Is THE CURSED The Best Modern Werewolf Movie?

Añadido: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]There was a time long ago when werewolf movies were not hard to come by. And while all subg genres eb and flow in their popularity, this feels like one that's had a very difficult time finding its way to a spot where it's in the big leagues. Don't get me wrong, we still do get werewolf movies. But while the vampire subgenre and gothic horror in general seems to be making a huge comeback, we're still waiting on that one big werewolf movie that will give this subgenre the boost that it damn well deserves. I've always loved werewolves and I want to see more done with them. Because while many people have found their werewolf love and hearts satiated by movies like An American Werewolf in London or The Howling and stuff like that, and while I do really enjoy those movies, I still find myself feeling like I'm waiting on my werewolf movie. That brings us to Shaun Ellis's 2021 film, The Cursed, which I think may win an award for the most generic horror movie title of all time. And that's especially annoying considering that the original title for this movie was Eight for Silver, which is way cooler. And that's how I think about it in my head. When this movie came out, I was honestly taken aback by how much I enjoyed it because I walked in knowing literally nothing and hearing less than that about it and found myself treated to a gothic visual feast that feels like it pulled its imagery straight from my most cherished dreams.

[00:01:22]That wasn't the biggest surprise, though. The thing that's really stood out to me about this movie over the years is how little I've felt the urge to revisit it despite being so drawn in by so much of it. The film takes place in the French countryside and tells the story of a land baron in the late 19th century who makes a grave mistake when he orders the slaughter of a Romani community living on land that he wishes to control despite them having a legitimate claim to it. A sorceress places a spell on the land in an act of vengeance. And so begins the titular curse. Just looking at this movie and soaking in the setting, it seems like something that should be one of my favorite films of the 2020s. And yet that hasn't been the case.

[00:02:02]Why? Well, let's take a closer look at 2021's The Cursed. The film opens in 1917 during the Battle of the Sum, establishing a really bleak depiction of a war that truly made the people who fought in it live in the closest version of hell on earth I think we have in history.

[00:02:18]>> Captain, hold on.

[00:02:20]>> Now, those of you who know your history may have noticed something there where I said that this battle took place in 1917, which the movie also says, but it didn't. This battle took place in 1916.

[00:02:32]This is just one of many examples of the movie really not knowing anything about the periods that it's trying to depict, but we're going to save that for a little bit later. The sequence itself is very impressive. It's honestly quite the spectacle, and they did a great job of getting across how horrifying this is, but the point of the sequence is that a soldier is injured and brought to a doctor who pulls from his bullet wounds an intact silver bullet that does not seem to be from this war. It's basically just here for a reveal at the end of the movie. So, we'll save that discussion for a bit partially because it makes more sense with the context and also because I want to focus on the stuff that I really love about this movie before getting into everything else. And if we talk about the narrative, that'll fall into everything else. First off, it is genuinely a miracle that this movie even got funding in the first place. Shawn Ellis is not a particularly well-known filmmaker, and getting a period piece funded is hard enough as it is. Period films require extremely meticulous costumeuming, sets, and props when compared to movies set in the modern day. And not only that, but this was also shot on 35mm film, which is another very costly decision. It's amazing to me that Ellis was able to get funding for something like this and makes me very happy as someone who loves period films.

[00:03:43]They're more expensive and harder to market, and there are many moments where I just don't even know how this pitch went, but I'm glad it happened. You don't really feel any like budgetary restrictions either. that that scene during the battle of the song is really impressive and the movie is a goddamn visual feast. The sets and costumes are great. There's a lot of candy here. The only thing that stands out is the actual werewolf itself. But uh let's save that for a moment. Without a doubt, the best thing about the curse, and this isn't like a small like this is good, but then the rest it's like this is amazing. This can be an immediate write-off for many people and it would also be for me in certain circumstances, but I mean, this movie looks absolutely gorgeous. This thing has so many shots that feel like they were tailorade for the kind of aesthetic I'm drawn to that it genuinely does give me enough reason to own this on disc. There are many shots here that I would hang as paintings in my house, like this carriage ride by a solitary tree in a foggy field. some of the B-roll images of the forest and its flora, the rolling countryside. It's really incredible. And it actually does something for me that like gives me a jolt of joy, and that's that it has a couple of shots that feel like paintings or drawings I've seen that I thought just wouldn't be possible to fully translate the feeling and aesthetic of to film due to the inherent differences of the medium. It's like when sometimes you see a piece of concept art for something and you're like, "Oh my god, that looks so cool."

