Skinwalkers

There is a prophecy that states when a certain half breed boy turns 13, the skinwalker curse will be lifted. No longer forced to roam the earth as a werewolf, the skinwalkers will be able to live as normal humans. For young Timothy (Matthew Knight) this is a good thing because unbeknownst to him and his mother (Rhona Mitra) their entire family is exactly that; skinwalkers working towards fulfilling the prophecy. Unfortunately for them, there is a rival tribe out there with a different view on their double lives. Reveling in the hunt and addicted to blood this tribe, led by Varek (Jason Behr) enjoys their life as furry killing machines. Fighting to break the prophecy and take out the boy who is destined to be their downfall, they set forth in pursuit of Timothy and his family.

There’s one thing we do not see an overly large amount of in the horror genre, and that’s werewolf movies. Yes we’ve had our classics such as An American Werewolf in London and Ginger Snaps; but over all this is a sub-genre that is not often visited. Where we see numerous takes on vampires, zombies, or slashers, werewolves are often left behind much like a stray dog. (Pun intended) So when a new werewolf movie crops up, I tend to take notice. When it’s a new movie with a fairly original spin I tend to get a little bit excited. It was with this mindset that I settled in for Skinwalkers.

The main strength for this canine undertaking is what feels like an original plot giving us a new take on the genre. Two warring tribes facing off; one in an attempt to cure their unwanted affliction, one in an attempt to prolong their enhanced state of being. Even in this simple plot point is an engaging thought process; how the afflicted view their condition and the steps they take from preventing further damage, or doing everything in their power to maximize their carnage when set loose under the full moon. Peppered with back story and character development in the sense of developing the tribe as a whole as opposed to the individual members, we see how the ‘good guy’ tribe has hiding places peppered across the country side. These hiding places allow them to hide away in the full moon hours, shackled and locked down preventing them from succumbing to the hunt. We see how many of them have stuck close together building an entire community around themselves, living life as normal as they can during the daylight hours. This allows us to sympathize with the tribe as a whole when the ‘bad guys’ show up. Sure these people are monsters, but they’re nice monsters really, and try not to kill anybody when the urge comes upon them.

Unfortunately, from there the strong points diminish. While the ‘good guy’ tribe feels like an earthy small town community with a taste of American Indian roots to them, the ‘bad guy’ tribe is a leather clad cliché complete with biker hair and motorcycles. Striving hard to look like bad asses these guys strut about in their leather chaps & vests loaded down with guns and ammunition trying their hardest to look like the furry chapter of the Hells Angels. Taking this concept further, I’ll side track a bit. When you think of a werewolf movie with warring factions facing off, one would like to imagine some bloody action sequences filled with wolf’d out fighters, fangs and claws flashing about in a frenzy of death. For some reason, in this werewolf movie we don’t get that until the very end. What we get is numerous gun fights. Yes, that’s right. We’re not paying $10 to watch werewolves fight as werewolves do; we’re watching a group of leather clad pretty boys fight their hippie counterparts with Uzi’s and shotguns. If we’re going to pack then entire movie with Uzi’s and shotguns, why bother with the monster part at all?

Skinning the flick back to its bare basics, the make up work on the werewolves here was passable in the times they bothered to show them to us at all. Never seeing the full transformation, we’ve still yet to see anything that surpasses the mastery of transformation that is American Werewolf. Handled in choppy music video cuts and edits we look away from time to time, with the monster a little further along each time we look back. Despite the crappy transformation however, the make up was decent. For each character, you could easily identify their human characteristics peaking through the fur and snouts allowing you to identify the individuality in the beasts. There was not a large mass of look-alike fur suit’s. My biggest problem with the end product of the beasts is their actions and mannerisms. While the hippie wolves thrashed about violently and acted much like you would imagine a wild man changing into a monster would, our biker wolves failed to add anything menacing to their canine counterparts. Strutting around in their Levi’s and leather vests they looked and moved pretty much exactly as they did during the day time. This time they were just hairier.

Skinwalkers is a mildly enjoyable monster flick that falls far short of being a reinvention of the sub-genre. No where near scary or blockbuster quality, it is an interesting story that feels like it has fur suits thrown in to give it a niche. With the cinematography and back story involved it manages to have a solid atmosphere around it which helps to draw you into the story. As long as you watch without expecting a new classic, you’ll manage to enjoy this modern era b-movie well enough.

And it has Natassia Malthe in a leather bikini top. There’s always that.

3 furry bikers out of 5