Lionsgate's long-delayed werewolf epic SkinWalkers finally came into movie theaters this weekend.
This film has it -all-.
Bad guys who we know are bad because they're perpetually covered in a thin film of sweat and sebaceous oil.
Werewolf makeup that makes everyone look vaguely like Tyler Mane did in 2000's X-Men.
(It really shocked me when I saw Stan Winston's studio was behind the creature makeup and FX! They must not have been paid much.)
A murky, hopelessly confused and convoluted plot that would perplex Tolkien.
Characters doing odd, inexplicable things for reasons that are never revealed.
Bad actors throwing their heart and souls into emoting while spouting off the most atrocious lines.
A complete and total lack of humor, except briefly during the film's coda.
Characters who turn up, seem to be important, but are then never seen again.
An odd, canned soundtrack that chooses wildly unexciting, inappropriate moments to give dramatic stings.
And yes...a werewolf granny!
Okay, here's the plot, near as I can figure out:
Back in the time of the ancient Navajos, there were werewolves, or "skinwalkers".
But (to use the term of the alleged Navajo who gives us the back-story) these Skinwalkers mutated and became evil.
Ever since then, werewolves are split into two camps:
1. Evil werewolves who want to rip off gobbets of human flesh and drink human blood every full moon.
2. Good werewolves who get their local Navajo buddy to lock them up in harnesses every full moon.
(It's left unsaid what a good werewolf without a harness or a Navajo buddy will do if caught during a full moon.)
But the good werewolves have a prophecy! If ever a werewolf has sex with a human and the pairing proves fertile...and the offspring is a boy...and he reaches his 13th birthday...and the moon turns blood red...and he has exactly $2.75 in change in his pocket...and he's combed his hair the wrong way...then the curse of lycanthropy will be eradicated!
The prophecy is vague on just how the curse will be cured, but the good werewolves don't care. Because in The Middle of Nowhere, USA is a town where an oblivious human woman raises her half human-half werewolf son. Out of all the inhabitants in the town, only she and the local Navajo guy are not werewolves. Everyone else is a werewolf. Even the boy's grandmother.
In the film's best scene, she proves herself to be a better shot -and- harder to kill than Jason Bourne!
But, the evil werewolves find out through an incredibly unlikely series of events just where the boy has been hidden! With their trusty hench-hawk, they track him down.
Riding slowly and sensibly on their motorcycles, they are relentless.
The good werewolves kidnap the kid and momnap the mother, taking them off into the remote wilderness to hide.
But wait! The kid's sick, and suddenly they're in a hospital!
In the middle of the wilderness, I guess.
It's here that the kid and his mom find out the leader of the evil werewolves is...OH MY GOSH, the boy's FATHER!!!111ONE!
This causes the good werewolves mild consternation, the boy's mom to go into over-acting conniptions, and Evil Werewolf Dad to look confused.
Lots of good and bad characters die. Even the hench-hawk dies!
Then it all comes to a stunning climax in the safe place the last surviving good werewolf was heading for...a condemned, poorly lit metal foundry with no possible way to escape once inside.
Yeah.
I dare say there's a fight.
I even dare say there's surprise TWISTS, oh baby!
Plus set-up for a sequel!
Unlike Blood and Chocolate, which took and excellent werewolf novel and ruined it, SkinWalkers takes ancient Navajo mythology (I guess) and creates a cheese-fest that's so awful it's almost good. In fact, this movie would be the perfect fodder for the much-missed Mystery Science Theater 3000.
It's silly, it's weird, it's nonsensical...but it's never dull.
And it has a werewolf granny!
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Did the werewolves at least look like wolves?
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
No. They looked like Tyler Mane wearing his 'Sabretooth' makeup.
Like I said, the werewolf makeup and FX were very disappointing...but it looks like the film was made on a budget of about 39 cents, so I shouldn't be surprised.
Posted by aiua (Member # 7825) on :
This sounds fabulous. Thanks for the review.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
HA!
Oh, man. 6% on Rotten Tomatoes! That's awesome.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
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