[00:05:05]and the final product can still look amazing, but it's like, oh, but there's something about the concept art that really sticks with me. This feels like looking at concept art sometimes, like inject me with this [ __ ] Not only was Shawn Ellis the writer and director of the film, but he also took on the role of cinematographer, and I think in some ways you can tell that this was almost entirely made because he wanted to explore this aesthetic and film these shots. And so, he decided to write a story where those could go. And while I'm gonna lay pretty hard into the story, part of me can't appreciate that level of passion for the visual side of the medium, I just think it would have been a good idea to let someone else write the thing. The only problems that I have with the cinematography here are that there are a couple of moments where the lighting is inconsistent. Like, we'll have a shot of a bold gold red sunset and then cut to the people watching it and everything is cold and gray. It's always distracting when I watch the movie. It's It's one of those things where I'm not even sure how this made it through the editing process.

[00:05:59]like it's not the end of the world. It's just like why would you not fix that?

[00:06:02][music] The other problem comes down to how some of the more actionoriented scenes are filmed, which feels like an attempt to cover up some of the design choices made for the werewolf and maybe budgetary constraints not allowing particularly strong attacks. They just add this horrendous digital shaking and weird blur to the image that can completely break apart the otherwise like natural, very filmic and gorgeous look of the movie, which is a shame. Most of the time though, it's a beautiful film that brings to our eyes some of the best Gothic imagery we've had in the last few years. Not only that, but the sequence of the three villagers being attacked out in the field is like I mean lit like exactly the kind of look that I want to see in a werewolf movie. It's fantastic, man. Look at this dead gray field. My god, I love this. The sequence of the slaughtering of the Romani camp is one of the more impressive moments of the film. Not just due to the sheer brutality of what's going on and the haunting quality of it all, but also because the bulk of the attack is filmed in one long, completely static shot from the hillside. What really wows me here is just how complex the scene actually is with whole structures being burned to the ground, chases going on at all corners and off into the woods, gunfights. There's even a [ __ ] burn stunt here, which is so cool and really shows how committed they were to this.

[00:07:15]It's probably the most effective scene of the whole movie and is the big catalyst for the rest of the story. So, while its narrative purpose is very important, it's honestly the technical side of this that really blows me away.

[00:07:25]The other positive that I will give this movie is that at times there are some really fantastic pieces of practical effects, both in regards to the gore, which is actually pretty damn intense, and also with a massive highlight being this like autopsy they conduct on a creature. They put a lot of work into designing the thing that's being looked at. And the amount of detail in it really helps to sell the moment. You've got some cool creature moments in the movie despite them not really having anything to do with werewolves, like these weird vine things that grow out of people after they become cursed, which basically trap them and slowly grow the creature around their bodies and they can still be found inside. That's a neat idea and it looks cool at times with the best moment of it being for me when those vines pull this woman down into the water. That's just such a helpless and scary idea and I like how the movie portrays this parasite or whatever the hell it is as being so antagonistic towards [music] the characters. There are things in this movie that are genuinely amazing. So, why is it that I opened this video by saying I don't find myself revisiting it all that often?

