Marianne Maddalena
Occupation
Actor
Cursed Review
Weak
Although Arrested Development's Portia De Rossi and Judy Greer co-star in the werewolf mishmash Cursed, fellow Arrested cast member and erstwhile Teen Wolf Jason Bateman is nowhere to be found. Too bad; this horror-comedy could use a little more deadpan in its comedy, and a little more anything in its horror.Really, both should've been covered when Miramax reunited Scream's writer and director, Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven. In the Scream trilogy, these uneven artists brought out the best in each other: Williamson's overwritten self-referential dialogue felt smarter braced against Craven-directed tension, which flourished with funny and likable characters. Cursed starts with the likable characters, and then jams on the brakes.
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Wes Craven's New Nightmare Review
Weak
In this unofficial seventh entry into the Nightmare on Elm Street series, Wes Craven takes us into one of the most bizarro horror setups ever put to film, as he reveals, yeah, those other six films were all just movies, but now it's for real. He's not kidding: Craven plays himself, as does Robert Englund... and Craven reveals that Freddy is some sort of half-spiritual evil (thus inspiring his screenplays), and now his intended victim is Heather Langenkamp (also playing herself), the star of the original Nightmare film. She's now a mom, and her creepy son has something to do with all of this, with a less-burned-up Freddy stalking the starlet from reality into some proto-sleepwalking-fantasy world. By the end, she's discovered the very script she's living, and, well, if any of this ends up making sense to you then you're a better man than I.