Watching Christina Ricci perform on celluloid is my guilty pleasure........

Horror legend Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson (Scream franchise) bring us this werewolf flick starring the beautiful and talented Christina Ricci (Buffalo 66).

Ellie is a woman who works as a page and assistant for a local talk show. One fateful night, she picks up her bullied younger brother Jimmy and two find themselves in a car accident after avoiding both an animal and slamming into another car. When the siblings attempt to help the other driver, all three are attacked by a monster. Ellie and Jimmy are both slashed by the animal while the other driver is viciously murdered. Soon enough, the siblings realize they are slowly undergoing changes.

The late horror master Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson had become a dream team with their hit collaboration franchise Scream. In 2005, the two have collaborated on their entry into the werewolf genre. What's great in the film are not so much the werewolf effects, but it's the slow tense emotions of lead characters Ellie and Jimmy. They are slowly transitioning and show the signs of eventually becoming werewolf siblings.

Lovely Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg are really quite wonderful in their roles of the siblings afflicted by the lycanthropy. In the case of the beautiful and talented Ricci's Ellie, she gets extremely nervous and becomes more fearful while on the other side of the spectrum, Eisenberg's Jimmy used his powers in a Teen Wolf-style of confidence. The play wonderfully off each other.

What makes the film even more interesting is the film allows everyone to play the guessing game of who is the werewolf responsible. "Cursed" has some of the humor you typically find in a Craven film. Cameos/short appearances abound, including Scott Baio and Craig Kilborn playing themselves, as well as Shannon Elizabeth( Night of the Demons) and Portia de Rossi ( Scream 2).

The werewolf scenes are campy. When a wild, evil, snarling werewolf stops to give people the finger, you know this beast is just not wild enough. But there is some awesomeness in the Gore meter if you watch the DVD Unrated version. The original R rated version has been cut in order to receive a PG-13. As the theatrical release stands, chunks of the film appear to be missing. This simply hamstrings the awesomeness of this particular film. The Gore is excellent, visceral and creative. But to see "Cursed" as Wes Craven truly intended. You must buy the DVD Unrated Edition it contains an additional two minutes of gore-fest footage. A Hard (R) is a better fit. Being a desperate werewolf fan, I was just happy to see the big guy back on the big screen. I'm easy to please.

I am a huge Christina Ricci fan I absolutely think she is a tremendous talent and she does not disappoint in this film she is brilliant as usual. Cursed is a must watch for Christina Ricci fans, Wes Craven aficionados & desperate werewolf lovers who can not get enough lycanthrope cinema. This film is a blast. 8/10

The original R rated version has been cut in order to receive a PG-13. A gorier, unrated version was released on DVD featuring scenes with violence more graphic than what was seen in the theatrical PG-13 version of the film. The differences are as follows (includes Spoilers): In the PG-13 version, Shannon Elizabeth's character Becky is simply dragged away by the wolf at the end of the opening sequence. In the unrated version, Becky is torn in half and her bloodied upper-torso is tossed back at Jimmy and Ellie. In the PG-13 version, during Ellie's nightmare, she merely bites Joshua Jackson's character Jake in the neck. The scene then cuts to a quick montage of bizarre images before Ellie wakes up. In the unrated version, after Ellie bites into Jake, she's shown ripping a large chunk of his neck off and then a torrent of blood shoots out of his wound. In the PG-13 version, after Joanie knocks out Jake she starts looking for Ellie and Jimmy. In the unrated version, she first stops by Kyle's body, digs into the large gash in his stomach with her hands, pulls them out and then licks his blood off her fingers before proceeding to look for Ellie and Jimmy. In the unrated version, Joanie (in wolf form) is killed when she is shot in the head and her brains slowly ooze onto the floor. In the PG-13 version, the coroner discovers that Joanie's corpse has changed back into human form when her nude body is shown laying on the floor. In the unrated version, a sheet over her body is pulled back and only her face, complete with a bullet hole in her forehead, is shown. In the PG-13 version, Jake's death by decapitation occurs off-camera. In the unrated version, Ellie is actually shown stabbing him in the neck with the shovel a couple of times before finally cutting his head off. DVD Unrated Edition contains additional two minutes of footage.

