JP Nunez
If you’ve seen the new Scream, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of The Cursed, as the trailer played before Scream in many movie theaters, including mine. I remember it pretty distinctly because I had no idea what it was when I saw it. I almost always know every trailer that plays in front of every film I go see, but this was a rare exception. I had never even heard of The Cursed before, but after seeing the trailer, I immediately put it on my to-watch list.
At the time it didn’t have a release date and the trailer wasn’t available online, so I didn’t know when I would be able to see the film. But thankfully, the trailer is now available for everybody to watch and it tells us when we’re finally going to be able to see this intriguing new movie.
The Cursed is a werewolf film set in the late 1800s, and it’s about a village that’s being attacked by what is thought to be a wild animal. However, when the truth comes out, the creature ends up being much more sinister than anything in the natural world.
Interestingly, this movie played at the Sundance Film Festival last year under the title Eight for Silver, and in the time since then, the filmmakers have made a few changes to it. As writer/director Sean Ellis explained:
Sundance is always an incredible place to showcase your work. In the time that has followed that valuable experience, we took the opportunity to invigorate the film with an updated score by Lorne Balfe; we changed much of the CGI and decided to put back much of the original in-camera effects. We also elevated elements of the story that pay tribute to the incredible multitude of layers that live within the horror genre.
Of all those changes, the one that intrigues me the most is the fact that they put a lot of the practical effects back into the film. As great as CGI can be, it can have a bit of an uncanny valley feel to it, and it usually becomes outdated very quickly. Practical effects don’t suffer from those problems nearly as often so I’m really happy that The Cursed is going against the digital grain and taking an old-school approach instead.
That alone is enough to pique my interest in this movie, and when you add in the exciting trailer that caught me entirely by surprise, I’m completely sold. This trailer has a great atmosphere, it features some awesome and original horror imagery, and it teases a really unique take on the traditional werewolf mythology we all know and love.
That checks pretty much all the boxes on my horror movie wish list, so if The Cursed is even half as good as the trailer suggests, we’re in for one hell of a ride. And thankfully, we’re going to find out really soon if it lives up to those expectations. The film hits theaters on February 18, and you can bet that I’ll be first in line to see it on opening night.
