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BY TOM MEEK
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In each of the last three decades, Wes Craven has scored a genre-bending hit (Last House on the Left, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream). With this nonsensical werewolf yarn (long delayed after a rewrite and reshoot) steeped in deconstructive devices, youthful angst, and sexual tension, however, Craven’s glory in the new millennium remains on hold. Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg (Roger Dodger) play Ellie and Jimmy, parentless siblings who in the muddled aftermath of a car accident get bitten by a lycanthrope and become "cursed." What follows is kind of An American Werewolf in London dumped in LA and shoehorned into the Scream (probably because that too was penned by Kevin Williamson) template, which includes the drawn-out, opening disemboweling of a minor celeb (in the Scream series, Drew Barrymore and Jada Pinkett, here Shannon Elizabeth of American Pie fame) and a potentially specious love interest (Joshua Jackson). The interplay between Ellie and Jimmy goes a long way to make the insipid howl bearable, as does Judy Greer as the snooty, "bony-assed" publicist for Scott Baio — aptly named Joanie. At the Apple Valley, Entertainment, Flagship, Holiday, Providence Place 16, Showcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas. (96 minutes)
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