[00:08:22]Every time I think about Eight for Silver, that's what I'm calling it. I picture that gorgeous cinematography, the atmosphere, the visuals. I think of the folktale about a land cursed by people brutally killed and forced off of a land that they had a rightful claim to. The story starts off really well with that haunting attack and thus learning that all of the children here have been having eerie dreams of a scarecrow out in a field which unbeknown to them at the time is the mutilated corpse of one of the Romani people. And soon one of the children finds the scarecrow on a section of land deemed forbidden and is compelled by the curse to dig from the earth the jaw with silver teeth and bite his friend with it. It's just got this really awesome folktale feel when it starts off, almost feeling like an R-rated period piece version of Goosebumps [music] or or like a really great Stephen King short story.

[00:09:08]The problem is pretty much everything that happens from that point on. I'm not even really sure where to begin here, but I think the first thing I want to talk about is that this is a movie that's structured as though it were a mystery, and yet there's not actually any mystery to be solved.

[00:09:22]>> I can't be allowed to happen. It's admittedly tricky to have a werewolf movie that can keep the audience on their toes as to what's causing these gruesome deaths. Which is why it's nice to have some other subplot or something else going on at the core to keep us engaged. Because what we have in this movie is something that we have answers to before the first act is finished. And then the rest of the movie just follows the characters along as they slowly piece it together and try and find those same answers we're already walking around with. And at no point does the movie provide us something to get curious about. Despite that massacre scene probably being the best part of the movie, I think it was a mistake to show us what Sheamus, the land baron, did and it would have been a much more effective approach to the story to have this be the unknown that we're getting closer to as we see his fears about the curse he may have brought upon his family. That would have given this movie something for us to sink our teeth into, a sense of mystery and unknown, a compelling piece of the puzzle that we don't have. But all the cards are laid out plainly so early on. There are multiple moments here where it feels like the script has no idea where it's going or what story it actually wants to tell. And it results in a bunch of meaningless, overdone, and empty elements just kind of floating around between kill scenes until the movie eventually reaches its end. The son of the land baron is the one who's bitten by the silver teeth. And he winds up escaping off into the woods, now bearing the curse and killing people off while spreading it around to the others.

[00:10:40]Meanwhile, an outsider shows up with previous experience with this exact curse, hoping to put a stop to it while dealing with the trauma caused by the death of his wife and daughter at the hands of the beast. That's like [laughter] I mean, how many stories follow that structure? I mean, especially with the outsider dude coming along to help who can just spout out a bunch of exposition. There is no attempt to make him stand out remotely. He's an unbelievably bland character. He's like the main driving force of the story and yet there's nothing to him. This all would be much easier to digest [music] if the movie wasn't nearly two hours long. If we had an honestly 80 to 90 minute movie on our hands that had a very simple story but made the focus the gorgeous visuals, the atmosphere, and some gruesome werewolf carnage, then we'd be having a very different conversation right now. But instead, this thing runs for an hour and 51 minutes and has absolutely no reason to.

[00:11:33]>> We are still looking for him.

[00:11:34]>> Please help us find him.

[00:11:35]>> There aren't any character arcs. There's no mystery to be solved. There aren't any developed relationships or intense fights or anything like that. It just feels extremely bloated past what could have been a very strong and simple werewolf flick. That war sequence during the opening feels like something that they wanted to be a part of some big emotional payoff at the end of the movie with it being revealed that this was actually Edward, the son of the baron and the one who carried the curse but was ultimately freed from it when he was shot by a silver bullet at the end of the movie. It's a cool idea to find a silver bullet in a soldier many years later, but this does absolutely nothing for the story of the film. Edward's surviving at the end is not enhanced by this, and you could have just as well had him, you know, needing surgery or something later in life with it being discovered. Doesn't help either that the way this reveal is played out is just like the most clunky way you could possibly imagine with the movie. Just cutting between the end and that opening scene for the final moments and hoping you'll be blown away by it, just having them be the same person does not matter.

[00:12:30]These kinds of payoffs need to add something to the story. They need to carry weight. It's not enough to be like, "Oh, and that was Edward in that unrelated scene at the start, too." By the way, I'm finding myself struggling a bit with this video because I want to talk about these characters and why I can't get myself invested in them. But there's just nothing to talk about.

