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Skinwalkers Reviewed By Rich Drees
The new film Skinwalkers tries to do something similar, presenting a group of werewolves who will stop at nothing to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy that will allegedly cure them of their nocturnal transformations. Since this group of werewolves has tasted human blood, they are now driven by a drug-like bloodlust, junkies in need of their next fix.
Or so we are told.
Truth be out, this is just a bit of expositional motivation as to why the bad guys are chasing across country a young boy (Matthew Knight), the focus of the prophecy, his mother (Rhona Mitra) and some friends who also happen to be werewolves, just not the type that have tasted human blood. Even in a genre that has seen its share of silly stories, this is a silly story.
The screenplay
is at fault here and it is filled with plot holes and ridiculous
contrivances, all designed to deliver cool and visually exciting
moments rather than actually move the plot along. The boy is hidden
in a small northern town where it seems everyone, except his mother,
is aware of his destiny and keeps numerous loaded firearms at hand
for the inevitable gunfight that will decimate half the town. And
yes, that includes his .44 revolver wielding grandmother. The fact
that the boy’s father was a werewolf had been kept hidden from the
boy’s mother also strains credulity. Did she not get suspicious when
he would disappear for a few nights around the full moon every month
or did he simply ask her to bind him up in one of the bondage-like
contraptions that the good werewolves use to keep them from hurting
others when in their hairier form? The script also has numerous
examples of clunk dialogue, usually delivered badly. “I have to be a
mother. A good mother,” Mitra intones over solemnly at one point as
Timothy’s mother.
The direction, by James Isaac, is workmanlike. It does a good job telling the story but only just. Isaac does try a few camera tricks such as power zooms and the like, but uses them so sparingly that they tend to stand out from the rest of the film, calling attention to themselves. He does manage to keep the movie moving along, lurching from set piece to set piece relatively smoothly and picking the pace back up when things threaten to slow down too much.
Interestingly, the werewolf makeup in the film is fairly low key, leaning more towards Lon Chaney’s classic look rather than the more savage, closer to wolf forms seen in more recent fare like An American Werewolf In London or Underworld. It’s this nostalgic design, along with the relatively low amounts of explicit gore that help give the film a charmingly retro feel. Unfortunately, this charm and a few moderately entertainingly shot moments are not enough to save Skinwalkers from being an overall unambitious movie without anything new or interesting to say. |
In 2001, the indie film Ginger Snaps presented a scary and smart
tale about a teenage girl who, after being attacked by a wild animal
in the woods, realizes she is becoming a werewolf. The film stood
out from typical horror fare as it used the girl’s metamorphosis as
a metaphor for puberty.