Movie 66: Skinwalkers

There are two factions of werewolves, the skinwalkers of the title. One view being a werewolf as a curse and would happily be without it. They lock themselves up at night and try to avoid feeding at all costs. The second love it and don’t want it to end. Feeding is like a drug, and once you have the first taste you don’t want to give it up. A boy who is half human / half werewolf, holds the key to ending the curse. Somehow. Prophecy is vague like that. So the good guys are trying to protect him, the bad guys want to kill him. The deadline is midnight while there’s a blood moon and he is 13.

We are very very serious, look how cool we are, and serious. Serious and cool, while being serious. That’s the film in a nut shell, and it’s major failing. A film with this silly a plot can’t take itself this seriously, there wasn’t a single joke that I could see, without failing badly.

It appears to want to be a werewolf version of Near Dark. The two aren’t identical, but there are a bunch of similarities down to the bad guy wolves attacking a bunch of assholes in a bar.

The term werewolf is a little fast and loose too as they actually look kind of like Beastman from the He-Man movie rather that the usual werewolf. I’m willing to bet that this is so they can stay cool looking when they have transformed. The female bad guys face appears to be her only change. She keeps a completely in tact bra and seems to be pretty hairless when she’s gone all feral. I’m choosing not to lay the blame on the Stan Winston house for this as it feels like a studio or director decision.

The ending is a load of arse as well, though it redeems itself somewhat in the closing few minutes.

There are plenty of “hey it’s that guy!” actors in it, including Tig from Sons of Anarchy and the jerk in a wheelchair from that Paul Hogan angel movie. And no one is particularly terrible, except maybe that bad guy female werewolf. But the big question is “Why so serious?”

Not one you should hurry to see…

Next up: Cloverfield