The Cursed

Nothing new here. Low budget so the acting is mediocre at best. Standard plot line of a "curse" with some additions that are pointless but culminate to give some unsettled quality up to the end. Nothing special but not awful either. A 4 (instead of 6) due to the lack of creativity to the storyline.

I gave this movie a high rating due to a number of things. First, I have to say, a number of people gave this movie a low rating because it was not a Steven King movie (although the fact is that most movies based on King's books are lousy). So comparing books to movies is not fair. Then, this movie's budget was $1,750,000 an amount that many movies spend feeding the crews. It is set in the deep south, not in some modern city, so the characters fit the settings. This movie is actually based on a couple of legends of the deep south, it is not an adaptation of anyone, including King's books. I found it interesting and unique, not what is now in style, such as the usual "lost footage" (the worse possible thing around) or "woman running through forest", as predictable as it gets. It's not a (teen) vampire movie, a person actually compared it to that. It's bloody and I liked the special effects. For the price they did a very nice job. I don't give many movies high rating, if they are lousy, I so state. Nice take on legends of the south, about evil plantation owners.

Although "The Cursed" was shot in 2007 it wasn't released until early 2010 on Syfy.

THE PLOT: A writer (Brad Thornton) comes to a small Tennessee town to complete a book and strange things start happening – animals and people mysteriously disappear or are slaughtered. He hooks up with a good-looking librarian (Francesca Cecil) and they trace the problem to a satanic curse from the post-Civil War era. Meanwhile the sheriff (Louis Mandylor) is at his wits end trying to figure out what's going on and increasingly suspects the writer's involvement.

Although this is a low-budget, independent film it's considerably better than Syfy's usual fare, e.g. "Gatorade vs. Mega-Cleavage." How so? For one, it maintains a serious vibe, which is important in an age when most mystery/horror films belong in the comedy section. Secondly, the film creates a mysterious ambiance throughout, akin to "The Fog" but with a Stephen King plot minus the cartoony characters.

Speaking of the atmosphere, I really liked how you can hear the distinctive Eastern forest sounds, like the crickets and peepers, etc. I realize it's odd to point this out but the movie did this better than any that I can remember. The film was shot in McMinnville, Tennessee, by the way (and it's nice to see a film of this ilk shot somewhere other than Bulgaria, Romania or British Columbia).

Another positive is the monster's appearance, particularly when it opens its mouth (when it's closed it doesn't look very impressive).

Negatives include too much obvious dubbing and plot elements that simply don't make sense (why would the killer of the demon become the monster? And how would the old black guy know this with any certainty?); in addition, I disapprove of two important people biting the dust and the very end is lame.

FINAL WORD: Although it's nothing to get overly excited about, "The Cursed" is effective for a TV horror film. The filmmakers and actors take the material seriously and the film evokes a cool creepy atmosphere, but the negatives cited above force me to give it a fairly mediocre rating or "almost good".

GRADE: C+.

BRAD THORNTON and LOUIS MANDYLOR star in what feels like a Stephen King story about a sheriff (Mandylor) trying to solve the mysterious deaths of townspeople and farm animals in Tennessee who have fallen prey to a blurry dark figure who seems to be impossible to kill.

With phony Southern accents for some cast members and CGI effects that are unworthy of even a made-for-TV thriller, none of it appears to be the least bit convincing. It doesn't help that none of the principal roles are played with any distinction.

Director Joe Bender must be partly to blame but the script is trite, shallow stuff with cardboard characters that have no dimension whatsoever.

Apparently, the scriptwriter ran out of ideas for the ending and leaves everything pretty much unresolved as to the fates of our hero (Thornton) and the town sheriff.

This is a fairly trite story line, about the unkillable evil, the same old super evil that cannot be killed. The treatment of the topic here is fairly clever, however.

We get more than one main character. In essence, we get an impression that the writer was alluding to "Lifeforce" in many ways, with one man a hands on operator battling demons in his life, and the other man an official who comes in to clean up. However, these characters are much more credible and identifiable than the ones from "Lifeforce".

The minor characters are plentiful. Some are three dimensional, but there are many who seem to be mere plot devices. These are minimal, and come across more credible, since they are demographic enough. For instance, there is one old demon battler, and three vigilantes who do the doomed vigilantes in the woods theme (which has become popular the past 10 years, but not trite yet). These are a minority, even in the small town, as there are nearly a hundred who meet to discuss action. Therefore, they seem a little more credible as a demographic.

The logical course of action is well thought out by the writer. Much of this is cleverly done. Near the beginning, a rancher tells the lawman that his cattle have been mutilated in a very unexplainable way. We soon learn this is not an isolated case, and the writer shows us very much in a few scenes. Someone is actually learning how to write at Sci Fi.

One hero has a lot of credibility, but the story seems to want to make him a cigarette smoker very badly, even though he is physically fit, lean, and a writer. Most of us have never even met a man who smokes who is lean, physically fit, and creative, nor one who is a jogger or writer. Also, he begins the day by waking up and jogging. Any one who jogs knows that this is unrealistic. Any one who did this would pull a muscle almost every time, and lose out on weeks at a time. The military purposely has GIs warm up with calisthenics before their jog.

But these are nit picks. Obviously one of the sponsors is involved with tobacco, so we can overlook this if it isn't overdone, and if the story is well done. This one passes the test, although the ending is a bit trite and over the top for this otherwise well written piece.