There was a new horror/monster movie out this weekend that was also a period piece. The Cursed is the latest werewolf movie, but it does set up the creatures with a little different mythos which works fairly well.

The film started out in 1917 World War I where the soldiers were getting shot from German soldiers. We get a look at the triage, with doctors trying to save the soldiers they could. With one wounded soldier in particular, the doctor was trying to remove the bullets in him when he pulled out one that was not from a German gun. It was a silver bullet.

Cut to 35 years earlier, the movie switches to its main setting of a small village in France where Seamus Laurent (Alistair Petrie) and his family lived. After a violent encounter with a group of gypsies, Seamus’s family wound up cursed and their son Edward (Max Mackintosh) disappeared.

Meanwhile, pathologist John McBride (Boyd Holbrook) came to town to investigate the dark mystery and to look into something in his own past.

The film was slow, building toward some violence in the third act that turned out extremely gory and bloody.

The film was shot beautifully and it does a strong job of building the tension of the situations and the overall tone of foreboding is done well. However, I found the first part of the film a little dull and it did not quite engage my attention as much as I would have liked.

The performances were fine. I especially enjoyed the work of Boyd Holbrook. There were no well known actors in the film which sometimes works well, allowing you to focus in on the characters they were playing.

The Cursed was a different type of werewolf film. The structure was unusual, featuring a bunch of dream sequences. It may not be the best film I have seen, but it took some chances, and I did like that.

3 stars