[00:12:47]There's not a single unique or standout character in the whole damn movie. The brooding, traumatized man coming to hunt the werewolf feels like he was intended to be the exciting counterpart to the beast itself, but you can pretty much fill in everything about his character from the moment you meet him because he feels like he was pulled from an example template of a character sheet based on Van Helsing.

[00:13:05]>> And what's that to do with me?

[00:13:06]>> Another thing that I want to talk about is the historical side of the film.

[00:13:09]Because while they're not playing into any parts of werewolf folklore directly, the story does make attempts to ground itself in history.

[00:13:18]Wow, it fails. Look, I don't think that a movie being historically accurate makes it inherently better. I think there are ways that that can be used to create a sense of immersion. It can help flesh out a world. And I think that filmmakers who care a lot about this kind of thing have that passion shine through in other parts of the film making [music] process. But it's not an automatically better thing to be historically accurate. That being said, if you are trying to sell that sense of accuracy and tie the story into actual historical events, then you should make sure that you're doing the proper research and have those things make sense in the story. And again, there's that little mistake of the Battle of S being depicted as in the wrong year.

[00:13:57]Like, how how does this happen? With the movie opening on a real battle that took place during World War I, telling its story through real atrocities committed against people and anchoring itself into a political storyline, I do think it's reasonable to expect that this side of the film would have had a lot of thought put into it. But the cracks show very quickly. For one, and I wouldn't be surprised if this comes as a shock to those of you who saw the movie back when it came out and are working purely off memory, The Cursed takes place in France. Not a single character has a French accent. They're all British and I genuinely forgot that the movie didn't take place in England until I rewatched it for this video. Now, that happens all the time, but I still find that it bothers me if a story is trying to ground itself. But again, very, very common thing to happen, so not the end of the world. There are a couple of weird bits of historical mishmashing in this movie. But the one that I find to be the most egregious is in regards to one of the most famous supposed accounts of a werewolf that we have known as the beast of Jividon. Between 1764 and 1767, [music] over 100 people were murdered by some strange monster in the French countryside with descriptions of an unnaturally massive wolf with a long tail. And it's it's a really interesting story that still remains unclear to this day if it was caused by some strange, you know, biological monster, an animal unknown to the French people at the time, like maybe a lion or something like that. mass hysteria where multiple people connected various murders to one beast. We really don't know. But the point is Jonathan, the man here to put an end to the curse, talks about his wife and daughter having been killed by a werewolf in Juvidom, which is clearly meant to connect this movie to those killings.

[00:15:34]>> I heard what happened in Jivvid.

[00:15:37]>> I'm sorry.

[00:15:38]>> Notice anything wrong with that. The opening scene of the film takes place in 1916 and then flashes back 35 years to 1881. Which means that if Jonathan's wife and daughter were killed by the beast of Juvidon, that would make him roughly 140 years old, accounting for him needing to be old enough to have a child, considering those killings stopped in 1767. We could be generous and say he's 130, but even doing that, well, yeah, this does not add up. The thing is that there's no actual reason to try and tie this backstory into the beast of Jivvenol. They could have just had it be some madeup werewolf attack, but instead they made an attempt to tie in that piece of werewolf folklore, but didn't even bother to have the timeline make sense. This isn't something that's massively detrimental to the movie. Of course, you need to be enough of a nerd to be aware of the beast of Jividon and the timeline of those accounts, but it just seems strange to me to decide that you're going to include this since it doesn't work with the timeline of the story that you chose to tell. If you wanted to connect this to the beast of Jividon, have it take place like in the late 1760s or keep the chosen time period and just don't have a character who would need to be 130 [ __ ] years old. His grandparent could have been killed by it or something, but it has to be the wife and daughter because this guy's a goddamn cookie cutter. There are a handful of other historical inaccuracies, but I feel like I've already probably been annoying enough about this as it is. Point being, there was really not enough research done on the period for this movie to be making attempts to ground itself in historical events. Now, it's all well and good, and I think that were this movie to deliver a really strong werewolf for its central beast, then so many of the problems with the script could have been overlooked.

