Remember when horror movies used to be, I don’t know, scary? Well that all came to a crashing halt roughly the time screenwriter Kevin Williamson cleverly upturned the genre with “Scream” with his clever skewering of monster/slasher films with characters that actually knew the lore of what could happen and the end results of foolish behavior. You’d think Williamson – and return collaborator horror meister filmmaker Wes Craven – would get the gist that doing a re-hash of what made him a player in Hollywood would have all the charm of wilting wolfsbane on a full moon.

Set in Hollywood, high-pressured Ellie (the ever beguiling Christina Ricci) is a segment producer of “The Late, Late Show with Craig Kilborn” (with an atypical stilted cameo by the annoying aging frat boy who is no longer on the air; this just shows how moldy the film has been sitting on the shelf after reportedly being re-filmed) who is trying to cope with the demands of the job while supporting herself and her younger brother, high school nerdling Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg, late of “Roger Dodger”) after the apparent sudden loss of both parents (alluded to but never detailed; just one of the many plot holes sprinkled throughout). Ellie has been having an on-again, off-again relationship with a nightclub manager Jake (doughy faced Joshua Jackson, who frankly I never cared for) about to open a Hollywood themed dance club. To add to the mix Ellie and Jimmy are involved in a hairy car crash along the snaky turned Mulholland Drive where they are attacked by a ‘wolf-like creature’ and then the ‘fun’ begins.

The film – which has been something of a long-gestating eponymous harbinger of being just that – a somewhat stillborn valentine to werewolf flicks and the tongue-in-cheek ‘aren’t we clever it’d make you barf’ retro tweak that is so 1996 – is sadly a basic check list remake of …”Scream”. Female protagonist whose death of a parent(s in this case) has been very difficult to shake – check. Picked on nerd who knows so much of what it means to be a killing beast  - check. Gratuitous stunt-casting of a “Happy Days” alum – check. (Scott Baio in arguably the most excruciating cameo in recent memory). Opening offing of a sexy starlet (babelicious Shannon Elizabeth substituting for a shrieking Drew Barrymore). Williamson is clearly going by the numbers with very little insight to the horror classics and equally little originality (although his homosexual jokes are also getting stale a few scenes did make me laugh). Meanwhile Craven seems on auto-pilot barely raising any suspense or tension while his stars do the best they can floundering in this half-baked homage to lycanthropy.

The one true star of the film is Monster-Maker make-up genius Rick Baker, who sadly seems to have gotten the short end of the stick for his ingenious creatures here that are morphed into silly CGI beasties that look like extras from “Van Helsing” with their herky-jerky jumping about like some refugee from a video game.

On the whole the film is not a complete waste of time, but then again wait until it arrives on DVD; video rental seems to be the smart move here.  I’m sure Lon Chaney Jr. is rolling in his grave somewhere.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)