Cursed. Was I EVER.

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Remo D
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Cursed. Was I EVER.

Post by Remo D »

Okay, Dennis Miller has nothing on me. I'm going to rant now. You've been warned.

I read all about it. Fangoria apparently thought CURSED was pretty good in its R-rated form. Then Dimension cut it to a PG-13. Of course, the film had already been re-written, re-cast and re-shot to death in the first place, and while I could tell where some gore was missing, I can't imagine how it would have made that big a difference.

It's a werewolf film, by the way, in case you only saw the near-incomprehensible TV ads. Apparently, Kevin Williamson wasn't convinced that GINGER SNAPS had already covered the updated werewolf market sufficiently. Did we learn nothing from DARKWOLF?

Can we count on Rick Baker to provide a decent werewolf? Of course we can. Is it something so special that we truly haven't seen it before and need to see it on the big screen to truly appreciate it? Of course not. Does the fact that Baker made a live-action werewolf spare us from reams of crappy CGI? Fuck, no.

Wes Craven? He's a talented director who has earned his place in genre history. Nobody can take that away from him, and he deserves a happy, respectable, dignified retirement any time he chooses to take it. Doesn't mean that everything he touches turns to gold. Yeah, like I said, I know this one was cut first. But that doesn't change the fact that none of the scares work this time. Not one "jump" moment even made me flinch. The only bit that made me cringe at all was when the werewolf "keyed" a car without benefit of a key. The fingernails on a blackboard sound was amped for all it was worth, so you can imagine the results.

Kevin Williamson? Go the hell back to Dawson's Creek or wherever the fuck you came from. Go. Go NOW. Don't EVER bother us again with one of your stupid-as-fucking-hell hipster scripts. You are NOT fresh anymore. You are NOT clever anymore. Hey, I appreciated the first SCREAM. I was not one of those who hated you the first time out of the gate. I did NOT have it in for you. But I'm sure as hell sick of you now. You are just as much a Hollywood "suit" as any of them, and you just think you're still fresh, funny, scary and clever. No. You're not. You're excruciating and annoying, and CURSED contains some of the most painful writing I've ever endured. I guess the actors believed in Wes Craven sufficiently that they made themselves speak the dialogue you so graciously provided for them. More's the pity.

Oh, and the fact that you're gay? Couldn't concern me less. But is that what you had to make half of the film ABOUT? Come on, now. The bullies tormenting the male half of the new brother/sister werewolf team? How many times did they say "homo-homo-homo-fairy-fairy-fag-homo-homo-limpwrist" etc. etc. before you decided that the audience had gotten the point? And the "coming out" scene? Good grief, I SWORE that it had to be a dream--or a setup for a beating. Or SOMETHING. Just not REAL. You could NOT expect me to believe that scene... but apparently you did. And by the way, thanks for re-writing werewolf lore YET AGAIN for your own convenience. Silver isn't fatal anymore, eh? It just hurts a lot? You gotta separate the heart from the head? Fine. Just don't ask me to give a fuck.

And the werewolf giving the FINGER! Oh, good grief, I laughed so HARD! It was so FUNNY to see such a moment in--wait a minute--was this supposed to be something resembling a "horror" movie? Sorry, my mistake. But I gotta hand it to you--you DID apparently connect with your target audience. The guy sitting behind me? The one who couldn't sit still and kept making my whole row of seats shake? Boy, when the bird got flipped, he just couldn't stop chortling and shaking like a bowl full of jelly. Congratulations are in order, I suppose.

Hey, people--somebody wake me up here. It's only FEBRUARY? I've got ten more MONTHS of this year to get through? At this rate, I don't think that even I can make it. Maybe I'll just write 2005 off right now. Let's see... worst film, CURSED. Best film... oh, hell, I don't know. Let's say BOOGEYMAN. Middle ground? Hmmm... let's make it HIDE AND SEEK. In truth, I couldn't give crap less about a single one of those, but you want my year-end wrap-up, right?

Give me a break--give me a rain check--wake me when it's over. But at this stage in the game, I don't know why I do it to myself anymore.

Good night.
My dog's breath smells like peanut butter...

...and I don't even have a dog!
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ROBERT
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Post by ROBERT »

I always wondered why too.


Get out of the house? Away from the wife and kids? Want to know what the last film I saw in a theater was? The revival screening of In The Realm Of The Senses. That was two weeks ago. I was dragged to see The Grudge. During that I said "NO MORE." I don't even acknowledge the mainstream crap polluting theatres any more. I appreciate the fact that you continually take one for the team but man, they're must be a limit to even you're patience.
"I don't want to be called an "artist." "Acting like an "artist" is synonymous to acting like an asshole."

Asia Argento
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Remo D
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Post by Remo D »

>I always wondered why too.


>Get out of the house? Away from the wife and kids?


Nope, not even that. Took my wife to ALONE IN THE DARK (even though I warned her what she was getting into). Took my daughter to DARKNESS, took both my wife and daughter to JU-ON and THE GRUDGE and even took BOTH kids to VAN HELSING.

It's just me--it's just this decision I made a long time ago that if I was going to be a horror historian of any stripe that I would leave absolutely nothing to assumption--that I would never put myself in the position of speaking on films I hadn't seen... even if they were I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, for crying out loud.

By and large it worked--there was always fun stuff in between the garbage mounds, and even the garbage was fun to talk about more often than not.

HOUSE OF THE DEAD caught me by surprise--I expected it to be bad, but not that TRANSCENDENTLY bad--so even THAT dragged something out of me that justified my giving it a big-screen opportunity.

But now, we're just treading water. WHITE NOISE. HIDE AND SEEK. BOOGEYMAN. ALONE IN THE DARK. CONSTANTINE. CURSED. Some okay stuff, some horrendous stuff, but no genuinely GOOD stuff, let alone great. And the very, very last thing I need is some sort of Kevin Williamson comeback attempt. Yep, the references to THE BRADY BUNCH and THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY are still there, and we get Scott Baio playing himself, trying to land a gig on the Craig Kilborn show (yeah, he's there, too).

Now, if Scott Baio had BEEN the werewolf, we might have had something.

And if Christina Ricci had screwed the pooch... literally... that would have gotten my attention. (Oh, that werewolf doggie was just SO much fun.)

Nope--it's just another Williamson script. And he tries to pull off his double-twist ending thing again, too. And you'll be ahead of it every step of the way.

Oh, and did I mention that they dragged out that tired old MIRROR MAZE routine again?

I don't know. Maybe the first time Dimension had it recut and redone was because they saw how horribly WRONG this thing was going and were genuinely trying to save it. And maybe the second time around (when they reduced it to a PG-13) they had utterly given up and were just trying to make sure that SOMEBODY (besides me) would go to see the damn thing before word REALLY got out. You know, I was annoyed at Dimension for cutting DARKNESS down. But I'm not sure I'm ready to blame them for this one.

Craven says he wants to put CURSED behind him and move on to other things. I wish him well--I really do. But for the love of God, I hope he understands that he needs to move on to something that has absolutely NOTHING to do with Kevin Williamson. See that pan? See that flash? Oh, you missed it?

Well, I'm sure you know what it was.

If I change my mind about retirement, I'll meet you back here to talk about THE JACKET.
My dog's breath smells like peanut butter...

...and I don't even have a dog!
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Kimberly
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Post by Kimberly »

Yup... it was bad
[img]http://i38.tinypic.com/juz953.jpeg[/img]
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