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Skinwalkers (2007)
As far as I’m concerned werewolf movies had hit their peak (or at least as far as special effects go) in the 1980's. With Rick Baker leading the charge and designing some of the greatest on screen werewolves in film such as “The Howling” and “An American Werewolf in London” fans of werewolf films from yesteryear actually had something to stand up and cheer about. But since then there have been very little in the way of the werewolf genre that have made fans feel as such. These days were are “treated” to CGI everything and it’s hindered the progress of the werewolf film even more. “Skinwalkers” isn’t totally laced with CG like a film like “Underworld” or it’s sequel, but there’s very little here to get excited about.
“Skinwalkers” is the story of two different groups of werewolves, one in which embraces it’s lycanthropy and another that feels as if they’ve been cursed. The group that feels as if they’ve been cursed though have the upper hand in the battle though as they possess the young boy that can end it all. See, young Timothy is approaching his thirteenth birthday and the legend says that he will possess the power to control the history of so called skinwalkers upon his own transformation. This of course has put him and his family in danger because of the pack that wants to keep the way of the skinwalker alive. So it’s up to Timothy, his mother, and Uncle Jonas (played by Elias Koteas) along with a cast of characters to make sure that he makes it until his thirteenth birthday with a group of angry skinwalkers after them.
The main issues that I had with the movie was the fact that the story is incredibly complicated, but at the same time the movie doesn’t even try to facilitate the storyline. It’s just an excuse for there to be action sequences that seem to be way out of place in the film. The first one that you get in the movie is a unintentionally funny scene in which the young boys grandmother is wielding a weapon and shooting it as if she were the next incarnation of Dirty Harry. Not only does it take you out of the movie itself, but it’s beyond ridiculous and is just stupid.
Another problem with the film is the lack of gore in anyway. Basically you can tell that the film was made to be a “R” rated film, even though it been chopped up so many different ways to get the PG-13 rating that it got upon it’s release. There’s even a scene in the film in which a characters voice is dubbed over to basically replace the word “fuck”. That just reeks of laziness to me and had me rewinding the movie a few times to confirm what I thought I noticed.
The characters in the film are as bland as you could possibly imagine and if it weren’t for a solid performance by Elias Koteas there would be no difference between this movie and the usual dreck that shows up on the Sci-Fi channel. Also I had the same feeling with this movie that I did with recent films like “Underworld” in which I feel as if they sacrifice the characters in an attempt to be hip and modern, which is just another frustrating part of the viewing experience. I have no idea why making characters too cool for school is more important than trying to add substance to any of them, but apparently that’s were we are in the current stage of Hollywood horror films.
I remember seeing coverage of “Skinwalkers” in many of the major genre magazines before it’s release and they really seemed to have the werewolves down and looking good. But upon watching the film I personally felt like they were done no justice and came off looking lame and hokey.
Overall this movie was a total waste of time and ends up so far below what it could have been. I find it a shame that films like these get granted a theatrical release while other decent werewolf films haven’t (Dog Soldiers and the Ginger Snap films immediately come to mind). Sadly I couldn’t even recommend a rental here unless you live and die by werewolf films and even then this one is trying to deny what it is by calling themselves skinwalkers. AVOID.
Rating - *
-Ed Demko
