Movie Info
Movie Name: The Curse
Studio: MGM
Genre(s): Horror/B-Movie
Release Date(s): September 11, 1987
MPAA Rating: R
Yep…a giant marble…
A giant meteor crashes into the ground of a farm during a storm, but quickly melts away. Soon, the animals begin to act strangely and the plants seem to be growing to immense size. Zack Hayes (Wil Wheaton) soon sees that his mother Frances (Kathleen Jordan Gregory) begins to go crazy and both his step-brother Cyrus (Malcolm Danare) and his stepfather Nathan (Claude Akins) have begun to grow increasingly abusive. As the area is prepared for a reservoir, Carl Willis (John Schneider) is sent to check the land. The danger is growing, and Zachary must get himself and his sister Alice (Amy Wheaton) to safety.
Can you get me into something else? Anything else? Maybe something in space?
Directed by David Keith, The Curse was also called The Farm and adapted the H.P. Lovecraft 1927 story “The Colour Out of Space”. It was panned by critics and largely forgotten except for the early appearance of Wil Wheaton.
The Curse is a mess. The original H.P. Lovecraft story is pretty creepy and for the most part, the film does follow the basic aspects of the story. Unfortunately, while the story is built on suspense and dread, The Curse tries to be a horror movie…and rather poorly.
Ok, I went a little crazy with my Polident…want to make something of it?!
The movie doesn’t have much direction. The sub-plot of the reservoir and the idea that the water could infect more is rather buried and under-cooked. Like something like Cabin Fever that dealt with a similar idea of infection, this movie shouldn’t have just left the reservoir part as an ominous foreboding image of what was to come. Instead, we get a lame industrialist and a woman getting chased by dogs as they try to convince the farmer to sell the land.
The family story in The Curse has some merit in that the movie doesn’t paint Claude Akins entirely as a monster from the get-go. He’s religious and strict, but he honestly seems to be half-way fair to Wil Wheaton’s character in a few instances as Wheaton battles with his son Cyrus. It becomes a “Claude and Malcolm against Wil Wheaton and Wheaton’s real sister Amy” rather quickly, but he could have easily been the horrible stepfather the whole time.
Mom…I think you just need to hydrate more.
The special effects and the mother in the film are terrible. She quickly begins to grow big warts and pus-filled sores and no one seems to really notice. The final mother “monster” is laughable and in line with the Rabid Grannies special effects. Her attack on the developer is amusing and in a weird almost fast forward motion.
The whole final scene of the movie is terrible. For some unexplained reason, the house begins to collapse very slowly allowing the characters to run around and gather themselves to escape. It also leads to some confusing fights scenes that aren’t very interesting or good.
The Curse is a bad film and not really a bad-good film. It is pretty unwatchable, but it was followed by sequels that really didn’t have anything to do with The Curse. The Curse II: The Bite came out in 1989 and is often packaged with this film…it involves a man bitten by radioactive snakes and slowly transforming into one himself…sadly, this movie looks good next to it.
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