The Curse
Director: David Keith
Cast: Wil Wheaton, Claude Akins, Malcolm Danare
Curse II: The Bite
Director: Frederico Prosperi
Cast: Jill Schoelen, J. Eddie Peck, Jamie Farr
Scream Factory
February 23, 2016
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons
Another two-for-one Blu-ray release from the horror heads at Scream Factory. This time it’s two little known, late 80s fright flicks that despite having similar titles, really have nothing in common. But hey, they’re 80s movies, so that’s got to be worth something, right? Right? Well let’s find out.
The first one, 1987’s The Curse, is an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s wonderful story of cold cosmic dread, “The Colour out of Space,” despite the filmmakers being skeevy scumbags and not giving old HPL any credit anywhere in the film. Considering the overall quality of this movie, it might be a blessing that Lovecraft’s name is not mentioned here. Now the story is basically the same: a meteor crashes down near a small farm one night, dissolves over the next few days, and then things start to get weird. Crops grow large and beautiful, but inside they are rotten and hideous. Trees move on their own without any wind and the livestock starts getting violent. As for the people, they not only turn violent but crazy and lumpy-faced. Whereas in the original Lovecraft story the menace was a terrifying alien lifeform, here it is (to quote Stephen King in Creepshow) “meteor shit that gets into the groundwater.” Now this movie isn’t terrible, it’s just not very good. Gone is the slow creeping dread of the original story, replaced here by Claude Akins as a slap happy, overzealous bible thumper; a subplot about shady land deals; killer chickens; and some warty faces. There are perhaps three notable things about his movie: one, it’s got some good gross-outs with goo, worms, bugs, and other nastiness. Two, it is the directorial debut of recognizable character actor, David Keith. Third, it has a very young Wil Wheaton in his follow-up film role after Stand by Me.
Now as hit or miss as The Curse was, it’s a certified masterpiece compared to the in-name only sequel that would follow it two years – Curse II: The Bite has nothing to do with the previous film. Here a snake from a nuclear test range bites a man on the hand, so naturally that turns the guy’s hand into the head of a snake, because you know, radiation. After way too much padding to drive up the runtime, his snake hand starts attacking people. Yes, it is as ridiculous as it sounds. The good news is that the effects were created by the insane genius of Screaming Mad George, so while it’s kind of dumb, there is some gooey charm to it. Easily the best thing about this movie is that Jill Schoelen is in it. Jill was a late 80s / early 90s scream queen that never got the attention she deserved, despite being in The Stepfather, Popcorn, the Robert Englund version of The Phantom of the Opera, and more. Unfortunately not even her sweet girl next door routine can do much to make this movie any better.
As for the extras on this Blu-ray two pack, there’s not much to say. The Curse has a trailer and the other movie doesn’t even have that. I think this might be the barest bones release I’ve ever seen from Scream Factory.
So is this two-pack of Curse flicks worth a get? Well if you are a Lovecraft collector and want to see yet another film version of one of his stories, this will do that for you. If you are a big Wil Wheaton fan, then you might want to see him back in the day, doing his best. If you are a sucker for B-grade fright flicks, you’ll find that here, too. But if you don’t fall into any of those categories, then you might want to steer clear of this one.
