When every last thing that breathes, has wings, and answers to the name of ‘insect’ seems to be determined to commit suicide on your windscreen – squidge go those midges, splat go those gnats and in a blood-and-guts bye-bye, there go those mayflies. Thankfully, for the contemporary motorist, screen wash is at hand to restore clear vision and give these nocturnal kamikazes a soapy, bargain-basement burial at sea.

But in Cursed (15, seen at Dunfermline Odeon), orphaned brother and sister Jimmy and Ellie (Jesse Eisenberg, Christine Ricci), driving home on a remote Hollywood canyon road, get something larger than a mosquito whacking into their windshield – it’s a werewolf (although at first they reckon it’s a coyote).

Not only do the wipers and a touch of squoosh fail to deal with it, the impact causes the siblings to swerve into another car which plunges off into the undergrowth. Down among the bushes and trying to rescue the injured driver, Jimmy and Ellie both get clawed by a highly mysterious animal which succeeds in dragging away the crash casualty.

When the rescue services arrive, the youngsters realise their tale of a weird creature is going down like a comedy turn with the local constabulary, so they toe the ‘it must have been a crazed coyote’ line for the sake of peace and quiet.

However, once back in their normal day-to-day routine – Jimmy’s a high school nerd and Ellie’s a dowdy assistant on a TV chat show – they begin to display behaviour and characteristics that Lon Chaney Jnr would be first to recognise as ‘classic werewolf’. They develop a taste for raw meat, they can smell a cut finger at 100 yards, neighbourhood dogs gather to howl outside their house at night, and the points of a pentagram appear on their palms. And see when they pick up an antique, solid-SILVER cake slice to put it away in a kitchen drawer…its touch burns like Hell and there’s even a little smoke!

Of course, their initially subtle mutation has an upside – Ellie’s sex appeal goes through the roof, and, during wrestling coaching, Jimmy finds he can throw class bullies around like bean bags.

Faced with this mounting evidence, the pair realise a full, fur-and-fang makeover is only a full moon away and frantically start to scratch around for ways out of their predicament. But not only do they have to deal with their growing blood lust, the beast which bit them in the first place is eager to complete his kill and finish his meal.

And this uber-werewolf may be closer to home than they think – is it Ellie’s on-off boyfriend Jake (Joshua Jackson — Pacey Witter in TV’s Dawson’s Creek)? He has powerful-looking designer stubble. Could it be that backbiting bitch at Ellie’s work, Joanie (Judy Greer)? Her long legs look like they could manage a fast lope. Could it be the TV chat show host? Could it be the head class bully? Could it be the spooky fortune-teller? Could it be Jake’s pet Golden Retriever Zipper? What is this? A schlock episode of Scooby Doo?

Although Cursed is enjoyable enough, it confounds the great expectations horror movie fans surely had for a re-teaming of Scream-trilogy director and writer Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson, because with this opus, both erstwhile big hitters rediscover ‘average’.

As far as the wolfman genre goes there is no plot innovation here, and the special effects, while fine, fall well short of the benchmark An American Werewolf In London (1981), and back then, director John Landis did it all, remarkably, without CGI, which didn’t exist.

Of course, for its human-into-werewolf transformations Cursed does nothing so rudimentary as have anybody disappear behind a sofa and come up with whiskers run amok.

On the other hand, it does not linger long on the CGI sprouting of hair and the lengthening of teeth and nails, etc, which feels like a bit of a cheat.

So what is there to enjoy? Well, the script isn’t too bad. In fact, it’s often quite funny.

But Cursed’s chief assets are its two main players, who both fall into that ‘camera-loves-em’ category. Eisenberg could make a good living out of playing wonderful goofs for the next 20 years.

As for Ricci, she may be no text-book beauty, but she’s just got that certain something which sets her apart from so many other Hollywood actresses — something solemn, sad and gothic. Where does she get it from? Perhaps those early-90s child-star appearances in the Addams Family movies as Wednesday Addams have left an indelible mark upon her.

But whatever the source of her stuff, it’s the right stuff, and it makes her one of the few ‘It Girls’ around these days.

Or should that be a Cousin Itt Girl?

VERDICT: There’s nothing new under the moon.

Three stars

IF the production of Exorcist: The Beginning wasn’t cursed, it was certainly extremely unlucky.

First director John Frankenheimer left the project and died shortly afterwards. Paul Schrader took up the reigns, but was fired. So the studio started the film all over again, with Renny Harlin. He was able to finish his movie, although his leg was broken in 14 places when hit by a car during the production. The drama on set sounds like it would have made a better film than the finished product.

Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgard), journeys to Kenya to join an archaeological dig that has uncovered an untouched Byzantine church. But an ancient evil is now awakened and a death spree begins. Unlike The Exorcist, The Beginning goes for its scares by treating the audience to a series of horrific images rather than the psychological horror of the original. The irony is Schrader’s psychological prequel is now to be released after the poor reaction of this schlocky thriller.

EXTRAS: Commentary and behind the scenes footage.

VERDICT: For fans only.

Two stars

As is pretty much expected of comedies on DVD these days, you will have a choice of whether to watch the film in its theatrical cut or in an extended edition.

Normally these extended editions are completely worthless (unless it’s a horror film adding the gore that was missing from theatres) but the extended version of the Fockers adds 15 minutes to the film.

I found the film pretty indulgent in the first place and it looked like it needed 15 minutes taken away rather than added, but fans will no doubt want to see what they’ve missed.

The disk also includes bloopers, behind the scenes with Jinx the Cat and short featurettes on each of the cast. Released on May 16, £19.99.

From the ridiculous to the sublime – The Sopranos series five will finally come to DVD on June 20.

The DVD set of the mobster drama, which is undoubtedly the best on television, was due to come out earlier this year, only to be yanked from the schedule at the last minute.

Series five features the addition of Steve Buscemi to the cast as well as a number of high profile directors such as Peter Bogdanovich, Mike Figgis and Rodrigo Garcia taking the helm.

With four commentaries and nothing else, the extras aren’t plentiful, but when the series is so good, who cares?

The packaging is also excellent, showing the people who have died in the series crawling out of the ground.

HBO Video release the boxset on June 20 carrying a hefty price tag of £59.99.