[00:17:15]It seems that the werewolf subg genre is sort of cursed, for lack of a better word, with almost always having some spin on the werewolf mythology. We've got lots of vampire movies with very traditional depictions, or at least shades of those traditional elements.

[00:17:28]And while the werewolf subgenre isn't entirely void of this, it just doesn't happen very often. [music] And this movie is one that's trying to give its own spin on the werewolf, but does so in a way that's so separated from what a werewolf is that it makes me question why it's even positioning itself as a werewolf movie. The only ties that this thing has to an actual werewolf is that it's somewhat doglike, runs on all fours, and is weak to silver. That's literally it. Nothing with the full moon, although granted that's not something that was like part of older werewolf folklore, but it still becomes so synonymous with them that it may as well be. And hell, the thing doesn't even have any fur on it. Now, granted, there are certain pieces of werewolf mythology that include someone being cursed to be a beast and hurt the people they love as a form of punishment, and that does happen here. But again, we're talking about something with no fur that has no connection to the full moon, doesn't transform between a human state and a wolf. There's also no transformation scene, by the way.

[00:18:21]That's weird. What's even more baffling about this is that in all honesty, the curse that this movie comes up with has some cool stuff to it. Those weird vine things are dope and create some insanely sick visuals. The brutality of this monster is not to be understated. And the movie can be gory as hell at times, but it's just not a werewolf. And it doesn't even feel like a spin on a werewolf. It just feels like they made something completely unique and then figured if they made it weak to silver, they could call it a werewolf movie. To add on top of that, and this just makes me feel even more so that the script here is extremely underbaked, Ellis talked about how he thought of the curse in this movie as an analog for addiction in the modern [music] day. And that makes absolutely no sense. Now, I'm not against some thematic tie-ins like this, and there are many examples of that being done extremely well. But if we look at this movie through that lens and try to see how Ellis was exploring addiction, literally nothing comes together. This curse is something that was placed on these people as a form of revenge from an outside source, which [music] I don't think is a good basis for an exploration of this topic. It's not able to be overcome without someone else stepping in and shooting it. and it [ __ ] uses fake demon voices to trick people and taunt them.

[00:19:30]None of this ties itself into the metaphor of addiction in the slightest.

[00:19:34]This is a very complicated and delicate topic, and it really does feel like it was kind of just said because it's a story about something that takes people over and now we're calling it an addiction metaphor because that makes the movie seem more sophisticated. I think that if this was an attempt to explore addiction, then it's a kind of disrespectful, misdirected, and poor job of that. What's even stranger about that is that there are absolutely pieces of werewolf mythology that could have been used as a way to explore this topic. We have stories about people who find themselves without a sense of purpose, pushed away by society and become drawn to some dark sorcery, agreeing to give themselves over to this curse as a way to take back some sense of strength or purpose in their lives. If this stuff hadn't been pulled from, then there could have been an interesting take here. But what we have again there's it doesn't make any sense through that lens. Then there's the issue of the werewolf being a CGI beast. And like I mentioned earlier, it feels like the artificial way they went about presenting the attack scenes was intended to cover up the CG in some way.

