair Petrie), his wife Isabelle (Kelly Reilly), and their children, Charlotte (Amelia Crouch) and Edward (Max Mackintosh), The Cursed settles into a narrative groove that re-states the same ideas and events until they get quite stale indeed. The addition of pathologist/monster hunter John McBride (Boyd Holbrook) helps, in the sense that Victorian science is always fascinating. Holbrook is an interesting actor as well, although the role, a standard Van Helsing type, isn’t especially layered or surprising.
In between scenes of self-satisfied patriarchs huffing and puffing by candlelight, The Cursed does bring some modern elements to its tale. The gore effects are alternately realistic (think bloody skin flaps and spurting arteries) and fantastic, with an emphasis on creature design. Not quite werewolves and not quite demons, with a mixture of mammalian and insectoid characteristics, the monsters in this film bring to mind Rob Bottin’s landmark effects work on John Carpenter’s The Thing. They’re startling when we get brief glimpses of them, and pretty damn cool when we get a long, sticky look. The cursed silver fangs that kickstart the supernatural happenings are also appealingly designed, although they don’t pop against the film’s murky background.
Even when Ellis ramps up the suspense with crosscutting and monster mayhem in the final half-hour, The Cursed has trouble maintaining nail-biting intensity for very long. Most of the characters are shuffled off screen to hide out in a church for the second half of the movie. And those that do stay involved in the narrative don’t have defined-enough emotional arcs to make us care much about their fates. When it comes to homage, loving attention to craft can take you most but not all of the way. The Cursed proves that.
52 Comments
Will people never learn to just leave Gypsies alone?
Roma. The G word is considered a slur by the Romani people.
*gasp* It’s just like that old Roma woman said!Hm, characterizing them as spooky fortune-tellers is probably also not great.
I feel about this a little like I feel about horror movie witches. IRL wiccans often bristle at movie witches but movie witches aren’t wiccans. Movie gypsies aren’t really Romani. If you’re upset because the movie version of you doesn’t represent you, take that as read. It ISN’T you.But I also know that’s not really how representation works pragmatically. People will conflate the fiction and the reality.
I’d say that “Gypsies” have magic powers and successfully cast spells to get revenge. Roma are the people who actually exist in the real world (and lack magic powers to the best of my knowledge).
Between Thinner and Snatch alone you pretty much learn all you need to know.
and Drag Me to Hell!
An even better example.
“Hey!! M’am – you backed into my car pretty badly. Give me your insurance information!”“If you like…but you should know I’m of Roma descent…”“Ah you know what, nevermind, never liked this car anyway – um have a nice day!”
Just tramps and thieves will do.
There have not been that many good werewolf movies, historically one of the more underserved horror subgenres, weird because they are such a cool concept. Other than Ginger Snaps, American Werewolf in London, and Dog Soldiers, there might not be any that I like
Silver Bullet?
He said what he said.
I see what he said, and say would he also have said this if asked to say.
Word.
to your mother
I am aware of Silver Bullet
So I see, sir.
From your vampire hunting days?
Heretic!
Howling?
Not presently, no.
What about that one with Benicio del Toro, where he plays an unstoppable feral killing machine? You know, The Hunted?
I know I’m in the minority but I love his Wolfman.But I’m also a fiend for werewolf fiction.
I don’t know that one
It’s really good! Tommy Lee Jones hunts del Toro, many people are shot and knifed. A much more stripped-down and brutal Fugitive. Anyway, I was joking about how if you squint it could be a werewolf flick and goofing on the actual movie where del Toro transforms into a horrible ravenous beast, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.
I know a lot of people consider Bug to be Friedkin’s return to form, but for me it was The Hunted. Though Bug is definitely still the best out of everything post To Live & Die in LA.
The final knife fight in The Hunted kicks so much ass. It’s a great movie, as is Bug, but neither of them have a Fuck House — I don’t know why Jade gets such a bad rap.
I just recently rewatched this – it had been a while – and wow, it’s still as fantastic as I remembered (sometimes revisiting old favorites are disappointing). It’s so goddam intense and visceral, great acting, beautifully shot, and the TLJ/BdT are so good, include all the physical/combat stuff.Really off the rails side note: watching this made me track down another knife fight movie I only vaguely remembered, I knew it had Peter Coyote, the US title is Exposure from 1991 (A Grande Arte international title), pretty fun little thriller, also stars Tcheky Karyo as a knife master fighter.
Late Phases? And does The Wolf of Snow Hollow count?
Not familiar with those!
Not even “The Howling?”
To me The Howling couldn’t really figure out what it wanted to be, and wasn’t either scary or funny enough. Horror-comedy is tricky. That might just be me, I know a lot of people like that movie
I very much enjoyed Werewolves Within last year, and, while a series, not a movie, Wolf Like Me is fantastic.
I need to watch Werewolves Within. I love Milana Vayntrub
Oooh it’s on Showtime & the subscription I got for Yellowjackets hasn’t ended yet
That’s why I watched, lol.
I just watched Werewolves Within & thought it was a very well done and enjoyable horror-comedy but I’m not sure I consider it a werewolf movie exactly since there were no scenes of people really being attacked by werewolves
I am struggling to think of the most recent one that could be considered a hit.
It’s not really in the same vein (heh heh) as Hammer or others at all, but I rather enjoyed Wolf.If for no other reason than to see Nicholson and Spader competing to see who could chew the most … scenery.
That’s an interesting movie but I am not the biggest fan of Nicholson anymore, or Spader ever
The first Howling movie was, in my opinion, pretty good.
Hmm… Kelly Reilly tho… I might rent it.
The lack of heavy eye makeup makes me skeptical about the opportunity for skin.
Citation and source needed *)
Get in trouble at your own job, buddy.
haha
I’m not sure I can suspend my disbelief in the fantastical premise of… Roma owning land in 19th century France.
Oh, hey, this is the movie that premiered at Sundance last year as Eight for Silver. I went into it hoping it would sort of be The Witch for werewolves, but it’s just polished but silly costume horror. Hard to say how much I would’ve enjoyed it if I hadn’t set my expectations way too high, but it’s definitely nothing all that special.
I wish they would’ve kept the original name. There’s already at least one werewolf movie called Cursed. I’m so sick of the boring “I own a thesaurus” movie name trend. Looking at you, Insidious, Sinister, Malevolent, Malignant and on and on and on…
Yeah, if anything you’d think there’d be a trend toward making titles more distinctive, so they’re easier to differentiate in online searches and on social media. But maybe there’s some counterintuitive marketing value if a title is more generic and people are more apt to stumble across it when searching for something else?