Having hit commercial pay dirt with the Scream franchise, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson team up again with the horror-thriller-satire Cursed. Their latest collaboration is a classic case of ever diminishing returns, however, the pair get lost in a sea of horror cliches and conventions which merely highlight their respective creative redundancy. As you might expect from the man who wrote Dawson's Creek, Cursed features all manner of pretty young things as they battle, amongst others, a venomous werewolf in the Hollywood Hills. The two main characters are Ellie (Christine Ricci, far too classy for this nonsense) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg), a pair of siblings whose close encounter with a werewolf has a rather dramatic impact on their lives.
There's not much more plot to speak of, as Williamson, in between teasing out vaguely interesting characters in thoroughly unbelievable circumstances, is more interested in resorting to the kind of shocks he seemed so eager to dismember (sorry, couldn't resist) with his first two Scream movies. Craven's direction lacks a lightness of touch, while the reportedly troubled shoot probably helps to ensure that Cursed never quite seems to know whether it's a comedy, horror or satire.
