Just the Ticket #185: The Curse (1987)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster

My Ticketholders know that this all began because of research I did for my Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective on the Curse Of the Winter Witch issue, where I was looking up things with "Curse" in the title. And of course, today's movie up for review (which I'd forgotten that I heard of before in an episode of Horror Timelines) led me to H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space, which I reviewed on Tuesday.

First of all, I love this poster! It's perfectly 80s in its cheese factor and epicness.

Second, The Curse (1987)—not to be confused with the comedy series of the same title from 2023—was directed by David Keith (the white guy from Firestarter and the awful Epoch movies, not to be confused with Keith David from The Thing and Men At Work). Third, there's a link to Uncle Sam because Lucio Fulci was an associate producer on this and did some uncredited filming (though he's listed in the opening as Louis Fulci).

The Curse follows the same basic beats as The Colour Out Of Space, though the location is changed from the fictional location of Arkham, Massachusetts, to Tellico Plains, Tennessee, the Gardners are now the Cranes, and the unnamed narrator from the story is now Carl Willis (played by Smallville's Pa Kent, John Schneider), a land surveyor for the Tennessee Valley Authority, a.k.a. "Water."

When a large papier-mâché ball full of glowing lightbulbs is lowered gently into their yard and tries to get up to eighty-eight miles per hour to go Back to the Future, the Cranes begin to mutate and go insane, starting with the mother (Kathleen Jordon Gregory in her only role before her death the following year, giving off discount Bebe Neuwirth vibes that I dig and tapping into some unhinged energy later in the film), followed by the abusive, religious zealot stepfather (prolific Western actor Claude Akins), and his fat idiot asshole son (Malcolm Danare, 'Zilla and Godzilla: The Series). This leaves brother and sister Zack (the featured Wil Wheaton)

and Alice (Amy Wheaton, Wil's actual sister, in her debut role) to evade their infected family and get to safety with the help of Willis (who, contrary to his story role as narrator and main character, doesn't notably appear until half an hour in, doesn't take an investigative role until almost an hour in, and suddenly turns action hero-ex-machina in the third act).

I didn't think I would miss the original story's scientific focus, but The Curse's plot exists, so....

Yeah, like I said, Willis doesn't get a sample of the Cranes' well water to actual scientists until the movie is almost over so there can be a structurally requisite dramatic reveal moment. Instead of that happening earlier and the Cranes dealing with being social outcasts (a theme critical to the source material), they just get the one, generic, 80s-handsome doctor (Cooper Huckabee, Tales From the Hood 3) to poke the meteor (now veinier and more solid, according to your mom last night) with handyman tools. Not a geologist, a biochemist, an astronomer, or an astrophysicist; a basic-ass general practitioner with a hammer and chisel. As a result, it bleeds a Nine Inch Nails music video into the ground water, turning the horses and chickens rabid and making the produce giant and rotted. For a few minutes, the doctor, who is a Jack of One Trade, Master of Shit, has a conscience about going public with the meteor and its effects on the land. Enter corrupt realtor Charlie Davidson (Steve Carlisle in his first film role; also, motorcycle pun!), and suddenly it's [insert Jaws beach closure joke here] but with insider land speculation money at stake so the runtime can be filled out with 80s horror movie tropes and the worst-case scenario can happen.

The movie's only saving grace (aside from the real sibling dynamic between the Wheatons—despite Wil's stated negative personal experiences with the production—and its suspenseful context, and the fat, stupid asshole and the slimy, greedy asshole getting the deaths they so cathartically deserve) is the last twenty minutes or so when Willis, Zack, and Alice are escaping from the Crane house. The practical effects of the house unraveling, buckling, and collapsing before it sinks into the ground (because Poltergeist reference, I guess) are nothing short of impressive. Later (in the opening and closing scenes), Willis is shown to be infected by the meteor as well, ranting as he is arrested and put under medical observation for his lesions and mental condition, that the contamination has spread to the water. A news report he watches in the hospital vaguely suggests a government cover-up of the true extent of the meteor's effects, and we are shown a glorious final shot of the Crane property coming alive and erupting with more of the alien contaminant to further drive home the movie's foreboding ending.

The Curse isn't perfect. The atmospheric appeal of Lovecraft's original story is lost in scrambled execution, the limited and budgeted effects of the era, a mostly unlikable and useless cast of characters, and a need to capitalize on familiar horror tropes and archetypes of the day that were put to better use in the movies that originated them. But as someone who refuses to watch Little Shop Of Horrors, the abnormally sized, blighted crops genuinely terrified me, the large-scale practical effects were a joy to behold, and the suspense-building montages held their own kind of retro charm. Audience imagination is a hard thing to execute on, especially when adapting the written word into visual form at a time when effects technology can't always measure up (this film and Children Of the Corn are proof of that). So I'll be that guy and say the book is better than the movie from a psychological horror standpoint. But as a campy family drama with sci-fi, thriller, and horror elements that backloads its effects budget in the best way possible, The Curse is a blessing.

C+

The Curse reviews continue next week with a sequel in name only, so Stay Tuned and as always, please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, stay away from that weird stone in your backyard, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can live a colorful existence, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news and coverage on my well-made content.

Tickemaster,
Out Of Cyberspace.