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| Courtesy of LD Entertainment |
British writer/director/producer and cinematographer Sean Ellis
first burst onto the cinematic horror scene with his 2008 French-British flick The
Broken before segueing into contemporary dramas with Metro Manila and
Anthropoid. An independent
filmmaker at heart with generally large gaps of time in between projects, his latest
endeavor The Cursed reunites the director with the horror genre and as
such marks a uniquely different kind of spin on the werewolf myth in scary
movies, one that mixes the unfinished business ghost story period horror piece with
more than a few overt callouts to John Carpenter’s The Thing.
In the 19th century French countryside, a
pathologist named John McBride (Boyd Holbrook) is summoned to investigate a
series of animal attacks on the local residents. Upon arrival however the man quickly learns
the village harbors a dark and violent secret which might be the source of a
demonic curse which was left upon the villagers.
Days into the investigation, everyone from
the pathologist to the locals in the area start having recurring dreams of a
scarecrow and some kind of lycanthrope creature. Not long after, the chief baron of the land
Seamus Laurent’s (Alistair Petrie) son and daughter go missing followed by a
mysterious infection that will remind more than a few viewers of the infamous
dog scene in the aforementioned The Thing.
A solid, mean lean indie horror thriller which originally
premiered under the working title Eight for Silver (which in hindsight
might be a better title), tries to inject new blood cells into the veins of the
werewolf mythos, giving us a vaguely unfamiliar spin on a timeless horror
story.
The first thing one notices in
this costumed period horror film is writer-director Sean Ellis’
cinematography. Photographed in luminous
widescreen on Kodak 35mm film with some shots that exhibit that long thought-to-be-lost
film flickering on the screen, The Cursed is one of the most ornate and
scenic indie horror films since last year’s In the Earth. Not to mention the locale which shot in Cognac,
France, taking full advantage of the beautiful countryside which might be
hiding a real monster in its midst.
As with his last few features, The Cursed reunites
Sean Ellis with his longtime composer Robin Foster who gives the proceedings a
genuinely frightening soundscape with some scenes ranging from pin drop quiet
to screamingly loud. Sound design in
this is brilliant, making frequent directional use so you feel like looking
over your shoulder to see if some kind of creature is ready to leap out of
nowhere and bite your arm off. Performances
are generally good with the child actors having to go to some pretty dark
places for the camera, evoking fears not even the demonic possession horror
movies thought of.
The two key players in this however are Boyd Holbrook and Alistair
Petrie who soon find themselves locking horns as the truth of what’s cursing
the village and its residents comes out.
Holbrook as the voice of reason functions as a kind of Dr. Van Helsing
type, worldly and wary of what he’s taking on but also confident, cool and
frankly fearless, at times putting himself in harm’s way alone where he could
be attacked at any moment. Petrie as the
beleaguered but brutal local baron achieves a rare feat of inviting sympathy
for the plight which he may or may not have wrought upon his village while also
leaving room for him to be startlingly slimy and mercenary.
Though reliant at times on jump scares with the volume turned
down long enough for you to let your guard down, for the most part The
Cursed achieves its scares with the notion of less being more. Throughout the film you catch glimpses of the
monster and the aftermath left in its wake but never enough for you to pinpoint
exactly what you’re looking at, giving you room to formulate in your head what
this thing might be.
Surprisingly frightening and layered with emotional context
and involving characters you find yourself caring for even when you learn of
their own culpability in the curse afflicting them, The Cursed is a
solid new contribution to the so-called werewolf subgenre though it’s hard to
say what exactly this new monster really is which helps set itself apart from
the pack. Derivative, yes, but its heart
is most definitely in the right place.
--Andrew Kotwicki
