Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 5:1	Budget Big

Hmmm. This one is going to take some thinking. Basically we have a werewolf movie with a name that invokes not only the curse of the werewolf but possibly also the curse of menstruation. Set in California it features Craig Kilborne and Scott Baio as themselves and has a few "in jokes" about Hollywood. The film is very competently done. It is loaded with cliches and references, but never really goes too far to humor nor does it resort to too much gore. The plot is touches on most of the usual werewolf plot points.

The movie opens with a very whitebread band playing an up tempo but very toned-down version of Sam the Sham's "Little Red Riding Hood". We meet Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg) when his dog Zipper(Solar) gets away from him. Zipper runs into a store where Jimmy's classmate Brooke (Kristina Anapau, "Cruel Intentions 3)) works. Jimmy recognizes Brooke, but she doesn't know who he is despite the fact that Jimmy has been attending classes with her for two years. Brooke's asshole boyfriend (really are there any other types of boyfriends in these movies) shows up and insults Jimmy and implies he is gay. Bo (Milo Ventimiglia) will continue to harass him for most of the film. Ellie (Christina Ricci, "Black Snake Moan", "Prozac Nation") stops in at Tinsel, a new nightclub being designed by Jake (Joshua Jackson) who is busy installing a wax museum theme. Turns out that Jake is not into Ellie as much as she thought. After picking up a very upset Jimmy, she drives home. An animal jumps in front of her car and causes her to swerve into an oncoming car knocking it down a hill. As they attempt to rescue Becky (Shannon Elisabeth) she is grabbed by a werewolf that drags her away by the throat and then throws the mutilated body back to the pair. Ellie does not back up her brother when he tries to tell the cops it was a werewolf. Soon indications arise making Ellie and Jimmy think that they have been infected by the werewolf including being more attractive to the opposite sex. After a couple of red herrings are dragged across the path, Joanie (Judy Greer) is revealed as a werewolf. After demolitioning the nightclub in the process of killing her, Jimmy and Ellie go home thinking that the curse is broken. Unfortunately it turns out that Joanie was not the head werewolf after all. Still they manage to dispatch Jake with only minimal damage to the house. Brooke shows up with Zipper and starts making out with Jimmy.

The director, Wes Craven, packs the film with numerous film references and making sure to hit most of the werewolf film cliches. Jimmy wakes up naked in the bushes outside, both Jimmy and Ellie snack on some meat (although it was not bloody) and both have greater physical strength and confidence. There is, of course, a nightmare dream sequence where Ellie turns into a werewolf and bites Jake's head off. Speaking of biting people's heads off, there is a strong initial theme relating the werewolf curse to the menstrual cycle "curse". The protagonist being female and suffering both physical and mood changes seem to mimic the classic "signs" of menses, but after watching a while I realized that Jimmy was going through a similar transition suggesting puberty as the theme. Both characters seem to mature emotionally during the course of the movie, though Jimmy comes out ahead as not only does he end up with the girl he seems to have much less need of Ellie as well. Though in typical teenage fashion he leaves her to clean up the mess that killing the werewolf made as he walks off with his new friends.

Craven and the writer, Dawson Creek's Kevin Williamson, don't just rely on special effects. There are several small subplots to fill the time between the monster's appearances. Bo turns out to be gay. Kyle seems to want to date Ellie. Joanie used to date Jake. Scott Baio is scheduled to appear on Late Night but gets bumped by Carrot Top. Becky dated Jake. Jenny dated Jake. Portia de Rossi appears as a gypsy with the gift. Of all the subplots, Bo's may be the most interesting. He starts out as the asshole boyfriend and then after Jimmy beats the crap out of him while wrestling, he confesses to him. Turns out he was just trying to pretend he wasn't gay by being an obnoxious jock. This would make Brooke his beard, which would help explain why she thought it was so amusing when Jimmy started to talk back to Bo. As soon as he comes out of the closet, Bo is a nice guy and does not even get too upset when Jimmy kisses Brooke in front of him.

The movie has its moments, but by and large it feels like a Made For TV movie. Other than a couple of characters saying "fuck" a couple of times, this is really PG stuff. Ellie and Jimmy lost their parents some time ago and Ellie made a promise to raise Jimmy for them. Their relationship seems very superficial characterized by pithy quips and a cool attitude. Things resolve quickly and out of the blue. Brooke basically has four scenes in the movie. In the first, she does not know who Jimmy is. In the second, she laughs when Jimmy makes fun of her boyfriend. In the third she cheers Jimmy on when he beats her boyfriend at wrestling, and in the fourth she returns his dog and starts kissing him. Ellie and Jimmy are upset by the initial werewolf attack, but after that take everything pretty much in stride. Two of her coworkers dead, no big deal. Have to kill the ex-boyfriend because he is a werewolf, sure. Jimmy's dog is returned to him at what must be 3:00 in the morning after he has spent the night fighting werewolves, and he has plenty of energy to smile and laugh and make out with Brooke. In the end I think that Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson have styles that are just too far apart and they never really meld together to create anything more than a Dawson's Creek Halloween Special.

Unlike most werewolves, these don't seem to descend all the way to dumb animal mode. Jake states that he can teach Ellie how to control herself as a werewolf and Joanie's demise comes about when Ellie taunts her with comments about her appearance. Still I was wondering just how smart they must be. Early in the movie Jake in his werewolf mode gets hit by Ellie's car which then crashes into Becky's car. While it is possible to write this off as coincidence, I believe it is actually more of that werewolf cunning. In fact, I think I saw this on an old math test. If girlfriend A is driving home from the club at 45 miles per hour and girlfriend B is driving to the club from home at 55 miles per hour, where will their paths cross? In fact, that is probably why Ellie hit him anyway, Jake was probably standing in the middle of the road doing the math on his calculator. Now that he has solved that problem, maybe he can solve this one. We are lead to believe that Joanie killed Becky to eliminate the competition for Jake. The werewolf that kills Becky also infects our heroes. But after Joanie is killed Jimmy and Ellie are still cursed until they kill Jake, which means that Jake killed Becky. Why? We never find out. We also never find out why when Joanie is killed, she merely returns to her human form but when Jake is killed he bursts into flames.

I would pass on this one if you are a monster movie purist. The departures from standard werewolf lore are annoying and I think unintentional, it really feels like the writer just dropped a bunch of vampire characteristics on the werewolves because he did not know any better. Werewolves hunt and kill because they are beasts. They do not smell blood. They do not need to drink blood to survive and drinking blood does not make them change from human form to werewolf form. Going even further into the movie werewolf cliches, in human form the werewolf is almost always a basically good man who is aware that he does horrible things he can't control and is wracked with guilt about it. Jake on the other hand does not seem to be a particularly good man, nor does he have any guilt for what he does, and he is aware of what he does in werewolf form. Again this seems more like the vampire archetype. I will grant you that the movie "Skinwalker" also blurs the lines a bit on what a werewolf is, but that movie makes it very clear from the start that they are using a completely different set of rules. Here the haphazard mix of vamp and werewolf lore just seems sloppy.

As I said, the production values on the movie are very good, the editing moves the action along nicely. So if you don't mind the light and fluffy dialog, the stupid plot twist at the end, and the disregard for monster movie rules, you might enjoy the movie.

Got a comment or different opinion? Send a message.