Review: 'The Cursed' a Stunning New Horror Gem

Originally titled "Eight for Silver," Sean Ellis' moody, beatific new horror film "The Cursed" injects fresh life into the werewolf genre

In a rural 19th-century French village, the leader of the community brings together the patriarchy and wipes out a mysterious gypsy community. In doing so, they engender a curse that will unleash a horrific beast on the village.

After the gypsy village is burned and one man is killed and tied up to look like a scarecrow, the children of the town begin having horrible nightmares about the effigy and the silver jaw buried underneath it. When the children go to investigate, the object causes one of the kids to go crazy and bite another one. That child is none other than Edward (Max Macintosh), the son of the rich landowner Seamus (Alistair Petrie) and his wife Isabelle (Kelly Reilly). When the boy gets terribly ill and then vanishes into the night, the whole town begins to search for him.

But something lurks in the misty grass and trees surrounding the village, and it's starting to tear them apart.

Truth be told, the plot for "The Cursed" is a fairly simple one, and a good portion of the film asks the audience to wait for the characters on screen to catch up to what we already suspect or know.

But the good news is that there is so much to appreciate and enjoy that it's well worth your time.

There are a number of stunningly shot sequences, notably the massacre of the gypsy encampment, which is shot very wide and in one take.

The reveal of the beast is done slowly, taking the Spielberg rule of thumb to heart and only exposing bits and pieces at a time. One scene in which a child is attacked just shows a trail of long grass splitting apart as something unseen charges swiftly toward him, and it's creepily effective.

Most of the horror moments are truly scary, and I personally found myself gasping on more than one occasion. There are some nifty effects here, both CGI and practical, and it all adds up to an indie werewolf thriller that will go down with the best of them. ("Dog Soldiers," "Ginger Snaps," and "Howl," to name a few.)

While the tech credits are exemplary, the cast is also quite good – although, to be fair, there's nothing earth-shattering as far as character arcs go. Boyd Holbrook confidently plays a pathologist that has come to town when word gets out about an animal attack. Petrie ("Sex Education") is stoic as needed, and the lovely Kelly Reilly is put through her horror film paces as the distraught mother and wife looking for her son.

While Neon really shouldn't have changed the title (it sounds so incredibly generic you almost feel like it's a movie you've already seen), "The Cursed" is anything but. It's a beautifully told horror tale that stuns in its visuals, frightens with its monster, and satisfies with its mythology. While we've only had a few horror releases so far this year, this is by far the best.

"The Cursed" opens only in theaters on February 18th.