Beans on toast is a good meal. It is easy to prepare, tasty and filling, a great option if you can’t be bothered cooking a proper meal. On the other hand, if you were to go to, say Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant and be presented with it you’d probably be a little bit peeved. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the beans and it’s not that there’s anything wrong with the toast but you just expected…well quite a fair bit more from a proven master like Gordon Ramsay. For those who haven’t seen through this masterful metaphor yet, Wes Craven is Gordon Ramsay and Cursed is the Beans on Toast – functional and filling enough but disappointing and very cheap.

Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s previous collaboration resulted in the Scream franchise which despite kick-starting the whole post-modern teen horror self-referencing thing, actually gave the horror genre a much needed box office boost. It showed producers that there was still a market for monsters, boogeymen and bastards with knives. The first instalment was also a very effective and entertaining movie which pulled off the difficult trick of making its audience laugh and scream at the same time. The smarts and scares of Scream are noticeably lacking in Cursed unfortunately and what there is lacks any real bite – a big downer for a werewolf movie.

Not all of the blame can be laid at Williamson and Craven’s doors here, there were reportedly many production problems with studio involvement which resulted in massive re-writes, re-shoots, re-castings and the film being castrated of any gore scenes so as to earn the picture a more kiddie-friendly rating from the censors. This is a shame as a real Williamson/Craven werewolf film might have been pretty damn good.

The bad points of this film are almost certainly due to the indignities it suffered during production but top among them are the lack of a focussed and cohesive story, the awful special effects, and the scarcity of anything remotely scary or horrific. Even the unrated version suffers from these problems, there are a few more gore effects chucked in, a literally legless Shannon Elizabeth gets thrown at the heroes and there is an icky be-heading, but it still lacks the vital ingredients that make any movie truly worthwhile. It is ironic that the gore effects that were excised from the theatrical release are the best special effects in the movie – the CGI on the werewolf is, simply put, pathetic. The script gives some of the characters a few nice lines but ultimately wanders down a predictable road occasionally hinting at some interesting turns but never really deviating from its well-forged path leading to a limp and tension-less conclusion. Sad.

Despite its obvious faults this isn’t the train wreck it could have been and it does have at least some redeeming features. The inclusion of the werewolf infected dog, Zipper is a fun novelty though the effects used to portray it are sub-standard to say the least. The acting performances are surprisingly solid with Jesse Eisenberg (playing Jimmy) in particular rising above the material to deliver an entertaining and genuinely likeable performance. He deserves better treatment than this and hopefully Cursed will not describe his chances of leading another movie.

Cursed is an unfortunately aptly titled movie, it should be much better than it is, given the amount of talent involved. It is not terrible (there are way worse movies out there) but it is a huge disappointment. Sadly, these beans are only half-baked.

Rating 5/10

Review By Matt Compton