And there I was expecting a single modicum of wit, intelligence and originality. It turns out that CURSED is werewolf-lite, a simple retelling of the lycanthropy legend for the modern teenage audience that adds even less to the genre than the rather flaccid Jack Nicholson-starrer, WOLF (at least that had a good lead). For shame, Wes Craven, a director who seems to have the power to make some of the best and worst films of the horror genre at the same time. Few can argue that the likes of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and SCREAM are true genre classics, but the rest of his output divides me. I admire films such as RED EYE and LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, but other fare – like the SCREAM sequels and VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN – are just total rubbish, like this movie.

If I had to lay the blame at anybody's door, though, I'd opt for Kevin Williamson, the talent-free scriptwriter who's got only one decent film to his name (SCREAM). Everything since then has been flawed, unoriginal and a simple reworking of the same themes. CURSED has the same flaws, with a lightness of touch that sits ill at ease with the theatrical werewolf stuff, dumb characters and an emphasis on clichéd teen themes over genuine thrills and scares.

Things begin on a fairly good note, with a well-shot car accident that results in Shannon Elizabeth (American PIE) being munched upon by an unknown beast. Even before this happens, though, we've been introduced to lots of uninteresting and unimportant supporting characters and more of the self-referencing that Williamson loves (here, we see statues and props from The Wolf Man as well as actor Scott Baio and others playing themselves). The film then runs the gamut of themes that were clichés back when TEEN WOLF ran them out in the 1980s: the nerdy guy is bitten by the werewolf and becomes suddenly super strong and a hit with the gormless girls; the dowdy girl bitten by the werewolf is suddenly an object of desire, even infatuation, for her male colleagues while developing a liking for blood.

The annoying thing is that the two central characters never even complete a full transformation, not really. Not that that's a bad thing –the state of the CGI effects (despite the presence of top FX man Rick Baker on set) renders these werewolves as dumb-looking idiocies, no better than the beasts in AN American WEREWOLF IN Paris. Despite the short running time, nothing much happens until the overdone, melodramatic climax which plays out all the clichés once more. I'm really sick and tired of these scenes of victims fighting off deadly attackers and recovering from being thrown through walls etc. Why not actually go ahead and KILL off some of those folks in the overpopulated cast list for a change instead of playing safe all the time? The cast is lacklustre, with Christina Ricci still searching for the right role ever since THE ADDAMS FAMILY and Joshua Jackson virtually playing the same guy he did in DAWSON'S CREEK. Only Jesse Eisenberg and Milo Ventimiglia come out of this with dignity intact. Then again, there's not much dignity to be had in running away from silly animated werewolves in a film that constantly reminds us of the toothless state of modern horror. No wonder HOSTEL garnered so much attention when it was released the same year.

After five years without directing a film, I bought this DVD expecting a good return of Wes Craven to the genre horror teen movie. I like his last works in this genre ("Scream 1, 2 & 3") and also the drama "Music of the Heart", and Christina Ricci is very cool. Unfortunately, "Cursed" is a forgettable and predictable collection of clichés. It is amazing how the viewer can predict the next scene! Further, it is amazing how easy is to replace a fancy car in Hollywood: Ellie wrecks her car in the middle of the night, and on the next day she has a brandy new car. Jake breaks the window of the driver of the new car, and on the next sequence we see Ellie driving in a rainy night in high speed without disheveling her hair. Ellie's brother Jimmy unsuccessfully tries to be funny. If you want to see a great werewolf movie, there are many excellent options, but you can forget "Cursed", which is only recommended for killing time. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Amaldiçoado" ("Cursed")