A Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson collab is nothing if not the paradigm of late ‘90s, early 2000s teen horror, so when they went to work on 2005’s Cursed, their homecoming was something severely yearned for. Although it was poorly received at the time of its release, rightfully due to its embarrassing CGI and Dawson’s Creek era dialogue, it’s not the movie its creators had in mind. While something of a sore subject, it’s widely known that Cursed went through a series of heavy reshoots before releasing the final cut it is today. This included a wave of changes to its cast, which would have originally had Skeet Ulrich alongside Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg as a third lead. Regardless of this tragic moment in the Craven/Williamson timeline, there’s still pieces of their vision in what’s left of this nostalgic werewolf’s tale.
Marketed as a monster film for a new generation, Williamson’s script found a way to preserve a bit of satire to an otherwise set of strict archetypes. Jimmy (Eisenberg) is a vaguely nerdy (reads comic books and doesn’t have a girlfriend) and lanky high schooler who is the victim of casual homophobia from the wrestling captain, Bo (Milo Ventimiglia). That is, however, until after being infected by a werewolf, when Jimmy’s heightened sexual allure draws his bully out of the closet and into a confession of his own internalized homophobia. And it’s at this moment Williamson signified Cursed as another loving artifact of the gay werewolf canon (See; MTV’s Teen Wolf). But genuinely, although there is no actual romance between the jock and the werewolf, this display of allyship and its positive queer themes has brought it an LGBT cult following that’s persevered through poor reception and many bad reviews.
Native to the filmography of Craven, is always the acknowledgement of the film industry and its way of creeping in on the subconscious of regular suburbanites. With Cursed being set in Hollywood, it’s never far away from this sentiment. Just as playful, is the root of its B plot being a love triangle between a club owner (Joshua Jackson), a publicist (Judy Greer) and a showrunner for The Late Late Show (Ricci). It’s true that it feels the scares are more relaxed than might have been intended, which paired with the film’s proximity with the entertainment industry, ends up giving more of a creepy behind-the-scenes of working as a publicist for Scott Baio. Mostly, it’s fun to see how a werewolf’s cursed infiltrates the already seedy business of working in entertainment.
Along with Baio is a true lineup of 2000s perfection. Shannon Elizabeth, Mya, Portia de Rossi and Lance Bass add to the playfulness of its cast. Even Nick Offerman is featured briefly as an LAPD officer who helps Ellie and Jimmy home after they get into a car wreck caused by them hitting a “wolf” on their way home. The art of the cameo is definitely used to its advantage, which makes it all the more disappointing to know the original script included more characters to be cursed by the mark of the beast. It’s cast is used mostly as a collection of these cameos, which still makes Cursed recognizable, fun and a time capsule of the early aughts and late ‘90s.
Until the #ReleaseTheCravenCut campaign serves to bring the original script and first cuts out of hiding, we can accept Cursed for what it is – a lower brow teen horror film with its main critique being that it’s too fun for its own good. And if this was Craven and Williamson’s only crime, then this only reflects on a creative partnership that always allowed for horror to indulge in playfulness.
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