Defanged!

>> Werewolves go nowhere in Skinwalkers

by MATTHEW HAYS

Nothing like horror movies to show you that nothing really ever dies for good. Not only are the bad guys never really dead—think Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy, Chucky et al.—but the various sub-genres get new shots of energy every few years. Danny Boyle gave the zombies new bite in 28 Days Later and the Scream trilogy managed to sharpen the slasher flick.

Sadly, Skinwalkers is not one of those movies. The set-up certainly sounds intriguing: a group of werewolves is protecting a young lad, who doesn’t realize it, but he’s a special little werewolf pup—if he can survive till the rare night of a full moon, then the entire werewolf universe will shift. This is pissing off a rival gang of werewolves who don’t want this to happen (it wasn’t entirely clear why, precisely, but this is a horror film so let’s not get too hung up on its internal logic—and why should we bother, considering the screenwriters obviously didn’t).

This sets off what are the film’s only good scenes: crazy-ass shoot-outs between the two rival gangs of werewolves. In fact, an early gunfire sequence has one unexpected firearm enthusiast—in this case, a woman who looks to be in her late sixties or early seventies—pull out a massive handgun and just give ’er. There was something so satisfying about watching her blow the shit out of some of those goddamned rival werewolves. At one point, I felt like yelling at the screen, “DON’T LET THOSE ASSHOLES HURT THAT KID, JUST WHACK THEM WITH THAT SILVER-BULLET HEAT YOU’RE PACKING, MAMA!” But I didn’t.

I did, however, feel like yelling at the projectionist. During the last reel of the film, he didn’t bother to look out his little window to check the picture, which meant about 10 climactic minutes of Skinwalkers was shown with an unintentional horizontal split screen. Not terribly effective.

Having said that, I’m not sure a picture-perfect screening would have made a whole lot of difference. Skinwalkers is one of those horror entries that reminds you of how much mediocrity there is in the genre. I guess that just makes us depraved horror buffs all the more thrilled when we find true silver.

Skinwalkers opens this
Friday, Aug. 10

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