Unseen Terror 2015: Day 21

Driving home after visiting her boyfriend, crew member Ellie Myers picks up her younger brother Jimmy from high school. While heading down a highway in Los Angeles, California, the two accidentally hit another car, and oddly enough, a large, unseen animal. They are shocked to discover that the passenger of the other vehicle is still alive, but before they can rescue the young woman, she is dragged out of her driver's seat by a creature that they only catch a glimpse of. In the ensuing chaos, Ellie and Jimmy are cut by the beast's claws, but the police and EMTs arrive too late to save the other motorist, who has been torn to shreds. Though the two relatives are spooked, everything still seems to be normal. However, when Ellie and Jimmy begin to act rather peculiar, the latter digs around and contemplates the fact that they may now bare the mark of a beast; one which transforms at the sight of a full moon and is driven to kill.



You know, Cursed isn't THAT bad of a movie.


Wait, before you scoff at me for being too soft, let me explain.


If you were to look for a more appropriately-titled flick for something such as this marathon that I do every year, one of your first and easiest picks would be the late Wes Craven's only foray into the werewolf genre. As for why this was his lone attempt at making a movie about lycanthropy? Well, that can be attributed to an unusually large amount of what can only be described as "frequent studio interference." Or, to quote another film distributed by the same company as Cursed, "Fucking Miramax." The original script for this picture, which was conceived back in the year 2000, had some similarities to the final results seen here, but with a lot of notable changes in the cast and backgrounds to their characters. For starters, there was no sibling angle, as there were three random strangers who were brought together as the result of a random werewolf attack, and a possible love triangle would build throughout its first and middle acts. No, several executives thought that this just wasn't marketable enough. How about just making Christina Ricci (The Addams Family) and Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) into orphans with no chemistry and erasing the third character altogether (who was originally supposed to be Skeet Ulrich of Scream fame)?


But it didn't stop there. For nearly two years, a substantial number of alterations were made to Cursed while it was still being recorded by Craven and his crew. Several cast members' parts and/or scenes were erased due to time restraints and scheduling conflicts. These included A Walk To Remember's Mandy Moore (who was replaced by R&B singer Mya), Heather Langenkamp (A Nightmare On Elm Street), Omar Epps (House), and a good handful of other recognizable actors and actresses. Hell, Christina Ricci's character works for former Late Late Show host Craig Kilborn, and by the time of Cursed's theatrical release, her "boss" no longer worked at CBS! Oh, and at least half of the script was rewritten, meaning that much of the film itself had to be re-shot, delaying its release until god knows when. So with all of that tomfoolery that took place behind the scenes, it almost seemed destined to fail, especially when it finally dropped during the first two months of the new year, which is what most would call "dump time" for motion pictures.


And yet, this guy has seen far worse flicks than Cursed, especially considering that I was nervous after hearing of all the critical shellacking that it has received over the years. I won't name a particular person in question, but one critic for a popular website went on to say something akin to "this is the worst werewolf movie ever." Excuse me, but we live in a world where there are EIGHT sequels to The Howling, An American Werewolf In Paris, and VAN FUCKING HELSING. I may have to respectfully disagree with you there. I wonder if he would still stand by that sentence after sitting through the Twilight series? Anyways, I'm getting off topic.


I'm sure that Miramax heads Bob and Harvey Weinstein wanted to present Cursed as the lycanthrope equivalent to writer Kevin Williamson's previously successful series of screenplays that ended up becoming the Scream saga. Unfortunately, the script provided for the final cut lacks the clever meta jokes and wicked sense of humor that was found in those pictures, and whether every single one of these was Williamson's choice or not, the primary odor you smell belongs to him. Noticeably, it falls into the tropes and cliches that riddled his previous projects, including an updated version of his "Barrymore kill" and red herring scenarios that are direct ripoffs of the aforementioned series of films. On the plus side, co-star Eisenberg and some of the supporting cast like Judy Greer (who will always be cast as either a mom or a bitch) do produce a small measure of chuckles here and there. Christina Ricci is written to resemble a mostly straight-laced protagonist, but unlike her slumbering on-screen boyfriend Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek), she can actually feign being interested in this experience. So cast-wise, everything turns out slightly better than expected. But behind the camera? Well, that's a different story. Most of Cursed's problems and downfalls come from the realm of post-production, and considering that I watched only the theatrical cut, thereby missing out on so much of its intended blood and gore, oh boy is it bad. There is extremely bad editing that is prominent within the first ten minutes of its running time (though I'm willing to bet that it was due to Miramax's demand to make a PG-13 product out of a very graphic R-rated one), shaky camera techniques that prevent the audience from seeing anything fascinating that comes about from the antagonist's kills, and some of the absolute worst CGI that you'll see from the previous decade. Considering how high the bar had been set by masters of makeup such as Rob Bottin (The Howling) and Rick Baker (An American Werewolf In London), you would think that trying to equal or possibly usurp them would make for a fun challenge. You would be dead wrong. It's a cheap route that produces absolutely no genuine scares from beginning to end, though I suppose that getting to see a cheap-looking computer-generated monster give policemen the middle finger is some sort of compensation.


