I've also just come to the conclusion that the so-called horror maestro known as Wes Craven is at best (and I do mean best) an only mildly talented semi-hack director who’s total cinematic output has consisted almost entirely of films that were even worse than his beleaguered latter day tale of sibling lycanthropy (i.e. “Cursed” ) was—and whose entire reputation has as its basis the unfortunate decline of a group of truly talented horror directors--who were Craven betters in every conceivable way. By which I mean to ask you, would any of us even know the Craven's name if "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's" Tobe Hooper , "The Thing's" John Carpenter , "The Howling's" Joe Dante , "Suspiria's" Dario Argento and his brother-in-arms "Dawn of the Dead's" George A. Romero hadn’t flamed-out collectively as the nineteen eighties progressed toward their end?
I suppose someone out there is at this very moment (assuming anyone at all will ever read this blog) making the seemingly fair argument that Craven's first film, namely “The Last House on the Left” was a decent, interesting and more importantly entertaining film. But, I wouldn't buy a damn cent of it. “Why” you ask? . . . Because If you'll just take a moment to think the matter and the man in questions career through for a moment, I'm sure you’ll quickly realize, as I have that Wes Craven has frankly never managed to make an even almost decent film without breaking into a certifiable classic and stealing a motif first. Take the aforementioned "Last House on the Left" for example; the tale of a young group of Desperate Hours wannabe thugs (punks is probably the better word) who invade the home of the parents of the young woman they rapped and murdered for kicks earlier in the evening. Craven supporters will want to cross check it against Ingmar Bergman’s magnificent “Virgin Spring,” because it was essentially a remake. As for Craven's remaining quote un-quote excellent-to-acceptable films from “Nightmare on Elm Street” to “The Hills Have Eyes” to “The Serpent and the Rainbow” to “The People Under the Stairs” and of course the first “Scream” film, I can only say that were so rife with lifts and outright theft from other better films (David Cronenberg's virtual materpeice “Videodrome” . . . the aforementioned "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” . . . the classic Val Lewton/Jacques Tourner collaberation “I Walked With a Zombie ” . . .Tod Browning's imortal ”Freaks” . . . and John Carpenter's genre-defining gore-free gore-fest “Halloween” respectively), that Craven could be sued successfully and forced to pay those filmmakers royalties.
“Cursed,” continued that trend to a degree so startling that I would have thought it impossible to achieve before stumbling across it and thereby witnessing it first hand. The film, if you have to call it that, ostensibly concerns the horrific misadventures of poorly matched siblings played by the object of my previous post's affections Christina Ricci and a comparatively unknown actor named Jesse Eisenberg. Ricci plays Ellie Hudson, one of those overly serious-minded female professionals that seem to litter the romantic comedy genre, she's a talent booker for Craig Kilborn’s Late, Late, Show, and the erstwhile guardian of her nerdy younger brother, Jimmy (that Jesse Eisenberg guy I mentioned earlier). The two are living whatever passes for a normal life in LA, along with their faithful German Shepard Zipper (Solar), following the deaths of their parents. In no time flat running time wise, all of that there gets itself turned upside down on a midnight dark canyon road when Ellie swerves to avoid hitting a "dog" and instead smacks their car into Shannon Elizabeth (which is in my humble estimation, a fair trade by any measure). Anyway, Shannon Elizabeth goes flying off the canyon's embankment, magnificent surgically enhanced breasts and all, so Jimmy and Ellie race to try and save her. Unfortunately, just as they’re about to pull her out of her car's wreck, a lucky “wild animal” attacks, savagely wrenches Shannon's character out of her car and proceeds to make off with most of her. Eisenberg's Jimmy becomes convinced that the bloodthirsty beast in question (the perp if you will) was in actuality a child of the full moon, a lycanthrope, you know . . . a freakin' werewolf that may return to take large bites out of him and or his older sister. (which would really be a tragedy considering what a national treasure Ricci is) In other words, he decides that they're cursed.
"I'm not going to kill her. I'm just gonna rip her to shreds and let her choke on her own blood... and then maybe I'll eat her. "
Isn't that all just terribly clever?
Ok, so here's my basic problem with it all, given that particular brand of barebones set-up, there really is no intrinsic reason why “Cursed” was such an execrable film. The shit that smells things up so sticks squarely on Wes Craven’s reliance on that creative personality defect I started this all with. There’s scarcely one minute of the mess on ill-used celluloid known as "Cursed" that you won’t have already seen somewhere else in a similar film. Even Len Weisman's ultra-derivative werewolves vs. vampires epic "Underworld" was more original. No seriously. For example: The opening sequence of "Cursed" is half ripped off from Joel Schumacher's “The Lost Boys” and half ripped off from Lon Chaney Jr.'s “The Wolfman” and throughout, the film manages to steal bits and pieces from so many other, better films . . . a sexually confused bully right out of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” a bully that earns a pummeling right out of “Spider Man,” a werewolf slash athlete right out of that Michael J. Fox clunker “Teen Wolf,” a fly catching bit out of David Cronenberg's “The Fly,” Craven even dares to lifts the funhouse bit from Orson Well's “The Lady from Shanghai,” ( though in all fairness Craven may have been attempting to lift the bit from either "Enter the Dragon" or "The Shadow" ) the havin' bad dreams thing from John Landis' “An American Werewolf in London,” and so much more I literally had to stop counting to retain my already slender grip on sanity.
To Conclude This Here Follow-up I’ll Wholeheartedly Recommend Three Things:
- No, Red Eye wasn't terrible, but you should never pay hard-earned money to see another Wes Craven movie as long as you live.
- You should see every single movie Christina Ricci makes from now on, especially her turn opposite Samuel L Jackson in the forthcoming potential exploitation sleaze masterpiece called "Black Snake Moan."
- If for some reason you simply must see a werewolf movie, please just Netflix “The Howling.”
