hey what's going on to all my movie fans out there and welcome back to my channel movie files elliott
back again with a brand new movie review and today we're talking about a new french horror film by
the name of the cursed which actually premiered at last year's sundance and will be making its way to
the u.s markets on february 18th in theaters got a chance to check it out and i'm really excited
to let you all know what i thought about it and let you know if it's worth checking out in this
spoiler-free review before we break it all down make sure you all are checking me out on all my
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hitting that notification bell and as you can see on the screen now if you enjoyed this movie
review well make sure to give it a thumbs up and also share this review to all the horror fans you
know out there but more importantly what you think about the curse have you seen it at last year's
sundance you plan on watching and once you've seen it what do you think your pros your cons
your thoughts on the horror elements the story the characters performances what were some things that
didn't work for you all and since we're talking [ __ ] and we're looking at the beasts aka
werewolves what are some of your favorite werewolf stories and films that you have seen let's talk
about that in the comment section so let's kick this review off with man i have not seen
a werewolf tale in such a long time and i love the kind of new mythos and kind of the mythology that
we get with the werewolves that we'll talk about here in this review but i want to start things off
talking about the director sean ellis he does such a great job in this film establishing the tone
and the mood and the aesthetics that he creates and the atmosphere is just so dark and so gloomy
there's just this sense of like uncomfortableness while i was watching this film and as he kind of
tells this film which i don't want to give too much away about the plot but just giving you a
brief idea of what to expect this film it takes place in kind of the mid-1900s we have this kind
of well-off family who has his land and there's a a group of gypsies who is their land as their
heritage their family something happens with the gypsies and there's a curse on this family and
particularly there's a beast that the gypsies let loose and i'll just kind of leave it at
that and again i thought that the director here did such a great job of establishing that tone
the mood just not knowing what's around the corner we'll get into the beast and the whole
werewolf elements of the story but i thought the direction was really strong very distinct
in this film and and just performance wise i'll get into it briefly here because i thought that
most of the performance is a pretty solid cast most of the performances were fine it was only
one person that really kind of stood out to me and i've been a big fan of her work for a while i'm
talking about the one and only ellie riley who plays the mom in his film and she doesn't have
a ton of stuff to do in the first half of the film but it's more so in the second and third
act where you see what this mother is willing to do to protect her family and in particular
her son that goes missing and what she just she's willing to fight she's willing to you
know claw and fight to make sure clawed fight no pun intended because it's a werewolf story but
she's willing to do so much to protect her family i thought that her performance especially in the
third act especially the last few minutes of the film was just fantastic so again
most of the performances were solid from our main cast but she really kind of stood out to me and i
really felt her desperation to protect her family in this film but going back to the mythos here
we're dealing with the beast we're dealing with an unleashed unhinged beast aka werewolf and i
am a big werewolf fan you know american werewolf in london all-time favorite werewolf movie but
the mythos in this film without dive into it the the way that they tell this story and how we all
know kind of the the elements and the foundations of what a traditional werewolf story looks like
how they become this beast and they they eat off the blood and it's just you know mayhem whenever
they come across you and it's typically at night right but the scary thing about this film this
beast is a beast during the day during the night and is always looking for a new uh bite to eat
so i kind of love the mythos without again diving too much into how the gypsies kind of
play into this and how this kind of overtaking of the mind and the body and the soul and how
they become this beast and the aesthetics and the look on a particular scene i'm thinking about that
takes place in the barn was fantastic so again i don't want to give too much away i'm being very
vague about the actual creature in the mythos on it but when you all see this film i thought it
was pretty unique pretty fresh to something that doesn't really have a lot of originality when you
see world movies kind of the same song and dance but this one plays on it and puts it on his head
and i really enjoyed the narrative there so get into my criticism here i mentioned how i thought
that most of the cast was you know pretty solid i'm not gonna lie the subplots were some of the
weaker elements to me i think of an incredible actor here who's in this film will holbrook who
is brought into this situation to help find this missing kid and to help track down this bees
he has this whole other subplot involving his past and what happened to his family and they
try to bring it into the main narrative and it just really never worked to me and a lot of the
other subplots the house workers the main dad a lot of that stuff kind of fell flat to me it
just wasn't as fleshed out as i would have hoped it could have been and then another thing that
kind of stood out to me a couple of things the run time it was a little bit longer tooth there
weren't all the pundits along the tooth you got to love these puns right it was a little
bit long for me i didn't think again goes back to those subplots some of those subplots could
have been completely eliminated but it was almost two hours i thought at least 10 to 15 minutes off
the run time would have been a little bit more of a title script and then also i have to mention
the look of the beast the vfx the the the cgi i i could have went i mentioned how
american world for london is my favorite werewolf story the bar is set so high i
i didn't expect this film to be on that level of just kind of intensity and storytelling but
practical effects goes a long way and they decided to not use practical effects and i
and i just didn't there's a scene i mentioned in the barnyard that it was incredible
but the actual look of the creature didn't work for me so those are kind of the main things that
come to mind before i give you all my overall score and let you know if it's worth watching
if you stuck around to this point in review i appreciate you before you we get into the
main discussion of this review make sure you're liking the video sharing it leaving your thoughts
in the comments and of course subscribing overall the curse aesthetically speaking atmosphere was
there the tone was there it's very creepy it is very brutal i will warn you all it's a lot
of blood and i love it because i'm a horror fan but all that stuff works there there's a strong
performance of our mother character it's a really solid ending but there is some plots
i felt didn't come all together it was kind of underwhelming underwhelming moments for some of
the side characters i didn't like to design the creature but overall i take the pros and mix it
with the cons i'm speaking more highly on this film than i am negatively so i'm going to give
this film the curse a 3.5 out of 5. again it's a french film that came out last year has a very
limited release so far but it will be available on february 18th and if you get the chance to either
see it in theaters in your local area or maybe rent it or stream it i recommend you do and when
you do let me know what you thought of the film again your pros your cons what do you think about
the design what do you think about the narrative and also i share my favorite horror kind of where
we'll film what's yours let's talk about that in the comments if you stuck around to this point in
video i appreciate you before you leave make sure to like share comment subscribe to the channel if
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