For all of the hell that Cursed went through during and after production, it's a god damn miracle that it turns out to be fairly watchable. Of course, it's still a deeply flawed movie with problems and continuity goofs that are painfully obvious to anyone with a keen eye, but I still don't think that it makes for a bad time (and most certainly not one that's offensive either). If you've got nothing important to do, or just need an excuse to watch every single movie involving these mythical beasts, it's available to watch on Netflix Instant Streaming and Amazon Prime. You can also buy it (though I wouldn't recommend that) on DVD or Blu-Ray for roughly the same cost as a Flaming Amy's burrito.



And besides, if you come back to me saying that you'd rather watch something like They or Pinocchio's Revenge over this...

Tomorrow, we dive right into what I'd arguably call one of the rougher years for cinematic releases in the territory of horror, and my choice of what to watch should be verifiable proof of it...

Unseen Terror 2014: Day 15

The townsfolk of Antonio Island, Oregon are on the verge of unveiling a set of new town statues, honoring the men who helped found their town in 1871. One of the gentlemen's descendants, fishing vessel owner Nick Castle, has recently welcomed back his girlfriend Elizabeth to the island after a six month absence. Everything seems fine at first, until a series of bizarre incidents start to occur, including a series of gruesome murders. Coupled with these is the presence of a mysterious, eerie fog. After discovering an old journal, Elizabeth begins to connect the events together, realizing that perhaps the Island's own forefathers may have returned, seeking vengeance for then-unknown reasons.

By the year 2005, horror icon John Carpenter had taken a small hiatus from filmmaking after his 2001 Science Fiction picture Ghosts of Mars bombed critically and financially. Though the man was not exactly done with involvement in the film industry, sticking with producing and/or writing credits on the likes of Halloween: Resurrection and a sequel to 1998's Vampires, the middle of the decade saw Carpenter-approved remakes of two of his lesser-known projects: The Fog and Assault of Precinct 13. Though the original 1980 version of the former had its fair share of fans, and is widely considered to be an overlooked movie in his own catalogue, the director was always vocally critical of the final product. So, in somewhat of a surprise, Carpenter and original Fog co-writer Debra Hill attached themselves to this re-imagining by overseeing, co-writing, and producing the whole ordeal while letting Stigmata main man Rupert Wainwright supervise and take a seat in the director's chair.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't think that the original version of The Fog is a masterpiece whatsoever, but it is pretty darn good considering that it was the man's project that followed up his masterpiece Halloween. So I hit play on this, skeptical beyond belief, but like most remakes I see these days, somewhat willing to give it a chance.

Three minutes in, a Fall Out Boy song begins to play and we get two young men with "cool" and "fresh" dialogue.

Jesus jumped up christ, if this is what John Carpenter had originally envisioned and felt was ultimately what he wanted out of his original product, then that is the scariest part of all and makes me question his level of sanity. Speaking of Fall Out Boy, the soundtrack to 2005's version of The Fog, which also consists of artists like Petey Pablo and OK Go (yeah, those will sure help set a mood and build tension), along with hit-or-miss composer Graeme Revell, is the least of this flick's problems. For starters, there's the cast. At the risk of angering some of my friends, Maggie Grace just isn't a good substitute for Jamie Lee Curtis. In fact, she's just downright awful in most pictures that she's attached to, and certainly not powerful or skilled enough to carry anything of this caliber. Smallville alumni Tom Welling is absolutely wasted too, and is clearly there to collect a paycheck during his downtime of portraying Superman on the WB. The recasting that I was most optimistic for was Selma Blair, taking over the role of Adrienne Barbeau's disc jockey from the original. She does a somewhat okay job with what she has to work with, but portrays the role of Stevie with too much dryness for the most part, and doesn't carry the same weight or distinctive voice that the former 1980s sex symbol possessed. After the cast, another problem is the pacing and just plain inactiveness of Hill, Carpenter, and relative unknown Cooper Layne's (whose only other screenwriting is noted dud The Core) new screenplay. Though they're trying to flesh out the story more as opposed to the original, they forget to pack in the scares, so we're left to rely upon cheap jump scare after cheap jump scare. Again, this fails to help set a spooky tone, resulting in a motion picture that feels more like a cure for insomnia or a modern throwaway theatrical release rather than an effective, chilling ghost story. Basically, it's incredibly, agonizingly boring.

There is absolutely nothing worth praising or recommending here. Not even a brief scene of Selma Blair in her panties cleaning a brush in the sink. This is the absolute definition of a colossal misfire, and all too deserving of the 4% that it currently holds on pages such as Rottentomatoes.com (and it sits in the bottom one hundred on that website). I counted a whopping six times that I was ever so close to stopping this and just deciding to skip ahead to tomorrow's pick instead. Don't waste your time, don't even bat an eye at it, and just forget that it exists.

No, seriously, don't bother. It even doesn't deserve a clever outro.

Tomorrow, the director of Versus and Godzilla: Final Wars attempts to lift my spirits with The Midnight Meat Train!