It’s 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. A French captain has been wounded, and brought to the medical tent. He’s got hit by three bullets, but when the army surgeon removes them he discovers an additional fourth bullet which is made of silver. How did that get there? Well, obviously the captain knows as he smiles and says “eight for silver“. Then we need to head back 35 years before the battle, to 1881 in rural France, in order to find out the origins of that silver bullet. The brutish land baron Seamus slaughters a Romani clan who have settled upon “his“ land, except it’s not really his, they have a claim to it. Seamus won’t have any of that, of course, and he gathers a bunch of men to have them brutally killed and one of them is even dismembered and put on a stake as a horrifying scarecrow. Yikes! But, as everyone should know, you do not wrong anyone from a Romani clan without suffering the consequences. The elderly woman of the clan is buried holding a set of silver dentures, which will now serve as a means for their revenge. Soon, the townspeople and Seamus’ children are having terrifying nightmares of the dismembered scarecrow and the silver fangs. One day, the children go to the place where the scarecrow is located and the silver fangs were buried, and a farm boy named Timmy digs it up in what appears to be a trance-like urge. He then puts them inside his mouth, and bites one of the other children’s throat. This is the start of a nightmare for the townspeople and Seamus and his family most of all.
The Cursed (aka Eight for Silver) is a gothic horror werewolf film from 2021, directed by Sean Ellis. It was shot in the Charente region of western France, filmed on 35mm with anamorphic lenses. The movie serves as a gothic spin on the werewolf mythos, of which there have been numerous interpretations over the years. All from the classical old-fashioned werewolf movies to coming-of-age movies like Ginger Snaps, or movies set in a more modern setting like Wer. This one belongs in the old-fashioned category but with twists and turns of its own. The director said he was inspired by the story of the Beast of Gévaudan from the 1700s, where a man-eating beast was terrorizing the people of the former province of Gévaudan in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France, where there had been 210 attacks and 113 deaths between 1763 and 1767. Historians are still unsure what kind of animal the “beast“ was, but most likely an unusually large wolf, perhaps the last of the extinct species the dire wolf. Needless to say, stories like this are the perfect fuel for myths and legends, and it’s easy to see how it could inspire one to make a werewolf story.
Visually, the movie is very good with some decent set-pieces. The misty landscape during the bleakest autumn is a perfect setup for a movie like this. I also like how the early scene with the slaughtered Romani people sets a certain presumption of what to come, this scene was more brutal than anticipated. And indeed, there are some gory and bloody scenes here, and the effects are overall pretty fine, especially the practical ones. There’s a perceptible feeling of dread from the very start, aided with the fear and anticipation amongst the characters. When the first victim turns into a werewolf and the killing starts, the movie still manages to hold on to the feeling of mystery and trepidation. The only downside is that the movie outstays its welcome a little bit too much, where the final parts of the movie feels much longer than they should have. The pacing was overall pretty good throughout most of the movie, but it could have fared much better if the runtime was cut a little shorter.
Overall, The Cursed (or Eight for Silver, which I personally think is a better and less generic title) is a pretty good werewolf movie with a gothic flair.
Writer and director: Sean Ellis
Country & year: UK/France/USA, 2021
Also known as: Eight for Silver
Actors: Boyd Holbrook, Kelly Reilly, Alistair Petrie, Roxane Duran, Nigel Betts, Stuart Bowman, Simon Kunz, Amelia Crouch, Max Mackintosh, Tommy Rodger, Áine Rose Daly, Millie Kiss, Tom Sweet
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9907782/
