The Cursed - Film Review

I've always been a fan of gothic horror, but since I started playing Hunt: Showdown again, I practically salivated at the thought of seeing a movie like that in theaters. You don't get too many monster movies these days that are willing to go back to the Bram Stoker style, so I made sure to book myself a ticket before The Batman envelopes every theater for the entirety of March.

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Where You Can Find It: I saw this in theaters where it is available for select theaters.

General Information 
The Cursed is a gothic horror film that was released on 18 February 2022. Sean Ellis directed, wrote, and co-produced the film, alongside also providing the cinematography. LD Entertainment was both the primary production company behind this film as well as the distributor. As of 28 February 2022, it has grossed only around $3.5 million at the box office. It's fared a bit better with critics, as it has a 62 Metascore on Metacritic with a 74% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes. An important final note worth bringing up for this film is that it has also gone by the name "Eight for Silver," which was used for its premier at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It's a shame Sean Ellis changed the name as that actually sounds fairly intriguing, while the current name is already well in use.

The Story

In late 19th Century France, wealthy land baron, Seamus Laurent (played by Alistair Petrie), seeks to expand his territory; however, a band of gypsies occupy his latest conquest. Once diplomatic efforts fail though, he rallies his men to take the lands by force. The ensuing massacre ends with an elder casting a curse upon the Laurent family, which leaves them plagued with nightmares. It's not long before these nightmares become a reality when Seamus' son, Edward (Max Mackintosh), goes missing. Seamus enlists the aid of a wandering pathologist named John McBride (Boyd Holbrook) to find the child, but something sinister lurks just out of sight.

 

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Seamus better hope he finds Edward before whatever else in the woods find either of them first

 

Generally speaking, the story in this is pretty straight-forward, which is fine when it comes to monster movies. Unfortunately, there are unforced errors that litter the narrative, which make it frustrating at times to watch. Characters keep secrets from one another for no reason other than to service the plot, and there's even one point (near the middle) where one of the main characters forgets to investigate obvious clues to the monster's presence because he got lost in a conversation. I wish I could say these problems can be overlooked; however, they deeply impact the plot, which makes them gross oversights.

Another common trope this film falls into as a horror movie is that its characters lack much depth. Nearly all of them can be summed up in a single sentence with maybe the exception of McBride. Despite the film starting us off with a fairly specific look at Edward's sister, Charlotte (Amelia Crouch), and his mother, Isabelle (Kelly Reilly), neither character really gets much development. This lack of growth or exploration made the motivations of its characters fairly confusing at times, which only made the plot more baffling when they would do something outlandishly foolish.

 

Special Effects/Atmosphere

An area where The Cursed truly shines through is in its atmosphere. The foggy swamps and woodlands surrounding the Laurent estate are truly chilling to take in, as is the mansion itself, which has claustrophobically small hallways and dark rooms sparsely illuminated via flickering candlelight. The audio enhances the ambience as the sound of scurrying of a creature or the thump of activity in an attic is certain to send chills down anyone's spine.

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I bet Seamus is really looking forward to the invention of flashlights

 

I may not be particularly taken with Sean Ellis' writing, but his cinematography is absolutely first-rate. There's a scene near the beginning of the film that provides a widely shot presentation of just how awful Seamus and his men can be that's also done in a single take. I also really enjoyed how Ellis captured the environment surrounding the world this film presents.
 

Monster movies generally need quality special effects to remain believable and this film makes a valiant effort in this area, but it doesn't always work. I was impressed with Ellis' overall restraint in showing us the monster, although that kind of goes out the window by the final act. It's clearly a creation of CGI, but it looks fairly fine as long as it's not completely in the frame. I was pretty darn impressed with a scene involving an autopsy that happens around half-way through the film as that was almost at The Thing-like levels of horrifying. Overall, I think Ellis did a pretty good job since I'm sure he was working with a bit of a budget. 

 

The Acting

There's a peculiar element about this film's setting that makes it strangely ambiguous on where it's set. I actually had to look up where the film took place after viewing as most of the characters speak with British accents and sport names like "Seamus" and "Nigel." I genuinely thought this took place in the northern parts of the UK although I could never explain the presence of gypsies there. This issue was only made worse with Boyd Holbrook's accent, which sometimes seemed to vaguely pass off as British and then other times gave up entirely. It reminded me of Kevin Costner's hilarious attempt at an accent in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and I did my best to ignore its presence whenever I could.

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McBride isn't just looking for Edward, he's trying to find his European accent too

Accents aside, I was neither blown away nor horrified at anyone's performance in this. I may never forgive Holbrook for participating in the atrocity that was The Predator, but I found him serviceable in Narcos and he does a fine job here as well. One actress I must applaud would be Pascale Bacouze, who plays a gypsy woman. Reciting lines can be hard enough, but she manages to pull it off while having dirt flung in her face.

The Best of the Best: The chilling atmosphere combined with solid audio ambience.

The Worst of the Worst: McBride forgetting the plot so he can yell at Seamus.

Calhooey Score: 6/10 - Above Average

Would I Recommend?

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It's worth a bite

The Cursed is your standard gothic horror tale with some solid ambience behind it alongside a dash of body horror. Its ho-hum story and performances hold it back from truly shining, but it's still a fun time if you're into monsters and big hats. I'd recommend catching this on a streaming platform on a dark and spooky night when it eventually hits wide release.

Spoiler Comments

• The side-boob from Isabelle was wholly unnecessary, but I'll take it all the same.
  
• Huh, so that's how scarecrows are made...
  
• I can understand why Charlotte and the other children would initially not want to tell anyone that Timmy had shown them where the gypsies were buried, but I feel like all bets should have been off when Timmy bit Edward in the neck with silver teeth.
• Seriously... I was wondering if I was seeing things when we see Timmy casually taking part in the search for Edward later when he went missing.
• McBride picks the worst places to take naps.
  
• Why did Anais feel the need to hide that she was bitten or that she'd seen the creature? Sure, she may not have known that she'd turn into a monster, but I don't understand why she wouldn't tell her master (who just left to go hunting for the beast) that she encountered it.
• It's hilarious that she worked so hard to cover up her injury and yet she just left all those bloody bed sheets out in the front yard.
• I had to restrain myself from shouting in the theater when McBride completely forgot that someone in the house might be bitten. It wasn't quite on par with Hard Ticket to Hawaii, but it was close.
• Why are Charlotte and Edward okay with being adopted by McBride? Surely, they must have other family that would be better suited to take them in than some random pathologist that showed up in town less than a week ago looking for gypsies.
• I was expecting Edward to transform into a werewolf on the operating table once they removed the bullet. I suppose World War One was bad enough without werewolves.
  

References

(1) The Cursed. (2022). The Cursed film image. IMDB. Retrieved from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9907782/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt. 

(2) Flickering Myth. (2022). Seamus searching for Edward image. Retrieved from: https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2022/02/period-werewolf-horror-the-cursed-gets-a-trailer-poster-and-images/.

(3) Robinson, T. (2022, February 18). Seamus with candles image. Polygon. Retrieved from: https://www.polygon.com/reviews/22941664/the-cursed-review-horror.

(4) Grobar, M. (2022, January 26). Holbrook with torch image. Deadline. Retrieved from: https://deadline.com/2022/01/the-cursed-ld-entertainment-unveils-release-date-trailer-for-gothic-horror-1234919766/.

(5) Asay, P. (n.d.). Silver teeth image. Pluggedin. Retrieved from: https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/cursed-2022/.