Young Zach Hayes (Wil Wheaton just before he donned his rainbow-y Star Trek: TNG uniform), his little sister (played by Wheaton's real-life sister Amy), and their mousy mother live with Zach's step-father Nathan and Nathan's jerk-ass son Cyrus on a small farm in Tennessee. Their lives are changed when a strange glowing meteor crashes into their field.
The meteor diminishes in size until it disappears, leaving the "experts" to determine that it was nothing more than a frozen chunk of waste released from an airliner. (See also Joe Dirt. Or don't.) Whatever the case, the meteor causes their fruits and vegetables to grow extra large. The joy over the bumper crop is short-lived, however, as slicing into these crops reveals loads of hideous maggots and worms wriggling inside. Eww.
The effect of the meteor on the family is even worse (well, arguably). As they drink contaminated water, they grow blisters and sores on their faces and basically lose their minds. Zach is able to escape this fate by drinking water and eating food bought from the grocery store, but his poor mother has to be locked in the basement and his sister spends most of the movie sick in bed.
Also entangled in the plot are the doctor next door, a local real estate agent, the agent's assistant, and a representative of the Tennessee Valley Authority (played by the Dukes of Hazzard's John Schneider) who is in town to buy the farm and make it into a reservoir.
After a sluggish start, the movie ramps up to a satisfyingly tense, gloppy, gory conclusion. I was impressed by the oppressive atmosphere even before the meteor's arrival, and it only gets better after the family has devolved into madness and mutation. The Curse boasts knife-wielding maniac attacks, dog attacks, horse attacks, and even chicken attacks. If you are a Lovecraft fan who has exhausted all of the better known story adaptations and can get past the budgetary limitations, you'll find this one to be a pleasant surprise.
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