[00:20:28]H it doesn't really work. It just makes this stuff stand out even more since most of the movie is very filmic and gritty and natural and then we're slapped across the face with the most digital excessively artificial looking stuff ever. Here's the thing. Like I said, I don't think that the war scene and the reveal with Edward was remotely necessary. I have a feeling that the werewolf was done with CGI due to budgetary constraints, which I could be wrong about, but if that's the case, then it makes me even more frustrated that that extremely elaborate battle scene was made for the movie when they could have taken the money used for that and instead put it into the [ __ ] werewolf in the werewolf movie. That should be very high up on the list of priorities here. and the time and money needed to shoot something like this should have instead been allocated to doing this practically and allowing these scenes to have more cohesion with the look of the movie. Like I said, so many of the problems that I have with the script could be entirely forgiven if we'd been given a great werewolf. I can see a version of this movie that has a half an hour trimmed out, saves the reveal of what Sheamus did for the third act, cuts out the unnecessary war scene and attempt at a twist and gave a lot more love to the werewolf itself. And that version of the movie with the absolutely breathtaking visuals would probably be one of my favorite horror movies of the decade. A simple, straightforward werewolf flick focused on the gnarly carnage, the grim gothic atmosphere, and [music] a great werewolf design. We definitely could have had that here, and I think it would have made a vastly better movie. I'm not someone to usually take the stance of if this was a completely different movie, then I'd like it. But it doesn't feel like there was some massive driving force or interesting take on the story that necessitated the way they went about this. The only part of this movie that feels like it was truly inspired is the cinematography. And that's genuinely amazing. None of this is to mention the ending, which really drives home for me that this story has very little to offer. You think that something that opens with these people massacring the Romani camp that it, you know, they would have had some sort of like cathartic ending, but that's not what happens here. It's a complex situation of course, but the Romani people are treated almost like a villain in this story with our savior Jonathan coming along to thwart the evil and save the day. Even Sheamus, the one who ordered the massacre, gets off pretty easily, taking himself out after being attacked by the beast. His death should have been the most brutal of the entire movie. And it should have been at the hands of the werewolf. And in order for this story to really land, the curse should have won against the efforts of these people to stop it. That would have given an edge to the film. it would have felt like a stronger conclusion, but that's not how it plays out. Now, I'm aware that I've been really brutal on this movie, more so than maybe I usually am, but I, you know, let that be a testament to the things that it does well, that I can honestly say that I will watch this movie again. All the stuff I've just been like bashing this thing for, I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm still going to watch it." I may not pay attention for all of it. I may go make a cup of tea during certain sections, but I adore the visual and at times tonal aspect of the movie to an extent that I can't say I hate it or that I'll never watch it again. I just feel like the script here is very underresarched, underdeveloped, and generic. And the werewolf is quite a letdown. We don't get much of it, and even when it's there, it's like really hard to make out what's going on. It never feels like it's a werewolf. I mean, the visuals in the movie give more of a feeling of a werewolf movie than the creature itself does. Then the problem comes in for anyone who isn't as much of a [ __ ] for this kind of atmosphere as I am. If that's the case, I don't know if this movie has anything to offer you. There's clearly love and passion here, but it's for an element that can't justify the excessive length and anemic script. I'm honestly shocked that this is how this video wound up because for years I've been talking about The Curse as the best modern werewolf movie and the one that I can point to and be like, "This is awesome."

[00:24:06]But then at the same time, I like wasn't watching it. And then I I was almost like entirely going off of my memory being blown away by it when I was distracted by how gorgeous the thing is back when I saw in the theater. Been on record on podcast many times espousing about how great this thing is. But when I rewatched it and found myself struggling to stay engaged and really, you know, paid attention to it, I realized that my opinion on this thing over the years has absolutely been colored by my love for the aesthetic for it. And it's too damn long for that to carry it all the way through. I also want to end this video on a bit of a different note and say that I really hope everyone watching this disagrees with me. I want the werewolf subg genre to make its long overdue comeback and I hope that people who haven't heard of the movie but saw this video pop up went and watched it and enjoyed it. I want people to have the werewolf movie. I want to love this one but I absolutely can't. But I also can't honestly say that I hate it or anything like that because once in a full moon, I'm going to itch to be back in this vibe. Thanks for watching through to the end. I hope you enjoyed the video enough that you want to see more. And if that's the case, consider subscribing and hitting the notification bell because YouTube can sometimes suck at recommending channels. A huge thank you to my wonderful Patreon supporters and YouTube channel members who are a massive help in allowing me to continue committing as much time as I can to making these videos. If you want to gain access to things like behind-the-scenes material or gain early access to my videos, consider supporting me on either platform. As always, thank you for stopping by Rockland Graves. I hope you've enjoyed your