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Written by Ruben Olague
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Tuesday, 21 August 2007 |
 I was one out of the possible DOZEN people out there who was saddened when they pushed back the release date of "SKINWALKERS", THE WEEKEND IT WAS SUPPOSE TO COME OUT!!! Come on LIONSGATE! This may not be a damn Harry Potter installment, but believe it or not there are quite a few million of us out here who SEE these movies. Maybe we don't all see of them on opening night, but we DO see them! Why do you think you make them? DUH???
Anyway onto the movie...
I love me some Vampire movies, I love me some Werewolf movies, I love the supernatural realm so when I saw the original poster for "Skinwalkers" - it reminded me a tad of the original "Howling" poster. However...I ASSUMED it was a movie about Vampires, I mean, have YOU seen the poster, right? It appears to be an attractive HAIRLESS woman with fangs, nothing about the artwork, or even the tagline: "For Them To Live, We Must Die", implies a tale of lycanthropes.
OK, so the first 20 minutes of the movie...
"HUH? Wha??? Who is-? Are they good or bad? I'm so confused..."
I have the belief that horror movies should never have you confused and disoriented, maybe not until the end, if that, however I was heavily scratching my head and looking nervously around the theatre in the hopes that I wasn't the only confused non-lycanthrope. None of the other 4 people seemed confused...they were probably waiting for Were-boobs.
Then, suddenly, "Grandma - Nana" pulls a huge shiny gun outta her Grandma crocheted purse! That's when the party REALLY starts! WOOO-HOOO!!! I get it, everything is explained, and I realize I was only at the slowly gravitating beginning of this roller-coaster!
 The story was very basic, there is a prophecy that a boy in the world can bring down the whole werewolf nation, so we have two sets of werewolves, one side wants to keep the boy alive to put an end to the werewolf trait, the other...the "Big Bad Wolves" don't want to be human, they enjoy the taste of man, growing hair and fangs and wearing leather [?].
The characters in the movie were actually enjoyable to watch interact and it felt as though director James Isaac did make sure that his characters had multiple layers, bringing a bit more maturity to this movie. It was appreciated by me, it made my heart go out to the characters and actually cringe when something bad happened to them.
Their is a really, really good twist in the movie that I was truly not expecting, but really worked!
So, the werewolf effects...at the beginning I was worried because they didn't really show them transform and when they did show them they just appeared to be hairy buff men and a hairy woman. So at the beginning I was a bit let down, where were the actual WOLVES??? However, as the movie proceeded and we got en even closer look at the werewolves I can honestly say that their faces WERE scary! YAAAAY!!!! Scary Monsters!!!!
As far as the acting, Rhona Mitra [Rachel] and Jason Behr [Varek] were good as two different ends, Rachel, the mother of teenage Timothy who is the boy in the prophecy, was fun to watch and you could feel her pain and shock when she discovers the truth. Varek, the Big Bad Wolf, is out to kill Timothy so that he and all werewolves can continue their reign of murder. A welcomed Elias Koteas [Jonas] as the brother of Rachel's dead husband, added some much needed meat to the actors. Rounding-up the cast is Sarah Carter and Shawn Roberts as the star-crossed lovers stuck in this sticky situation, but that's ok with me as they are abso-freakin-lutely the awesome Fright Candy needed for every horror geeks thirsty eyes! Not to mention the smokin hot Natassia Malthe, the Big Bad Wolves "Thang", and quite the sexpot thang she is, kickin' ass, growing hair and takin' names!
All-in-all I absolutely left the movie more entertained then I expected and felt like I had just been on a real fun roller-coaster. I'm very curious to see if an "Unrated Version" will be released on DVD, as the theatrical cut is PG-13. Needless to say, I will definitely be picking-up a copy.
I give it 3 outta 5 Stars |
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