Cursed (2005)

FITTING TITLE A shocker that falls short

The anonymous F/X gothic trash, Cursed, makes you long for the days when teenage werewolves were beady-eyed, slavering versions of hairy-palm jokes. We're supposed to root for the characters in Wes Craven's thriller not to submit to ''the mark of the beast,'' but really — why not, considering that they're already colorless enough to be the walking dead? Screenwriter Kevin Williamson (the Scream trilogy), having bottomed out in the horror genre, now dips below bottom (there isn't a line that has his knowing sweet-and-sour zing), and Craven directs as if he could barely rouse himself to stage one of those bulging-bladder-and-elongated-fang transformation scenes that revived the lycanthrope genre in its early-'80s acidhead baroque phase. Through it all, Christina Ricci stares in exasperation with those lovely spooky saucer eyes, as if her real curse were how hard she still has to work to play an adult.