If Skinwalkers Were a
Comedy It Might Have a Chance
If you watch Skinwalkers
expecting a good horror film the only skin walking may be
yours out of
the theater early. Bloody Thumbs Down!
Written
by BHM contributor Horror Queen August 10, 2007
Release: August 10,
2007
Directed by: James Isaac
Written by: James DeMonaco, Todd Harthan and James Roday
Starring:
Jason Behr as Varek
Elias Koteas as Jonas
Rhona Mitra as Rachel
Kim Coates as Zo
Natassia Malthe as Sonja
Matthew Knight as Timothy
Now here’s a film that had some real potential,
drawing loosely from the Navajo legend of
“skinwalkers”, modern-day werewolves that only a
young half-breed werewolf named Timothy can save and make fully human
once again. Here’s the clincher: he must do this on his
thirteenth birthday. Some kids have parties, some Bar Mitzvahs, our
Timmy has to end an ancient curse for all of mankind. Hopefully he gets
to go on Larry King Live.
The Skinwalkers challenge is some of the werewolves
don’t actually want to be saved – they are
“like drug addicts” points out one of the films
“good werewolves”, Jonas, but their addiction is
immortality and the lust of blood. The “bad
werewolves” are trying to stop Tim from fulfilling his
destiny and ending the curse. Can the good werewolves and a group of
concerned small town citizens protect Tim up until his birthday? We
kind of hope so…but at this point we could go either way.
Speaking
of small towns, how everyone kept the werewolf thing a secret from Tim
and his mother Rachel up until now is a mystery given most of the
townspeople are good werewolves that enter into
“lockdown” once a month when the moon is full and
they would otherwise be out snackin’ on their friends and
families. Didn’t Tim and Rachel often wonder “where
is everyone tonight?” or, “why does Uncle Jonas
keep bondage gear in the cellar?”
Yet despite the obvious questions, we still arguably have the mixins of
a decent horror recipe. Unfortunately good ingredients do not always a
satisfying meal make, and Skinwalkers with
it’s lack of character development and other problems
eventually proves too off the mark for Horror Queen’s palate.
More
on the small town though. It’s quainter than quaint, although
one may imagine Navajo Tribe Members living west in the desert, and
this looks more like a New England town in the fall - wide streets
lined with little brick shops and colorful trees. It’s on a
corner in this town where the bad werewolves come face to face with the
good werewolves in…ah here’s where the west comes
in...an old fashioned O.K. Corral-type shootout?? Yes, an odd twist,
and when the bad guys come out guns-a-blazin’, even little
ol’ grandma turns out to be packing heat. Luckily everyone is
a lousy shot and our posse gets away, however sans sweet cousin
Katherine who is taken captive by the bad werewolves. Don’t
worry, she returns later but can you guess what’s changed
about her? Let’s just say she will need a bigger razor.
And
here’s something interesting. If one were a werewolf, it
might indeed be a tough choice – whether or not to transition
into a full-time human being OR live an immortal life filled with
regular sex and carnage (in one scene in Skinwalkers
these are strangely combined). After all wasn’t it Ernest
Hemingway who said:
“Certainly there is no
hunting like the hunting of man and those who have
hunted…men long enough and liked it, never really care for
anything else thereafter.”
So there you have it. The hunter and the hunted. The yin and the yang.
And although Horror Queen can’t tell you who eventually wins
out in Skinwalkers (Horror Queen doesn’t
actually know who wins out as the ending is as unclear as it is
anticlimactic), you probably won’t care anyway.
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